Research has shown that gender differences in self-perceptions exist. However, interpretational ambiguities make it impossible to determine whether these gender differences are due to the operation of biases. The present research investigated whether gender differences in biased self- perceptions exist by assessing the accuracy of posttask self-evaluations of performance. In accor- dance with self-consistency theory, it was hypothesized that Ss' expectancies affect their posttask self-evaluations. For example, men who generally have high expectancies on masculine-gender- typed tasks were hypothesized to evidence overly positive self-evaluations. Women, who generally hold low expectancies on masculine tasks, were hypothesized to hold overly negative self-evalua- tions. The results confirmed that self-consistency tendencies can partially explain self-perception biases. The implications of these findings for women's achievement behavior and self-confidence are discussed.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1990, Vol. 59, No. 5, 960-970 Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. O022-3514/90/$00.75 Gender Differences in the Accuracy of Self-Evaluations of Performance Sylvia Beyer University of Oregon Research has shown that gender differences in self-perceptions exist. However, interpretational ambiguities make it impossible to determine whether these gender differences are due to the operation of biases. The present research investigated whether gender differences in biased self- perceptions exist by assessing the accuracy of posttask self-evaluations of performance. In accor- dance with self-consistency theory, it was hypothesized that Ss' expectancies affect their posttask self-evaluations. For example, men who generally have high expectancies on masculine-gender- typed tasks were hypothesized to evidence overly positive self-evaluations. Women, who generally hold low expectancies on masculine tasks, were hypothesized to hold overly negative self-evalua- tions. The results confirmed that self-consistency tendencies can partially explain self-perception biases. The implications of these findings for women's achievement behavior and self-confidence are discussed. It is a well-established finding that women have lower expec- tancies of success than men in many areas of achievement (Crandall, 1969; Erkut, 1983; Gitelson, Petersen, & Tobin-Ri- chards, 1982; Mura, 1987; Sleeper & Nigro, 1987). These low expectancies may be indicative of women's tendency to under- estimate their abilities (Carr, Thomas, & Mednick, 1985; Cran- dall, 1969; Lenney, 1977). Research on causal attributions of performance also produced evidence for women's putative un- derestimation of abilities. Women tend to attribute success more externally (Feather, 1969; Meehan & Overton, 1986; Pas- quella, Mednick, & Murray, 1981; Simon & Feather, 1973; Sohn, 1982; Viaene, 1979; Zuckerman, 1979) or more to effort than do men (LaNoue & Curtis,1985; Parsons, Meece, Adler, & Kac- zala, 1982; Wiegers & Frieze, 1977). The implication is that by making external attributions for success, women do not take credit for their performance—thereby denigrating their abili- ties—whereas men stress the importance of their ability in achieving success. This has been interpreted as evidence for the operation of a self-enhancing bias in men and a self-derogatory bias in women (Bar-Tal & Frieze, 1977; Berg, Stephan, & Dod- son, 1981; Erkut, 1983; Heilman & Kram, 1978; Levine, Gill- Part of this research was presented at the 1989 joint meeting of the Western Psychological Association and the Rocky Mountain Psycho- logical Association. This research was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the doctoral degree at the Department of Psy- chology, University of Oregon. This research was supported in part by a grant from the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon. I would like to thank Beverly Fagot, Shinobu Kitayama, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on drafts of this article and Robert Mauro and Sriram Natarajan for statistical advice. I would like to give special thanks to Edward Bowden for his valuable suggestions during all stages of this research. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Syl- via Beyer, who is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Flint, Michigan 48502. man, & Reis, 1982; Levine, Reis, Sue, & Turner, 1976; Simon & Feather, 1973; Zuckerman, 1979). These findings suffer from an important interpretational problem. Terms such as under- and overestimation and bias imply that women and men hold inaccurate expectancies and causal attributions. To establish the existence of biases, it is therefore necessary to demonstrate that expectancies and attri- butions are in fact inaccurate. However, the accuracy of expec- tancies is difficult to assess because expectancies can affect performance (Battle, 1965; Feather, 1966; Meehan & Overton, 1986; Vollmer, 1986). For example, low expectancies can cause people to decrease effort so that they can legitimately attribute failure to lack of effort rather than to lack of ability. This self- handicapping strategy results in poor performance (Baum- gardner& Levy, 1988; Frankel&Snyder, 1978; A. Miller, 1985). Expectancies can thereby become self-fulfilling prophecies. In one sense, people using self-handicapping strategies may be considered accurate predictors of performance. However, by exerting little effort, their ability remains untested and may be greatly underestimated by low expectancies. In this sense, self handicappers are inaccurate. Because true ability cannot be de- termined, measuring the accuracy of expectancies is difficult. The accuracy of attributions is also difficult to establish. The true cause of a performance is usually indeterminable and may not even be the same for different people. It is not known how important ability, effort, task difficulty, luck, and sundry other factors are in determining performance on, say, an anagrams task. It is conceivable that women correctly identify the causes of performance as external. Alternatively, the true cause of per- formance may be different for men and women, so that, for example, women might try harder than men and therefore accu- rately rate effort as an important determining factor, whereas men may consider effort relatively less important. In both cases, it would be erroneous to consider women biased toward self-derogation. Thus, the demonstration that gender differ- ences in causal attributions exist does not prove the existence of gender differences in biases. 960
Transcript
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1990, Vol. 59, No. 5, 960-970
Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.O022-3514/90/$00.75
Gender Differences in the Accuracyof Self-Evaluations of Performance
Sylvia BeyerUniversity of Oregon
Research has shown that gender differences in self-perceptions exist. However, interpretationalambiguities make it impossible to determine whether these gender differences are due to theoperation of biases. The present research investigated whether gender differences in biased self-perceptions exist by assessing the accuracy of posttask self-evaluations of performance. In accor-dance with self-consistency theory, it was hypothesized that Ss' expectancies affect their posttaskself-evaluations. For example, men who generally have high expectancies on masculine-gender-typed tasks were hypothesized to evidence overly positive self-evaluations. Women, who generallyhold low expectancies on masculine tasks, were hypothesized to hold overly negative self-evalua-tions. The results confirmed that self-consistency tendencies can partially explain self-perceptionbiases. The implications of these findings for women's achievement behavior and self-confidenceare discussed.
