Doctoral Dissertation Research: Economic Resources, Parental Status and Changing Gender Norms: The Case of Marital Name Choice

在20世纪90年代中期，与工作有关的性别态度变得更加平等，但与家庭有关的性别态度，如婚姻姓氏选择的态度，变化较慢。许多人认为用伴侣名字的女性是无私的，而保留自己本名的女性是个人主义的。该项目将通过确定对违反规范者给予更宽大处理的条件，来研究婚姻姓氏规范可能如何演变。该项目调查了中产阶级或工人阶级的女性和男性、主要经济支柱或次要经济支柱的女性和男性、计划生育或不计划生育的女性和男性在做出非传统的婚姻姓氏决定时（例如，女性保留姓氏或男性在姓氏中使用连字符）是否会受到不同的看待。通过展示公众如何看待非常规行为，女性和男性的特征如何影响他们所面临的后果，以及对名字选择的看法如何影响有关性别平等的更大的公共话语，研究结果将为有关婚姻平等的公共话语增添细微差别。该项目包括三个调查实验，以检验经济资源和父母地位是否以及如何改变婚姻姓氏选择对女性和男性看法的影响。受访者将评估女性和男性的受欢迎程度、支配地位、人际敌意、女性气质和男性气质、感知的育儿能力，并回答评估他们对婚姻名字决定的认可程度的开放式问题。Qualtrics是一个招募受访者的在线调查平台，将为每个实验收集数据。第一项研究将调查是否有，如果有，对打破常规者的看法是如何基于性别和社会阶层而不同的。假设认为，中产阶级男女可能有更多的自由来打破常规，因为中产阶级美国人比工薪阶层美国人被视为更积极。第二项研究将考察除了性别和阶级之外，人们对打破常规者的看法是如何根据相对收入而不同的。假设表明，在关系中主要挣钱的人可能更有讨价还价的能力和打破常规的杠杆作用。第三项研究考察了父母身份对打破常规者的看法是如何不同的，以及这种关系如何因性别和阶级而异。假设认为，当一对夫妇有了孩子后，性别规范将更加严格，因此，如果女性表达了要孩子的计划，那么她们打破名字规范的灵活性可能会降低。三个实验中的每一个都随机地将受访者分配到不同的条件下，这些条件系统地改变了受访者的婚姻姓氏选择（女性使用丈夫的名字，双方都保留名字，双方都使用连字符），性别（女性，男性），以及阶级（工人/中产阶级；研究1），相对收入（女性/男性主要收入来源；研究2）和父母状况（计划/不计划生育；研究3）。研究结果将为有关性别、家庭和美国社会性别规范变化的理论提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Through the mid-1990s, gender attitudes related to work became more egalitarian, but gender attitudes related to family, such as marital name choice attitudes, have been slower to change. Many people perceive women who take partner names as selfless, and women who keep their birth names as individualistic. This project will examine how marital name norms may evolve by identifying the conditions under which norm-breakers are given more leniency. The project examines whether women and men who are middle-class or working-class, women and men who are primary breadwinners or secondary breadwinners, and women and men who do or do not plan to have children are viewed differently when they make unconventional marital name decisions, e.g., when women keep their names or when men hyphenate their names. Findings will add nuance to public discourse about marriage equality by showing how the public views unconventional actions, how female and male characteristics shape the consequences they face, and how views of name choice speak to larger public discourses about gender equality. The project includes three survey experiments to examine whether and how economic resources and parental status change the effect that marital name choice has on views of women and men. Respondents will evaluate the female and male likability, dominance, interpersonal hostility, femininity and masculinity, perceived parenting ability and answer open-ended questions assessing their approval of marital name decisions. Qualtrics, an online survey platform that recruits respondents, will collect data for each experiment. The first study will examine whether and, if so, how views of norm-breakers differ based on gender and social class. Hypotheses suggest that middle-class women and men may have more freedom to break the norm because middle-class Americans are viewed more positively than working-class Americans. The second study will examine how perceptions of norm-breakers differ based on relative income, in addition to gender and class. Hypotheses suggest that individuals who are primary earners in their relationships may have more bargaining power and leverage to break norms. The third study examines how views of norm-breakers differ based on parental status, and how this relationship may vary by gender and class. Hypotheses suggest that gender norms will be more rigid when a couple has children, so women may have less flexibility to break name norms if they express plans to have children. Each of the three experiments randomly assigns respondents to conditions that systematically vary the respondent marital name choice (woman takes name of husband, both keep names, both hyphenate), gender (woman, man), as well as class (working/middle-class; Study 1), relative income (woman/man primary earner; Study 2) and parental status (plan/do not plan to have children; Study 3). Findings will inform theories related to gender, family, and changing gender norms in U.S. society.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.