Gender and social influence: A social psychological analysis.

ABSTRACT: Men and women are believed to differ in how influential and easily influenced they are: Men are thought to be more influential, and women more easily influenced. In natural settings, men and women tend to differ in these ways, but these differ-ences stem largely from formal status inequalities by which men are more likely than women to have high-status roles. Status is important because of the legitimate authority vested in high-status roles: Within appropriate limits, people of higher status are believed to have the right to make demands of those of lower status, and people of lower status are ex-pected to comply with these demands. Yet, small, stereotypic sex differences in leadership and social influence generally have been found in laboratory