When boy meets girl: Sex roles and the negotiation of intimacy in an acquaintance exercise

Abstract

Sex roles in the social construction of a mixed-sex encounter were examined in an acquaintance exercise in which partners disclosed alternately, selecting on each turn from an intimacy-scaled list of topics. 74 female and 38 male undergraduates participated. Results indicate that males were the principal architects of such encounters, regardless of which partner took the 1st turn. They proceeded independently in their choice of topics, dictating the pace at which intimacy increased during the exercise, whereas females enabled a degree of consensus to emerge by matching the pace set. However, females selected less intimate topics than males and reported less enjoyment of the encounters; they also reported exercising less influence on the course the encounters took. Data also show that these interactions were subject to greater strain than similar encounters between pairs of females and that females in the mixed-sex dyads engaged in more intimate disclosure than they might have wished. Data are consistent with traditional sex role stereotypes bearing on the control of interpersonal relationships. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1978 American Psychological Association.