Role expectations in social dilemmas: Sex roles and task motivation in groups.

Tested the impact of asymmetric role relationships (in which some group members contribute more to the group's welfare than others) on behavior in a social dilemma setting by manipulating the sex composition of cooperative performance dyads, using 47 male and 48 female undergraduates. The prescriptions of traditional sex roles suggested that Ss of both sexes would defect more (i.e., work less hard) with a male partner than with a female partner, both when the partner presented an opportunity to free ride and when the partner appeared to be free-riding on the S's efforts. Results confirm this prediction. Male Ss were less willing to free ride when the partner was female than male, while females were more willing to free ride on their male partner than on their female partner. In the sucker condition, both males and females seemed to balk more at the prospect of carrying a male free rider than a female free rider. Further analyses suggested that the effects should not be attributed to perceived sex differences in task ability. Plausible alternatives are discussed, including the possibility that interaction with women, per se, encourages greater effort, regardless of whether roles prescribe differential effort for the task.