ABSTRACT
Beliefs about the diff erences between women and men have consequences. In a recent demonstration of this principle, two Canadian researchers (Funk and Werhun 2011) brought men into their lab and asked them to squeeze a handgrip as hard as they could. Afterward, some of the men were told they squeezed “like a girl.” Would such a judgment make men feel badly? Interfere with later performance? Indeed. On later tests, men who received this feedback showed a threatened sense of masculinity, reduced performance on a cognitive task, and less attentional self-control than men who were not told their grip strength was girl-like. And when given another chance to use the handgrip, these men squeezed more strongly than other men-perhaps trying to prove their masculinity. Believing that they had violated gender-related expectations apparently shook these men’s self-confi dence, interfered with their ability to think straight, and motivated them to work hard to prove their masculinity.
