Gender-role norms

The existing psychological literature on gender-role norms and wellbeing focused almost exclusively on personal norms. It reflects the degree to which men and women are expected to stick to their traditional gender roles.

According to this perspective, gender norms are considered as personal standards against which one’s own behavior and other aspects of the self are evaluated.

Gender-role norms provide guidance for both sexes on how to act, think and feel but also can restrict men and women from certain behaviors that are considered inappropriate.

According to Joseph Pleck in 1981, characteristics and behaviors viewed as desirable for males or females specified in gender-role norms – that is society’s expectations or standard concerning what males and females should be like.  

However, because gender-role norms vary as a function of culture, class, race, sexual orientation, economic, system and time in history, the behavior, thoughts and feeling that reflect gender-role conformity also vary as a function of these socio-cultural variables (Kimmel 1996).

Psychological research typically finds that the higher the perceived gap between the actual gender-related self-concept and the ideal gender-related self-concept, the more prone an individual is to depression, anxiety and other mental health problems.
Gender-role norms

Gender roles

Male and female relate to each other in many contexts – in family life, work and formal organizations, marriage and cohabitants, friendships and a host of others. In all of these settings, individuals confront expectations of how they should behave and think.

There is much more to being male or female than biological heritage. Virtually all societies expect the two sexes to adopt different gender roles, understood as a set of expected actions and dispositions ascribed to an individual on the basis of her or his assumed biological sex.

Gender roles can produce sex differences in behaviors not only by affection the rewards and punishments received from others but also by affecting the self-concepts of women and men.

Gender roles serve both social and intrapsychic functions. With respect to the former function, gender role expectations guide people’s judgments and evaluation of others.

When one assumes that another person possesses certain characteristics on the basis of his or her gender, one is engaging in gender stereotyping.
Gender roles