The thesis describes a program of research that investigated whether women's perceptions of intergroup conflict between men and women impact upon their interpersonal relationships with men. A series of three studies focus on two groups of women: women who perceive a high amount of gender-based discrimination and women who perceive relatively little gender-based discrimination. Unexpectedly, despite significant differences between the two groups in terms of their social indentities as women and their gender ideologies, there were no differences between them with respect to the nature and extent of their work, platonic, and intimate relationships with men. Two psychological mechanisms that may enable a woman to prevent perceptions of intergroup discrimination from impacting upon her intimate relationships are examined: the exceptional case and dissociative mechanisms. Although no support was found for the dissociative mechanism, strong support was found for the exceptional case mechanism. Women who perceive a high amount of discrimination, compared to those who perceived relatively little, are more likely to view their partners as exceptional in terms of their support of women's issues. Moreover, it was demonstrated in Study 3 that the male partners of these women are actually exceptional in terms of their support, as well as their negotiation, of women's issues.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.29114 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Porter, Lana E. (Lana Elizabeth) |
| Contributors | Taylor, D. M. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001482380, proquestno: NN08148, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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