The Effect Of Gender Stereotypes On Helping Behavior

Gender stereotypes not only describe typical differences between men and women,but also shape norms and expectations of what men and women should or should not do,limiting people’s behavior,motivation,self-perception,and ambition.Whereas in the field of helping behavior,people may be more willing to violate gender stereotypes because people are less likely to be punished for violating gender stereotypes.Therefore,encouraging people to perform helping behaviors contrary to traditional gender stereotypes contributes to gender equality and may set off a ripple effect that ultimately improves gender stereotypes in other contexts.Therefore,based on GRIP(The Gender Roles Inhibiting Prosociality)model,this study explores the influence of gender stereotypes on helping behaviors and the mediating role of attitudes,subjective norms and self-efficacy through empirical research.This study is divided into three parts,which are pre-experiment,Study I and Study II.In the preliminary experiment,139 pieces of valid data were collected by random sampling method,and the subjects were asked to evaluate the helping situation materials of gender stereotypes.The behaviors with the lowest score were selected as typical masculine helping behavior and the behaviors with the highest score as typical feminine helping behavior,so as to provide helping situation materials for the subsequent experiment.In the first study,the experimental method was adopted to help friends,and the subjects were college students in a university in Wuhan.A total of 1082 valid data were collected,and 2(gender: male,female)× 2(type of help: The independent variable is gender and helping type,and the dependent variable is helping attitude,subjective norm and self-efficacy.The influence of helping type on helping attitude,subjective norm and self-efficacy is preliminatively investigated,so as to verify the first part of GRIP model.In study 2,on the basis of study 1,the target of help is changed to people who are not familiar with it(i.e.,new students).The experimental method is adopted.The subjects are college students in a university in Wuhan.Gender congruent and gender incongruent),and further investigate the influence of helping type on helping behavior and the mediating role of attitude,subjective norm and self-efficacy between helping type and helping behavior,and verify the whole GRIP model.The conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Regardless of whether the target is a friend or a new classmate,the self-efficacy of helpers is stronger when they are faced with gender-consistent helpers.Men have stronger attitudes,subjective norms and self-efficacy when they are faced with gender-consistent helping types,while women have stronger subjective norms and self-efficacy when they are faced with gender-inconsistent helping types.(2)When the help target was new students,helping attitude,subjective norms and self-efficacy played a complete mediating role between helping type and helping intention.