It is a well-established finding that women have lower expec-tancies of success than men in many areas of achievement(Crandall, 1969; Erkut, 1983; Gitelson, Petersen, & Tobin-Ri-chards, 1982; Mura, 1987; Sleeper & Nigro, 1987). These lowexpectancies may be indicative of women's tendency to under-estimate their abilities (Carr, Thomas, & Mednick, 1985; Cran-dall, 1969; Lenney, 1977). Research on causal attributions ofperformance also produced evidence for women's putative un-derestimation of abilities. Women tend to attribute successmore externally (Feather, 1969; Meehan & Overton, 1986; Pas-quella, Mednick, & Murray, 1981; Simon & Feather, 1973; Sohn,1982; Viaene, 1979; Zuckerman, 1979) or more to effort than domen (LaNoue & Curtis,1985; Parsons, Meece, Adler, & Kac-zala, 1982; Wiegers & Frieze, 1977). The implication is that bymaking external attributions for success, women do not takecredit for their performance—thereby denigrating their abili-ties—whereas men stress the importance of their ability inachieving success. This has been interpreted as evidence for theoperation of a self-enhancing bias in men and a self-derogatorybias in women (Bar-Tal & Frieze, 1977; Berg, Stephan, & Dod-son, 1981; Erkut, 1983; Heilman & Kram, 1978; Levine, Gill-
Part of this research was presented at the 1989 joint meeting of theWestern Psychological Association and the Rocky Mountain Psycho-logical Association. This research was conducted in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the doctoral degree at the Department of Psy-chology, University of Oregon.
This research was supported in part by a grant from the Center forthe Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon.
I would like to thank Beverly Fagot, Shinobu Kitayama, and theanonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on drafts of thisarticle and Robert Mauro and Sriram Natarajan for statistical advice. Iwould like to give special thanks to Edward Bowden for his valuablesuggestions during all stages of this research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Syl-via Beyer, who is now at the Department of Psychology, University ofMichigan, Flint, Michigan 48502.
These findings suffer from an important interpretationalproblem. Terms such as under- and overestimation and biasimply that women and men hold inaccurate expectancies andcausal attributions. To establish the existence of biases, it istherefore necessary to demonstrate that expectancies and attri-butions are in fact inaccurate. However, the accuracy of expec-tancies is difficult to assess because expectancies can affectperformance (Battle, 1965; Feather, 1966; Meehan & Overton,1986; Vollmer, 1986). For example, low expectancies can causepeople to decrease effort so that they can legitimately attributefailure to lack of effort rather than to lack of ability. This self-handicapping strategy results in poor performance (Baum-gardner& Levy, 1988; Frankel&Snyder, 1978; A. Miller, 1985).Expectancies can thereby become self-fulfilling prophecies. Inone sense, people using self-handicapping strategies may beconsidered accurate predictors of performance. However, byexerting little effort, their ability remains untested and may begreatly underestimated by low expectancies. In this sense, selfhandicappers are inaccurate. Because true ability cannot be de-termined, measuring the accuracy of expectancies is difficult.
The accuracy of attributions is also difficult to establish. Thetrue cause of a performance is usually indeterminable and maynot even be the same for different people. It is not known howimportant ability, effort, task difficulty, luck, and sundry otherfactors are in determining performance on, say, an anagramstask. It is conceivable that women correctly identify the causesof performance as external. Alternatively, the true cause of per-formance may be different for men and women, so that, forexample, women might try harder than men and therefore accu-rately rate effort as an important determining factor, whereasmen may consider effort relatively less important. In bothcases, it would be erroneous to consider women biased towardself-derogation. Thus, the demonstration that gender differ-ences in causal attributions exist does not prove the existence ofgender differences in biases.
960
ACCURACY OF SELF-EVALUATIONS 961
Recent research on depression and self-esteem has recog-nized the importance of assessing the accuracy of self-percep-tions. Some theories of depression (Beck, 1976) and self-esteem(Fitch, 1970) presumed that the self-perceptions of depressivesand people low in self-esteem were negatively distorted. How-ever, when the accuracy of self-perceptions was assessed, de-pressives were found to be more accurate than nondepressivesin their social self-evaluations (Lewinsohn, Mischel, Chaplin,& Barton, 1980), estimates of future success and failure (Alloy& Ahrens, 1987), and in assessments of the degree of controlover external stimuli (Abramson & Alloy, 1981; Alloy &Abramson, 1979; Alloy, Abramson, & Viscusi, 1981). Similarly,people low in self-esteem had more accurate self-evaluations ofperformance than did people high in self-esteem (Shrauger &Kelly, 1988; Shrauger & Terbovic, 1976). Theories of depres-sion, self-esteem, and women's self-perceptions would have tobe revised if it could be empirically established that depres-sives, people low in self-esteem, and women are in fact accuraterather than inaccurate self-evaluators.
An intriguing practical implication regarding therapeutic in-terventions with people from these groups would be that theyshould be taught to be inaccurate—in essence, to overestimatethemselves! Research has indeed shown that self-enhancingbiases (positive illusions) rather than accurate self-perceptionsare conducive to psychological health (Janoff-Bulman, 1989;Snyder, 1989; Taylor & Brown, 1988; Taylor, Collins, Skokan, &Aspinwall, 1989). Self-enhancing biases may engender hope forthe future and thereby also result in improved motivation andtask persistence (Abramson & Alloy, 1981; Greenwald, 1980).But before such recommendations can be made, it is imperativeto empirically address the issue of gender differences in self-perception biases.
The present experiments were designed to address this ques-tion by measuring the accuracy of posttask self-evaluations ofperformance. Self-evaluations often have to be arrived at in theabsence of immediate, unambiguous feedback regarding thequality of performance and thus are vulnerable to biased inter-pretations of performance. People have to decide for them-selves, for example, whether the decision to recommend psycho-logical treatment for a client was correct, whether their latestessay really deserved the low grade assigned by the instructor,or whether a new manuscript is good enough to warrant sub-mitting it for publication.l In the latter case, if one believes thatthe manuscript does not meet the journal's standards, he or shemay decide not to submit it. Thereby, one precludes the possibil-ity not only for receiving feedback but also for having the manu-script published. Thus, low self-evaluations can have undesir-able consequences.
