Martinot, Crisp, & Redersdorff, 2006). Participants in one investigation were
asked simply to list as many statements as they could in response to the question
“Who am I? ”(Mackie, 1983). Compared to male participants, the women in
the study included more statements about their roles as parents and family
members. Similar findings were uncovered when elementary and high school
students were asked to “tell us about yourself ”(McGuire & McGuire, 1982).
Another group of researchers gave participants a camera with 12-exposure film
and asked them to take (or have someone else take) photographs that “describe
who you are as you see yourself ”(Clancy & Dollinger, 1993). In other words,
the photographs provided a rough indication of the cognitive representationsthe men and women held of themselves. As shown in Figure 16.5, the women ’s
photographs were more likely to include other people. When the women por-trayed the way they thought of themselves, they chose to include pictures withbest friends and loved ones. In contrast, the men more often portrayed their
self-concept with images of themselves alone.
Other research finds gender differences in the way men and women per-
ceive and recall information about significant people in their lives.
Participants in one study were asked if certain words described them, their
best friend, a group they belong to, or the president of the United States
(Josephs, Markus, & Tafarodi, 1992). As described in the previous chapter,
researchers assume information processed through a strong schema will be
more accessible than information processed through weaker schemas. When
participants were later asked to recall as many of the words as possible, the
women remembered words processed through their best friend and group
schemas better than the men. Married couples in another study were asked
to talk about their first date together, their last vacation together, and a re-
cent argument between the two of them (Ross & Holmberg, 1992). TheTo obtain your score, reverse the answer values for items 8 and 9 (that
is, 1¼7, 2¼6, etc.). Then add all 11 answer values together. High scores
indicate a tendency to think of oneself in terms of your relationships withclose others. That is, those scoring high on the scale have self-concepts
closely tied to the cognitive representations they have of the people they feel
emotionally closest to (Cross, Morris, & Gore, 2002). You can compare
your score with those obtained from a sample of American undergraduates(Cross, Bacon, & Morris, 2000):
Men Women Total
Mean 52.89 55.11 54.10
Standard Deviation 8.07 10.03 9.29
Scale: The Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal Scale
Source: Copyright © 1998 by the American Psychological Association. Reproduced with permission. Cross, S. E.,
Bacon, P. L., & Morris, M. L. (2000). The relational-interdependent self-construal and relationships. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology , 78, 791 –808. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.791. No further reproduction
or distribution is permitted without written permission from the American Psychological Association.444 CHAPTER 16 The Cognitive Approach