For Other Behaviors, People Care Less about Meeting Norms
People will lie about their sexual behavior to match
cultural expectations about how men or women should act – even though they
wouldn’t distort other gender-related behaviors, new research suggests.
The study found that men were willing to admit that they
sometimes engaged in behaviors seen by college students as more appropriate for
women, such as writing poetry. The same was true for women, who didn’t hide the
fact that they told obscene jokes, or sometimes participated in other
“male-type” deeds.