The social roles thery suggests that social contexts have different gende role expectations and those gende role expectations can maximze or minimize gende differences. For instance, there are three competing hypothess as to why and in what situations certain people hold doors for others. The gender netral stance hypothesis an equal amount of door holding would consistently be done by both sexes for both sexes. Chivalry is associated with male roles and is another hypothesis that predicts that men hold doors open for women as an act of helpfulness. Yet another stance looks at male dominance and how it is expressed in door holding behavior. This stance adds to the social role theory hypothesing that door holding behaviors will be different depending on the emphasis on gende roles in the social context. The research done by Yoder, Hogue, Newman, Metz and LaVigne (2003) looks at door holding behavior in a dating situation as opposed to everyday life situations, predicting that males will hold open doors more often during a dating situation than in an everyday life sitution. Seven hundred and sixty-nin mixed-gender, college-age, male-female pairs were unobtruvely observed in 16 different locations. The locations selected were places where either dating or non-dating couples were most likely to be found. These locations included shopping mals, universities and fast-good restaurants, for non-dating couples, and sit down restaurants and skate rinks, for dating couples. The amount of door holding for the other, either male of female, was measured. In an everyday contet 55.2% more women, in the couples obsered, held the door open for men than men did for women. In a dating context the reverse was found, 66.8% more men, in the couples observed, held the door open for women than women held the door open for men. This study contradict studies done about 20 years ago, which suggests that door holding practices and gender roles have changed somewhat over the years in everyday life scenario but remain similar in dating scenario. Applying these results to the social role theory also suggests that door holding behavior may be different in dating vs everyday life scenarios because gender roles are more prominent in dating scenarios.
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