Amy Bender, Ashlee Kirk, & Sarah Scott Hanover College Fall 2005 Difference in Male Door-Opening Behavior in Relation to Age of Male Benefactor and Sex of Beneficiary Amy Bender, Ashlee Kirk, & Sarah Scott Hanover College Fall 2005

Introduction America moving towards gender equality, but gender roles still observable Generational differences in door-holding Fengler & Wood, 1972; Twenge, 1997 Social movement’s effects on door-holding Women’s movement (Twenge, 1997) Benevolent sexism (Yoder, Hogue, Newman, Mertz, & LaVigne, 2002)

Hypothesis Age of Benefactor Older men more likely to open the door for women than younger men Sex of Beneficiary Men more likely to open the door for women than other men

Methods Observed 28 subjects in natural setting Inter-rater reliability: 0.5 Judgements between both observers never differed by more than 5 years Madison, IN and HC Campus Center in early evening Definition of “door-opening” Recorded men who had potential to open door Recorded sex of beneficiary & age of benefactor

Results Found men who opened the door were significantly younger (M=20.75) than men who did not open the door (M=34.63). According to a t-test adjusted for inequality of variances, this relationship was significant, t(25.72)=3.14, p=.004. Age of Benefactor Door Holding Behavior

Results, cont’d. 4 of the 28 cases were dropped for analysis Men rarely opened doors but when they did, they opened them more for women Although more females had the door opened for them (M=0.2) than males (M=0.0), these results were not significant according to Fisher’s exact test, p=1.0.

Discussion Age of Benefactor Lack of older subjects Location of observation Non-existence of generation gap E. Thomas, 1974

Discussion Sex of Beneficiary Benevolent Sexism J.D. Yoder, M. Hogue, R. Newman, L. Mertz, and T. Lavigne, 2002 Limitations of location Economic Class Differences M.D. Smith and L.J. Fisher, 1982

Further Research Limit observation to beneficiary directly Examine a different definition of door holding