There are several reasons to expect that women and men fallprey to different self-perception biases. First, women are so-cialized to be modest regarding academic achievements,whereas men are taught to be confident in this area (Berg et al,1981; Gould & Slone, 1982; Phillips, 1987). Second, the societalstereotype is that women are less competent than men (Brover-man, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972;Deaux & Emswiller, 1974; Feather & Simon, 1975; Feldman-Summers & Kiesler, 1974). In fact, many parents have inaccu-rately low perceptions of their daughters' ability in such areas as
math. These perceptions eventually come to be shared by thedaughters (Parsons, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982). Thus, girls learnfrom parents and society to underestimate their competence(i.e, to have low expectancies for success), whereas boys receivethe message that they should be highly confident.
According to self-consistency theory, "people interpret andjudge their achievements and abilities in ways congruent withprior self-conceptions" (Jussim, Coleman, & Nassau, 1987, p.95). Thus, a person's expectancy should bias how performanceon a task is interpreted. This is especially true when there issome ambiguity regarding the quality of performance, such as,in the absence of feedback (Felson, 1981; Wells & Sweeney,1986). Therefore, self-consistency should result in inaccurateself-evaluations except when expectancies coincide with perfor-mance. Self-consistent tendencies have been demonstrated inpeople with positive and negative self-schemas (Brown, 1986;Jussim et al, 1987; Markus, 1977; Shrauger, 1975; Swann, 1987;Swann, Griffin, Predmore, & Gaines, 1987; Swann & Hill,1982, Swann & Read, 1981a, 1981b; Wells & Sweeney, 1986).
Women are least and men most confident on masculine-gender-typed tasks (Bridges, 1988; Deaux & Farris, 1977; Jan-man, 1987; Karabenick, Sweeney, & Penrose, 1983). Self-con-sistency theory predicts that men's high confidence on mascu-line tasks will positively bias their self-evaluations, resulting inoverestimations of performance. Women's low expectancies onmasculine tasks should bias their self-evaluations negatively,thereby resulting in inaccurately low self-evaluations. Becauseneither women nor men have inordinately high or low expec-tancies on feminine tasks (Deaux & Farris, 1977; Lenney, 1981;Stein, Pohly, & Mueller, 1971), their self-evaluations should bemore moderate and accurate on such tasks. Thus, the genderdifference in self-evaluation bias should be most pronouncedfor masculine tasks.
The self-consistency hypothesis does not predict that actualperformance will have no effect on self-evaluations. It is notcontended that people completely ignore reality (performance).Instead, it is hypothesized that even though people take actualperformance into account, their initial level of confidence (ex-pectancy) has a biasing effect on self-evaluations.
In summary, the present experiments tested the followinghypotheses: (a) Gender differences in the accuracy of self-evaluations interact with the gender-typedness of the task, and(b) these gender differences can be explained in part by self-consistency theory.
Experiment 1
Method
Overview. Subjects were presented with a feminine-gender-typed, amasculine-gender-typed, and three neutral-gender-typed tasks. Sub-
1 Even in cases in which feedback eventually becomes available, suchas after receiving a C- on an essay, interpretation of that feedback isstill necessary. Potentially, one can agree with the feedback, one candisagree with it by citing extraneous factors such as the unfairness ofthe grading, or one can continue to be unsure about the quality of one'sperformance. Thus, even when feedback is available, biases may oper-ate.
962 SYLVIA BEYER
jects stated performance expectancies, performed the task, and thenevaluated their own performance in the absence of performance feed-back.
Subjects. Subjects were 39 male and 34 female students enrolled inintroductory psychology courses at the University of Oregon. Participa-tion in the experiment was in partial fulfillment of a course require-ment.
Tasks. Five tasks of differing gender-typedness were presented tosubjects. A quiz on political and sports figures (masculine-gender-typed task) and a quiz on stars and fashion (feminine-gender-typedtask) each comprised 10 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 2min. Three neutral tasks were used. One of the neutral tasks was acharacter-detection task, which was unfamiliar to most subjects. Sub-jects had 3 min to circle 100 special characters embedded in a page ofnontarget characters. A second neutral task required the use of basicmathematical skills to answer questions framed in practical contexts(henceforth referred to as practiced questions). This task consisted of 6multiple-choice problems to be solved in 9 min. A third neutral taskcontained 20 five-letter anagrams to be solved in 4 min. Manipulationchecks confirmed the gender-typedness assigned to the five tasks (dis-cussed later). The tasks were presented in two orders. Thus, a 2(gender) X 5 (type of task) X 2 (task order) design was used. Type of taskwas a within-subjects factor.
Procedure. A female experimenter tested subjects in mixed-gendergroups ranging in size from 12 to 20 participants. Subjects were toldthat this was a study on the effect of different aspects of tasks onperformance. The experimenter emphasized the anonymity of test re-sults and the noncompetitiveness of the tasks. The experimenter pro-vided the subjects with information on the number and type of ques-tions, the amount of time available for the task, and an example of atypical question and its correct answer.2 Subjects indicated how manycorrect answers they expected to produce and rated on a 7-point scalehow difficult they expected the task to be. After finishing the task,subjects estimated the number of correctly answered questions (self-evaluations) and reevaluated the difficulty of the task without receiv-ing feedback regarding their actual performance. This procedure wasrepeated for all five tasks. After completion of the last task, subjectsindicated on a 9-point gender-typedness-rating scale whether theythought that men or women perform better on each of the five tasks.Subsequently, subjects were debriefed.
Results and Discussion
To facilitate comparison across tasks and experiments, theexpectancy, performance, self-evaluation, and inaccuracyscores were transformed into percentage scores. The few signifi-cant task order effects that were obtained did not interact withgender and thus do not affect the conclusions. Because of spaceconsiderations, these effects are not reported.3
Manipulation checks. To assure that the tasks had been as-signed the proper gender-typedness labels, several manipula-tion checks were used. A task was considered feminine- (mascu-line-) gender-typed (a) if there was a significant gender differ-ence in performance favoring women (men), (b) if there was acorresponding gender difference in postperformance task dif-ficulty ratings, and (c) if both genders rated the task as at least 6(at most 4) on the gender-typedness scale, which ranged from 1(men do better) to 9 fyvomen do better). Neutral-gender-typednesswas assigned to a task (a) if there was no gender difference inperformance, (b) if there was no gender difference in postper-formance task difficulty ratings, and (c) if both genders rated
the task between 4.1 and S.9 on the gender-typedness scale.Analyses of variance (ANOVAS), with gender as the independentvariable, were performed on these dependent variables.
