1. 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

2. 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)

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

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

8. 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

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