Gender Roles in the Future? Theoretical Foundations and Future Research Directions

Book excerpt: The study of gender is deservedly a major focus of research in the discipline of psychology in general and social psychology in particular. Interest in the topic increased sharply in the 1970s with the flowering of the feminist movement, and research has continued to advance since that time. In 1987, Alice Eagly formulated Social Role Theory to explain the behavior of women and men as well as the stereotypes, attitudes, and ideologies that are relevant to sex and gender. Enhanced by several extensions over the intervening years, this theory became one of the pre-eminent, if not the central, theory of gender in social psychology. Also, over the last decades, social psychologists have developed a variety of related approaches to understanding gender, including, for instance, theories devoted to stereotyping, leadership, status, backlash, lack of fit to occupational roles, social identity, and categorization. Reflecting these elements, this e-Book includes articles that encompasses a wide range of themes pertaining to sex and gender. In these papers, the concept of social roles appears often as central integrative concept that links individuals with their social environment. These articles thereby complement social role theory as the authors reach out to build an extended theoretical foundation for gender research of the future.