Table 1 contains the means for the manipulation checks. Menoutperformed women on the politics and sports task andthought that this task was easier than women did, F(l, 71) =7.21, p < .009; F(l, 71) = 19.26, p < .0001, respectively. Bothgenders rated the task below 4 on the gender-typedness scale.Thus, the politics and sports task satisfied the criteria for amasculine task. Women outperformed men and thought thatthe star and fashion task was easier than men did, both Fs(l,71) > 4.20, ps < .05. Both genders rated the task above 6 on thegender-typedness scale. Thus, the star and fashion task satisfiedthe criteria for feminine gender-typedness.
There were no differences in performance or rated task diffi-culty on the character-detection task, both i%(l, 71) < 1. Menand women rated the task in the neutral-gender-typednessrange. Thus this task satisfied the requirements for a neutraltask. Men and women rated the practical questions as neutraland performed equally well, F(l, 71) < 1. Men rated the task aseasier than women did, F(l, 71) = 4.37, p < .04. This task thussatisfied only two of the three criteria for neutral gender-typed-ness and may be considered neutral to slightly masculinegender-typed. Men and women rated the anagram task as neu-tral and did not differ in performance or task difficulty ratings,both R(l, 71) < 1.60, ps > .21, thereby satisfying all the criteriafor neutral gender-typedness.
Expectancies and self-evaluations. To assess the effect oftask gender-typedness on expectancies and self-evaluations,two repeated measures analyses were performed. Type of taskwas a within-subjects factor, gender was a between-subjects fac-tor. Significant and marginally significant interactions betweentask gender-typedness and subject gender were followed upwith ANOVAS for each task. Table 1 contains the means (in per-centages) for expectancies and self-evaluations.
Type of task and subject gender interacted in their effect onexpectancies, F(4,62) = 8.10, p < .001. Men were more confi-dent (i.e., had higher expectancies) than women on the mascu-line task, F(l, 68) = 20.52, p < .0001, and on the character-de-tection task, F(l, 71) = 6.16, p < .02. There were no genderdifferences in expectancies for the practical questions, ana-grams, or the feminine task. This is in line with previous re-search showing that women do not hold higher expectanciesthan men even on feminine tasks (Carr et al, 1985; Cole, King,& Newcomb, 1977; Deaux & Earns, 1977; Garland & Smith,1981; Gitelson et al, 1982; McMahan, 1982).
Type of task and gender also had an interactive effect onself-evaluations, F(4, 66) = 7.68, p < .001. As predicted, menhad higher self-evaluations than women on the masculine task,F(l, 71) = 22.03, p < .0001, and also on the practical questions,F(l, 71) = 4.35, p < .05. No significant gender differences in
2 For the masculine task, the following example was provided as atypical question: "Which two teams played in the last Super Bowl?"Additional sample questions/problems may be obtained from SylviaBeyer.
3 These results can be obtained from Sylvia Beyer.
ACCURACY OF SELF-EVALUATIONS 963
Table 1Means for Gender Typedness, Task Difficulty, Expectancies, Actual Performance, Self-Evaluations, and Inaccuracy of Self-Evaluations
Gender ofsubjects
Masculine taskWomenMen
Feminine taskWomenMen
Character detection taskWomenMen
Practical questions taskWomenMen
Anagram taskWomenMen
Gendertypedness*
3.43.1
6.76.3
5.7*5.2*
4.74.5
5.55.2
Taskdifficulty"
4.33.1
3.0*3.6*
3.13.1
4.6*3.9
5.15.5
Expectancy0
49.7**7 1 . 9 "
69.766.1
78.4*88.3*
71.777.2
56.159.4
Performance
65.0**74.2**
73.2*63.8*
86.182.4
50.553.5
40.035.5
Self-evaluation
53.2***73 .3"*
72.665.9
81.383.2
61.3*73.0*
41.537.2
Inaccuracy ofself-evaluations'1
-11.8b**-0.9**
-0.62.1
- 4 . 8 .0.8
10.8b19.5C
1.5.1.7.
Note. Asterisk superscripts indicate significant (two-tailed-test) gender differences. Letter subscripts denote whether an inaccuracy score issignificantly different (two-tailed test) from zero (accuracy).* As rated on a 9-point scale ranging from men do better (1) to women do better (9) on this task.b As rated on a 7-point scale ranging from very easy (1) to very difficult (7).c To make expectancy, performance, self-evaluation, and inaccuracy scores comparable across tasks, I transformed them into percentage scores.d Negative (positive) inaccuracy scores indicate under- (over-) estimation.* p < . 0 5 . * * p < . 0 1 . ***/><.0001.,p<.05. bp<.001. cp<.0001.
self-evaluations appeared on the feminine task, F(l, 71) = 1.86,p > . 17, or on the remaining twd neutral tasks.
Self-consistency hypothesis. The self-consistency hypothesispredicts that expectancies affect self-evaluations above andbeyond the effects of actual performance. This was tested byregressing—for each task—performance, expectancy, gender,and the Performance X Gender, Expectancy X Gender, Perfor-mance X Expectancy, and Performance X Expectancy XGender interactions on self-evaluations. If expectancies ac-count for a significant increase in explained variance over andabove the variance explained by actual performance, self-con-sistency tendencies are operating. If subject gender can signifi-cantly increase the amount of explained variance in self-evalua-tions over and above actual performance and expectancies, thiswould indicate that performance and self-consistency tenden-cies cannot completely explain self-evaluations. Note that a testof the increase in variance accounted for (AR2) that is contrib-uted by gender, when performance and expectancies are par-tialed out, is identical to an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)with performance and expectancies as the covariates. A signifi-cant interaction between gender and performance or genderand expectancy would indicate that the amount of variance inself-evaluations explained by performance or expectancydiffers for men and women. No significant Performance X Ex-pectancy or Performance X Expectancy X Gender interactionswere expected, and with one exception, none were found to besignificant.4 The standardized regression coefficients and theamount of explained variance added by a variable to variancealready explained by previously entered variables (AR2) areshown in Table 2.
As expected, actual performance was a significant predictor
of subjects' self-evaluations for all five tasks, indicating thatsubjects do rely heavily on objective reality when evaluatingperformance, all Fs > 18.29, ps < .0001. Expectancies ac-counted for a significant proportion of variance on four of thefive tasks, indicating that self-consistency effects are presentwhen unambiguous feedback is not provided, all /%(1, 68) >6.55, ps < .02. The anagram task was the sole case in whichexpectancies did not explain additional variance, F(l, 69) < 1.The reason for the absence of self-consistency effects for ana-grams is probably that anagrams provide unambiguous feed-back regarding performance. Most subjects know whether anunscrambled anagram represents a real word or not. Thus,when clear performance feedback is provided, self-consistenttendencies appear to be reduced.
