Citation

Duffy JC, Ridinger B. Sex Roles 1981; 7(1): 25-33.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1981, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF00290895

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study was designed to provide a basis to understand better antifeminine stereotyped attitudes that occur in association with a stimulus no more informative about a person than her first name. College students, mostly freshmen and sophomores, ascribed connotative meanings to common and uncommon masculine and feminine first names while imagining either "real" or "ideal" persons. The results from 48 subjects disclosed that the semantic dimension of potency (e.g., strength and bravery) is likely to be a fundamentally important connotation associated more with masculine names than with feminine names. Two findings very much supported this conclusion. Thus, the potency dimension was the only one of five dimensions of semantic meaning that: (a) yielded any masculine-feminine difference in the "ideal" condition, and (b) showed a disfavorable connotation for feminine names in comparison to masculine names in either the "real" or "ideal" condition.