In the article I chose this week, researchers looked at the sexual double standard from a cognitive approach. Their theory was that when the double standard is researched by other methods they are planting a seed by only having participants focus on sexual behavior. According to this article, in the real world people pay less attention to sexual behavior and make judgments without knowing sexual behavior because they are able to judge on other factors regarding there lifestyle, and don't just judge them over sexual behaviors. The article states “Busy environments constrain the attentional resources available for processing social information making person evaluation more difficult.”
The theory they later test is that when a study focuses on sexual behavior people will only pay attention to sexual behavior, but when other factors are involved it becomes much less important. They test this by putting participants into different situations, one where their attention is divided among other things, and one where their attention is only on sexual behavior. They created several vignettes making sure no mention of gender and sexual activity was made. Participants only knew that they were evaluating people in these vignettes. The researcher found that when attention is divided genders were rated equally as far as sexual activity, but when all attention is put on sexual activity women were rated more negatively than men were.
This information is important because this suggests that perhaps the sexual double standard does not exist in the real world, but when tested to see if the double standard exists participants begin to notice it more often. The article calls it a cognitive short cut and that making judgments is a method of cognition that people use to better understand people quickly.
One media example of this would be The Scarlet Letter. The main character in the novel is quickly judged because everyone is paying attention to her sexuality (this may be due to the large A on her clothing dubbing her an adulteress) while the man she had intercourse with was not judged because his sexuality was not widely known.
Marks, Michael J. "Evaluations of Sexually Active Men and Women Under Divided Attention: A Social Cognitive Approach to the Sexual Double Standard." Taylor and Francis Online. Psychology Press. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973530701866664#preview>.
This information is important because this suggests that perhaps the sexual double standard does not exist in the real world, but when tested to see if the double standard exists participants begin to notice it more often. The article calls it a cognitive short cut and that making judgments is a method of cognition that people use to better understand people quickly.
One media example of this would be The Scarlet Letter. The main character in the novel is quickly judged because everyone is paying attention to her sexuality (this may be due to the large A on her clothing dubbing her an adulteress) while the man she had intercourse with was not judged because his sexuality was not widely known.
Marks, Michael J. "Evaluations of Sexually Active Men and Women Under Divided Attention: A Social Cognitive Approach to the Sexual Double Standard." Taylor and Francis Online. Psychology Press. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973530701866664#preview>.
Interesting study choice, Emily. I wonder if the participants knew that they were being tested for the double standard because I think that might have affected the outcome of the study. If they knew they were being tested about the double standard, they may have altered their behavior in some way.
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