For the practical questions, the additional variance in self-evaluations explained by gender was significant, F(l, 66) =8.15, p < .006. On the masculine task, the additional varianceapproached significance, F(l, 66) = 3.09, p < .09. When perfor-mance and expectancies were not controlled, the gender differ-ence in self-evaluations was highly significant on these twotasks. With performance and expectancies controlled, the ef-
4 On the character-detection task, the interaction between perfor-mance, expectancy, and gender was significant, F(l, 63) = 9.17, p <.004. To understand the nature of this interaction, I trichotomizedperformance and expectancy scores. The self-evaluations of subjectswith high, intermediate, or low performance and either high, interme-diate, or low expectancies were compared. Men's self-evaluations werehigher than women's. Thus, the triple interaction was ordinal, or orderpreserving, with respect to gender, the variable of interest in this study.For this reason, the triple interaction did not affect the conclusions.
964 SYLVIA BEYER
Table 2Standardized Coefficients (Coeff) and Amount of Additional Variance Accounted for (AR2)
Note. All tests are two-tailed." Women are coded 1; men are coded 0.b Performance and expectancy not controlled.c The Performance X Gender interaction wassignificant for this task. AR2 = .042**; standardized coefficient = .471.*p<.10. **p<.05. ***/><.01. ••*•/?<.001. *****p<.0001.
feet of gender was greatly reduced. Gender did not even ap-proach significance after controlling performance and expec-tancy on the feminine, character detection, and anagram tasks,all Fs < 1. The last two columns of Table 2 compare the stan-dardized coefficients and ARh of gender when performanceand expectancy were statistically controlled versus not con-trolled. For the practical questions, the interaction betweengender and performance was significant, F(l, 66) = 4.84, p <.04. Table 2 illustrates that the reason for this interaction is thatthe amount of variance in self-evaluations explained by perfor-mance was higher for women than men.
Accuracy of self-evaluations. To assess the effect of type oftask on the accuracy of self-evaluations, a repeated measuresanalysis was performed. Type of task was a within-subjects fac-tor; gender was a between-subjects factor. Inaccuracy of self-evaluations was calculated by subtracting performance fromself-evaluation scores (see Table 1). A marginally significantinteraction between type of task and gender was found, F(4,66) = 2.28, p < .07. To elucidate the nature of this interaction,repeated measures analyses were computed, using perfor-mance and self-evaluations as the repeated factors (which issimilar to an analysis of difference scores) and gender as be-tween-subjects factor. This analysis determines whether an inac-curacy score is significantly different from 0 (i£., whether itrepresents over- or underestimation) and whether there exists asignificant gender difference in accuracy. When significantgender differences in the accuracy of self-evaluations werefound, ANCOVAS were performed with expectancies as the co-variate and gender as the between-subjects variable. This analy-sis permitted a test of the self-consistency hypothesis thatgender differences in the accuracy of self-evaluations would bemediated by expectancies.
The gender difference in accuracy of self-evaluations wassignificant on the masculine task, F(l, 71) = 9.50, p < .003. On
this task, men's self-evaluations were accurate (i.e, their inaccu-racy score was not significantly different from 0), F(l, 37) < 1,whereas women underestimated performance (i£, their inaccu-racy score was significantly different from 0), F(l, 32) = 15.42,p < .0004. However, the gender difference in accuracy of self-evaluations was no longer significant when expectancies werestatistically controlled, F(l, 67) = 1.54, p > .22. The genderdifference in accuracy was marginally significant on the charac-ter-detection task, F(l, 68) = 3.28, p < .08. Men's self-evalua-tions were accurate, F(l, 35) < 1, whereas women's were inaccu-rately low, F(l, 32) = 6.04, p < .02. Again, when expectancieswere statistically controlled, the gender difference in accuracyof self-evaluations did not approach significance, F(l, 68) < 1.On the remaining three tasks, for which there had been nogender difference in expectancies, no gender differences in ac-curacy of self-evaluations were found: Women and men wereequally accurate in evaluating performance on the femininetask, F(l, 69) < 1, and they equally overestimated performanceon the practical questions, F(l, 71) = 2.04, p > .15, and theanagrams, F(l, 69) < 1.
Thus, on the two tasks in which significant or marginallysignificant gender differences in accuracy of self-evaluationswere found (the masculine task and the character-detectiontask), the gender difference became nonsignificant after I con-trolled for expectancies. On the three tasks on which no genderdifference in the accuracy of self-evaluations was found, therehad been no gender difference in expectancies. This suggeststhat the gender difference in accuracy of self-evaluations wasmediated by expectancies (self-consistency).
Men performed as well on the masculine task as women didon the feminine task. The performance of men on the femininetask was comparable to the performance of women on the mas-culine task. Thus, task difficulty could be ruled out as a possi-ble confound.
ACCURACY OF SELF-EVALUATIONS 965
Experiment 2
In Experiment 1, several findings were of marginal signifi-cance. For example, it is unclear whether gender would accountfor a clearly significant proportion of variance in self-evalua-tions, over and above the effects of performance and expectan-cies, if power were increased. Because of the theoretical andpractical implications of the findings, I decided to replicateExperiment 1 on a larger sample before drawing firm conclu-sions. Some methodological changes were made.
Method
Subjects. Subjects were 85 male and 92 female students enrolled inintroductory psychology courses at the University of Oregon. Participa-tion in the experiment was in partial fulfillment of a course require-ment.
Tasks. To increase comparability of scores across tasks, the numberof items on all tasks was increased to 40. The three tasks that werepresented were of a higher difficulty level than in Experiment 1 toavoid a potential ceiling effect. The masculine and feminine tasks werea quiz on sports figures and a quiz on movie and TV stars, respectively.Both tasks contained 40 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 8min. The character-detection task was used as the neutral task. Sub-jects had 2 min to circle 40 special characters embedded in a list ofnontarget characters. All six permutations of task orders were pre-sented. A 2 (gender) X 3 (gender-typedness of task) X 6 (task order)design was used. Task gender-typedness was a within-subjects factor.
