The stereotypes of man and woman in Poland - content and factor structures

Abstract

"Gender stereotypes have been an object of interest in psychology for merely thirty years. Pioneer research on this subject was conducted by Broverman et al. (1972) in the United States, in the 1970s. It indicated the existence of two “concentrations” of stereotypical traits, which were significantly different in content; i.e. warmth and expressiveness as the female content, and competence and rationality as the male stereotype contents. In the 1980s, also in the USA, Deaux and Lewis (1983, 1984) successively proved that gender stereotypes do not constitute a chaotic and disorderly set of general convictions about the nature of women and men. On the contrary, they possess a coherent and multi-level structure, implicating mutual and complex relationships which determine the social perception of members of both sexes".