Eagly, Alice (1938-)

Why do men possess more power than women in so many cultures? Does this reflect evolved differences in aptitudes or socially imposed strictures that favor men and discourage women from obtaining positions of power? Few have made as significant theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding these questions as has Alice Hendrickson Eagly.

Eagly's early interests in attitudes led her (in the 1970s) to a critical examination of findings that women are more easily influenced than men. Her review suggested that social status rather than inherent sex differences (the previously accepted explanation) accounted for these effects. These insights led Eagly to further explorations of sex stereotypes, culminating in social role theory, which explains how a gendered division of labor (and the gender hierarchy it reflects) creates sex differences in behavior and corresponding sex stereotypes (e.g., women are more likely to enact the nurturing behavior the homemaker role demands).

By relating social structure (roles) to prescriptions for behavior, Eagly's theory accounted for the origins of sex differences. In response to evolutionary psychologists, Eagly and Wendy Wood expanded the social role approach. Their biosocial theory incorporates the interaction of biological sex differences, such as men's greater size and strength and women's reproductive role, with social factors (e.g., the development of agriculture) to explain why men have been more likely to attain social dominance. Their theory suggests that the declining importance of male size and strength within high-status occupations combined with lower birth rates and shared child rearing underlie the erosion of men's social dominance in post-industrial societies.

Eagly has also initiated discussions of the political dimensions of research on sex differences, urging scientists to resist both simplistic “just-so” stories of evolutionary sex differences and liberal “political correctness” in favor of openness to the data. Eagly and her colleagues were the first to notice, in contradiction to prevailing views of sexism as antipathy toward women, that women are actually stereotyped more favorably than men. At the same time, she noted that this favorability occurs because stereotypical female traits (e.g., nurturance) suit women for traditional, lower-status feminine roles. These findings challenged the notion that prejudice is an undifferentiated antipathy and sparked important advances in understanding the nature of sexism.

Eagly has also been a strong advocate and practitioner of meta-analysis (which allows for statistically sophisticated averaging of effects across studies). For example, Eagly and colleagues' meta-analysis of studies on reactions to women leaders revealed that women are disliked when they adopt a masculine leadership style. These findings inspired Eagly and Karau's role congruity theory, which suggests that prejudice is not a simple antipathy toward a group, but a relatively lower evaluation of group members when evaluated for [Page 210]roles that do not match the group's perceived traits.