Procedure. The procedure was similar to the one used in Experi-ment 1 except for the following additions. A rating scale assessed howimportant it was for each subject to do well on the task, to ensure thatboth genders were equally motivated. In addition to stating expectan-cies in quantitative form, subjects gave qualitative ratings of expectan-cies: "On the following scale please indicate how good you are at thistype of task." The scale ranged from very bad (1) to very good(J). Afterperforming the task, in addition to stating how many questions theybelieved to have answered correctly (quantitative self-evaluations), sub-jects rated how well they thought they had done (qualitative self-evaluations) and how well they expected to do on a similar task in thefuture.
Results and Discussion
To facilitate comparison with Experiment 1, expectancy, per-formance, self-evaluation, and inaccuracy scores were trans-formed into percentage scores.
Manipulation checks. Men and women considered it equallyimportant to do well on the masculine, feminine, and neutraltasks, all Fs(l", 175) < 1.62, ps > .21. The gender-typedness scalewas omitted, so the manipulation check for gender-typednesswas reduced to ensuring that on the feminine (masculine) taskwomen (men) outperformed and rated the task difficulty lowerthan men (women). For the neutral task, no performance orrated task difficulty difference was expected. Manipulationchecks are depicted in Table 3.
Men performed better on the masculine task and thoughtthat it was easier than women did, both Fs(l, 175) > 64.35, p <.0001, confirming that this task was masculine gender-typed.Women performed better on the feminine task and found it tobe easier than did men, F(l, 175) = 8.06, p < .006; F(l, 175) =14.55, p < .0002, respectively. Thus, the star quiz was feminine
gender-typed. The genders did not differ in performance, F(l,175) < 1, or rated task difficulty, F(l, 174)= 2.44, p>. 11, on thecharacter-detection task, confirming that the task was neutral.
Expectancies, self-evaluations, and future expectancies. Toassess the effect of task gender-typedness on expectancies, self-evaluations, and future expectancies, repeated measures analy-ses were performed. Gender-typedness of task was a within-subjects factor; gender was a between-subjects factor. Signifi-cant interactions were followed up with ANOVAS for each task.Table 3 depicts the means (in percentages) for expectancies,self-evaluations, and future expectancies.
Task gender typedness and gender interacted in their effecton expectancies, F(2,158) = 11.99, p < .001. As in Experiment1, men had higher expectancies than women on the masculinetask, F(\, 174) = 34.92, p < .0001, and the character-detectiontask, F(l, 172) = 8.58, p < .004. There was again no genderdifference in expectancies for the feminine task, F(l, 167) =1.22, p>.27.
Task gender typedness and gender interacted in their effecton self-evaluations, F(2,166) = 51.33, p < .0001. As expected,men had higher self-evaluations than did women on the mascu-line task, F(l, 174) = 102.68, p < .0001, whereas women hadhigher self-evaluations than did men on the feminine task, F(l,174) = 6.96, p < .009. On the neutral task, there was no signifi-cant gender difference in self-evaluations, F(l, 173) < 1. Sub-jects' ratings on a 7-point scale regarding how well they thoughtthey had performed (qualitative self-evaluations) mirrored theirself-evaluations.5
Gender-typedness of task and gender had an interactive ef-fect on expectancies for future performance, F(2,162) = 32.67,p < .0001. Even when actual performance was statistically con-trolled, men expected to do better on future masculine andneutral tasks than women did, F(l, 172) = 12.08, p < .001; F(l,171) = 7.35, p < .007, respectively. On the feminine task,women had higher future expectancies than men, F(l, 175) =6.14, p<.02.
Selfconsistency effects. For all three tasks, performance, ex-pectancy, gender, and the interaction terms were regressed onself-evaluations. The standardized regression coefficients andARh are presented in Table 2. None of the interactions be-tween gender and performance and between gender and expec-tancies were significant.6 As expected, actual performance was
5 These results can be obtained from Sylvia Beyer.6 However, on the masculine task, the Performance X Expectancy X
Gender interaction was significant, F(l, 167) = 10.45, p < .002. Tounderstand the nature of this interaction, performance and expec-tancy scores were trichotimized. The self-evaluations of subjects withhigh, intermediate, or low performance and either high, intermediate,or low expectancies were compared. This procedure indicated thatmen's self-evaluations were consistently higher than women's. Becausethe interaction was ordinal, it did not affect the conclusions. The inter-action between performance and expectancy was significant for thefeminine task, F(\, 161) = 4.65, p < .04, and neutral tasks, F(l, 165) =6.11, p < .02. After I trichotimized the data, it became clear that theinteraction was due to subjects in the high-performance conditions, inwhich expectancy did not increase self-evaluations. These results aremost likely due to a ceiling effect.
966 SYLVIA BEYER
Table 3Means for Task Difficulty, Expectancies, Performance, Self-Evaluations,Inaccuracy of Self-Evaluations, and Future Expectancies
Gender ofsubjects
Masculine taskWomenMen
Feminine taskWomenMen
Neutral taskWomenMen
Taskdifficulty*
5.3****3.6****
3.3***4.1***
4.34.6
Expectancy6
45****65****
6568
76**82**
Performance
38****61****
67**59**
6159
Self-evaluations
33****65****
67*58*
5554
Inaccuracyof self-
evaluations0
-5b****A * • * *
0-1
-6,,- 5 b
Futureexpectancies'1
2.8****4.5****
4.6*4.1*
4.24.6
Note. Asterisk superscripts indicate significant (two-tailed-test) gender differences. Letter subscripts de-note whether an inaccuracy score is significantly different (two-tailed test) from zero (accuracy).'As rated on a 7-point scale ranging from very easy (1) to very difficult (7). "To make expectancy,performance, self-evaluation, and inaccuracy scores comparable across tasks, I transformed then intopercentage scores. c Negative (positive) inaccuracy scores indicate under- (over-) estimation. d As ratedon a 7-point scale ranging from expect to do poorly (1) to expect to do very well (7).*p< .05 . **p<.0\. ***p<.001. ****/><.0001., p < . 0 1 . b p<.0001.
a significant predictor of subjects' self-evaluations on all threetasks, all Fs(l, 173) > 134.40, ps < .0001. Over and above theeffect of performance, expectancies accounted for a significantproportion of variance on all three tasks, confirming that self-consistency tendencies exist, all Fs(l, 167) > 8.00, p < .006. Onthe masculine and feminine tasks, gender accounted for a signif-icant amount of variance in self-evaluations over and above theeffects of performance and expectancies, F{\, 171) = 26.11, p <.0001 for the masculine task; F(l, 164) = 4.01, p < .05, for thefeminine task. This indicates that when the effects of perfor-mance and expectancy were statistically controlled, the effectof gender on self-evaluations was still significant on the mascu-line and feminine tasks. Table 2 compares the standardizedcoefficients and additional variance of gender when expec-tancy and performance were statistically controlled versus notcontrolled. On the neutral task, gender did not even approachsignificance when performance and expectancy were statisti-cally controlled, F(l, 168) < 1.
Accuracy of self-evaluations. To assess the effect of taskgender typedness on the accuracy of self-evaluations, a re-peated measures analysis was performed. Task gender-typed-ness was a within-subjects factor; gender was a between-sub-jects factor. The Task Gender Typedness X Gender interactionwas significant, F(2,171) = 10.66, p < .0001. Repeated mea-sures analyses were computed, using performance and self-evaluations as the repeated factors, to elucidate whether an inac-curacy score would be significantly different from 0 andwhether there would exist a significant gender difference inaccuracy. Inaccuracy scores can be found in Table 3. Whensignificant gender differences in the accuracy of self-evalua-tions were found, ANCOVAS were performed with expectanciesas the covariate and gender as the between-subjects variable.
As in Experiment 1, men and women evaluated performanceaccurately on the feminine task, F(\, 164) < 1. Men and women
equally underestimated performance on the neutral task, F{\,163) = 30.90, p < .0001. This latter finding was somewhat unex-pected. Both genders had had very high expectancies for thistask and therefore should have overestimated their perfor-mance, if self-consistent tendencies were operating. This neu-tral task may represent a boundary condition for self-consis-tency effects. Conceivably, subjects' overly optimistic confi-dence backfired by making subjects think they failed. Thefrustration with an unexpectedly low performance may havethen manifested itself in underestimations.
The Gender Typedness of Task X Gender interaction was dueto the masculine task, for which the gender difference in accu-racy of self-evaluations was significant, F(l, 174) = 21.21, p <.0001. As hypothesized, men overestimated, F(\, 78) = 9.79,p < .003, whereas women underestimated, F(l, 86) = 15.81, p <.0001, performance on this task. When expectancies were sta-tistically controlled, the gender difference in accuracy of self-evaluations was reduced but still significant, F(\, 172) = 8.29,p < .004. This indicates that self-consistency can partially, butnot entirely, explain the gender difference in accuracy of self-evaluations.
General Discussion
Across both experiments, men overestimated performanceon three (one masculine and two neutral) tasks, were accurateon four (one neutral, one masculine, and both feminine) tasks,and underestimated performance on only one (neutral) task. Incontrast, women overestimated only twice (two neutral tasks),were accurate on both feminine tasks, and underestimated onfour (both masculine and both character detection) tasks.7
7 Lenney (1981) found that both genders equally overestimated per-formance on verbal ability (feminine gender typed?) and spatial-me-
ACCURACY OF SELF-EVALUATIONS 967
Thus, men tend either to be accurate or to overestimate,whereas women tend either to be accurate or to underestimate.However, when expectancies were statistically controlled, thesegender differences in the accuracy of self-evaluations becamenonsignificant on most tasks. Thus, gender differences in theaccuracy of self-evaluations are mediated by expectancies. Onthe masculine task in Experiment 2, the gender difference inaccuracy was greatly reduced but still significant when expec-tancies were statistically controlled. This suggests that thegender difference in accuracy of self-evaluations was partiallymediated by expectancies but that another as yet unidentifiedmediating variable must exist (cf. Judd & Kenny, 1981).
As expected, actual performance had a strong effect, account-ing for the majority of variance in self-evaluations. This indi-cates that subjects do base their self-evaluations to a great extenton reality (actual performance). Interestingly, the proportion ofvariance explained by performance was greater in Experiment2. This probably indicates that making tasks longer enablessubjects to get a better feel for their performance, which con-comitantly may decrease the effect of self-consistency (cf. addi-tional accounted for variance for performance and expectancyin Experiments 1 and 2). Still, even when the effect of perfor-mance was partialed out, expectancies had a significant effecton self-evaluations in both experiments. Thus, men's high con-fidence positively biased their self-evaluations. On the femininetasks, in which initial confidence was somewhat lower, menevaluated performance more accurately. The opposite patternwas obtained for women. On masculine tasks, women's lowexpectancies negatively biased their self-evaluations. On femi-nine tasks, women had realistic expectancies and consequentlyalso interpreted performance accurately.
Men's overestimation on the masculine task in Experiment 2appears to be inconsistent with their accurate evaluations inExperiment 1. But men's expectancies on the masculine task inExperiment 1 were not inordinately high; therefore, overestima-tion would not be expected. In Experiment 2, in which expec-tancies were higher than performance, men did overestimate.There may be a limit to the application of self-consistencytheory to gender differences in accuracy of self-evaluations,because it is unlikely that a very large discrepancy betweenexpectancies and actual performance (as for the neutral task inExperiment 2) can be altogether ignored by an individual.
It could be argued that the observed self-consistency tenden-cies increase accuracy; if expectancies are positively correlatedwith performance, any effect of expectancies on self-evalua-tions increases the correlation between performance and self-
chanical (masculine gender typed?) subtests of an intelligence test.This finding seems inconsistent with the present findings of women'sunderestimation on masculine tasks. However, in Lenney's (1981)study, the gender typedness of these subtests was not established. Infact, she found no gender difference in performance, therefore thesubtests may have been of neutral gender typedness. In addition, sub-jects' expectancies were not assessed. According to self-consistencytheory, if both genders had high expectancies for these subtests, wewould expect subjects to overestimate their performance. Because ofthese differences in her design and the present one, it is not clearwhether her results are actually inconsistent with the present findings.
evaluations. According to this interpretation, accuracy is de-fined as the correlation between performance and self-evalua-tions. This interpretation addresses the legitimate question ofwhether high- (low-) performance people also have high (low)self-evaluations. Because the determination of whether menand women over- or underestimate their performance was ofprimary interest, accuracy is defined in this article as the dis-crepancy between performance and self-evaluations. Thecorrelational definition of accuracy cannot address this particu-lar question. The hypothetical case of perfect positive correla-tions between performance and self-evaluations for both menand women illustrates this point. The correlational definitionwould consider men and women equally accurate. However,this pattern of correlations could be obtained in a number ofways—for example, if all men equally overestimated perfor-mance, whereas all women accurately evaluated performance.Thus, the correlational approach to accuracy can show whethera relation between performance and self-evaluations exists, butit cannot show whether self-evaluations are accurate in absoluteterms—namely, are congruent with performance or reflectover- or underestimations.
In addition to performance and expectancies, gender ac-counted for some of the variance in self-evaluations—albeit asmall proportion never topping 4%—on the masculine tasks,the practical questions, and to a smaller degree on the secondfeminine task. Unfortunately, exactly what it is about genderthat predicts self-evaluations cannot be determined from thepresent research. Gender is a rather crude division and "servesas only a gross marker in predicting individual differences inbehavior" (Deaux, 1984, p. 108). What is known, however, isthat to explain the effect of gender, one has to look at variablesbeyond performance and expectancies.
A fruitful next step would be to look for moderating variablesthat can elucidate what distinguishes people who have low ex-pectancies and underestimate performance from people whohave high expectancies and overestimate performance. An in-triguing lead comes from the literature on learned helplessness.Helpless children underestimate performance, whereas mas-tery-oriented children are accurate in their perceptions of suc-cess (Diener & Dweck, 1980). Girls are more likely to belearned helpless than boys (Dweck & Bush, 1976; Dweck, Da-vidson, Nelson, & Enna, 1978; Dweck, Goetz, & Strauss, 1980;I. W Miller & Norman, 1979). One may speculate that womenwho underestimate performance on masculine tasks may beadopting a learned helpless pattern.
There is a possible alternative explanation for women's lowself-evaluations on masculine and unfamiliar tasks. Womenmight try to appear modest by publicly stating low self-evalua-tions even though their real self-evaluations are higher (Berg etal, 1981; Gould & Slone, 1982). This explanation cannot ac-count for the fact that women's underestimation was a task-spe-cific—rather than generalized—phenomenon, present only inthose tasks for which they had initially low confidence (mascu-line and unfamiliar neutral tasks). Furthermore, it has beenfound that women are modest only when making public state-ments or in anticipation that their statements will be revealedto other subjects (Berg et al, 1981; Gould & Slone, 1982). Be-cause it was emphasized that the task results were anonymous
968 SYLVIA BEYER
and self-evaluations never had to be publicly stated, it seemsunlikely that women's biased self-evaluations were due to a mod-esty effect.
Women's inaccurately low self-evaluations on masculine andunfamiliar neutral tasks may have potentially damaging conse-quences. As Experiment 2 has shown, on masculine and neutraltasks women underestimated performance and subsequentlystated low expectancies for similar future tasks. Women's inac-curately low assessment of their performance on such tasksmight have led to their low future expectancies. This may atleast partially account for the underrepresentation of women incertain male-dominated areas; people with low expectanciesfor future tasks do not usually seek out opportunities for per-forming similar tasks (Weiner et al, 1972). For example, despiteadequate past performance, women with low future expectan-cies for their math grades have been shown to choose not toenroll in advanced math courses (Lantz & Smith, 1981). To putit even more bluntly, a woman's misperceptions regarding hercompetence may lead to low expectancies for future perfor-mances and dissuade her from pursuing a career in certainmasculine-gender-typed domains, whereas a man of equal abil-ity might not doubt his competence for a minute.8 Women'smisperceptions are probably more likely to occur when perfor-mance feedback is unavailable or ambiguous. However, as men-tioned earlier, even in the face of clear performance feedbacksuch as school grades, there is room for biased interpretation.For example, a high grade in math would probably not lead topositive self-evaluations if it were attributed to luck or easinessof the test, which are all too common attributional patterns inwomen (Feather, 1969; Meehan & Overton, 1986; Pasquella etal., 1981; Simon & Feather, 1973; Sohn, 1982; Zuckerman,1979).
The present experiments have shown that initial expectanciesaffect the accuracy of self-evaluations. Because of the seriousimplications of underestimations for self-confidence and psy-chological health (cf. Taylor et al, 1989) more attention shouldbe devoted to the investigation of gender differences in theaccuracy of self-evaluations. Such research will not only eluci-date the underlying processes of self-evaluation biases andtherefore be of theoretical interest but will also be of practicalvalue by suggesting ways of eliminating women's underestima-tions of performance.
8 Shouldn't women, who, as just discussed, often misjudge theirmath abilities, also underestimate their performance on the practicalquestions in Experiment 1 because this task required mathematicalskills? Not necessarily. The practical questions required the use of verybasic math concepts (multiplication, division, calculation of percent-ages) that most college students regardless of gender are familiar with.Subjects were aware of this fact because they had been presented with asample question. Thus, this task was different from the typical situa-tion in which women underestimate their math abilities—namely, amath class in which new and difficult concepts are introduced.
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Received April 13,1989Revision received June 1,1990
Accepted June 8,1990 •
Butcher, Geen, Hulse, and Salthouse AppointedNew Editors, 1992-1997
The Publications and Communications Board of the American Psychological Associationannounces the appointments of James N. Butcher, University of Minnesota; Russell G. Geen,University of Missouri; Stewart H. Hulse, Johns Hopkins University; and Timothy Salthouse,Georgia Institute of Technology as editors of Psychological Assessment: A Journal of Consultingand Clinical Psychology, the Personality Processes and Individual Differences section of theJournal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Psychology: AnimalBehavior Processes, and Psychology and Aging, respectively. As of January 1,1991, manuscriptsshould be directed as follows:
• For Psychological Assessment send manuscripts to James N. Butcher, Department of Psychol-ogy, Elliott Hall, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, Minnesota55455.
• For JPSP: Personality send manuscripts to Russell G. Geen, Department of Psychology,University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211.
• For JEP: Animal send manuscripts to Stewart H. Hulse, Johns Hopkins University, Depart-ment of Psychology, Ames Hall, Baltimore, Maryland 21218.
• For Psychology and Aging send manuscripts to Timothy Salthouse, Georgia Institute ofTechnology, School of Psychology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332.
Manuscript submission patterns make the precise date of completion of 1991 volumes uncer-tain. Current editors will receive and consider manuscripts through December 1990. Shouldany 1991 volume be completed before that date, manuscripts will be redirected to the newlyappointed editor-elect for consideration in the 1992 volume.
