Gender inequality has multiple and complex causes that tend to contribute to one another. Gender inequality is also among the most vexing of scientific problems, not because we cannot identify plausible causes, but because we have identified so many of them. This research analyzes gender inequality as a product of multidirectional power dynamics. The purpose of the research is to experimentally test theoretical causes of gender inequality in a context in which multiple forms of power may be exercised. Four experiments will test some basic theories of how gender inequality is created and maintained. Each experiment examines how people use four or five kinds of power in interaction with others in an experimental game. Kinds of power include control of exchangeable resources like money, use of force to coerce others and reduce their power, social legitimacy, asymmetric obligations to others, and sexuality. Each kind of power is represented with a colored token. The rules provide for how players can use each token to respond to requirements the game imposes or to initiate actions. Although each kind of power is represented abstractly, the game has many analogies to life. The game method allows one to measure power in several forms: exercised power (as used in game behavior), potential power (what a player is able to do), perceived power (reputations among other players), and relative power (how much more power one player has than another player). Because gender inequality provides organization to societies in the form of family structure, leadership structure, the reproduction of culture, as well as relations with other societies, understanding how gender inequality is created and maintained is essential for understanding most other important aspects of human social life.
Social power is one of the most complicated, and also most important, aspects of human life. How much power people have influences the quality of their lives, what they can do, and even how long they live. Power is also very difficult to study scientifically, for several reasons. First, some uses of power people find legitimate or ethical, and other uses of power people find illegitimate or unethical. Either one of these might make people try to deceive others about their use of power. Second, there are many kinds of power: knowledge, social status, violence, and social attractiveness. Third, power tends to co-occur with many other things, both for individuals and for groups. For example, a person who acquires good skills or education (knowledge) is more likely to get high social status, an authority position. The U.S., a global power or "Great Power" has considerable wealth, high literacy rates, and a strong military. Haiti, in contrast, is low in all of these. Co-occurrences like this are an aspect of power, but they make it difficult to understand separate effects. Fourth, in order to conduct experiments about power, we would need to study people for a long time (e.g., as they accumulate knowledge) and we would want to study real consequences of power, including those that could hurt people. Of course that would be unethical and so, would not be done. The research funded in this proposal developed a new scientific method for studying many of the complexities of social power. The method we invented is a game. We had several reasons for doing this: (1) a game lets scientists set the rules and conditions for people to have to respond to, (2) the people in the experiments also could interact with other real people in the experiments, (3) the behavior people chose to do during games is real -- it has consequences for themselves and the other people they are with, and they care about it, even if temporarily, (4) because we did not have to make it obvious what kinds of power we represented in the game, we could measure simulations of negative outcomes such as violence, death, rape, coercion (as well as positive ones such as sharing, survival, protection, being fair). We also conducted four experiments to test different hypotheses that have been offered about why men tend to have more power than women. By doing this, we were able to learn even more about what scientists can do with this experimental method. We created a website that researchers and instructors can use to design their own experiments or their own teaching activities. You are welcome to visit: http://intergroup.uconn.edu/pbt/index.html Here are some of our research findings: A) Different kinds of gendered power: Experiments demonstrated several different hypotheses about how inequality can be created between men and women: 1) If one group wants something the other has, and also if getting that thing has few risks to the pursuers, (analogous to men's access to women's sexuality) 2) If one group must depend on the other group when it has few resources (such as when men earn much higher wages than women), 3) If social norms suggest that everyone should be competitive and/or watch out for themselves more than other people (the way some people feel men are socialized to be, while women are socialized to care for others). This is the first experimental evidence for these qualitative hypotheses in anthropology, sociology, feminist studies, and social psychology. B) Power and equality: If people in our experiments saw that some players started with lower power than other players, they corrected this by redistributing power. But, if the inequality was not obvious, it persisted and often increased. C) Power and justice: In some experiments we gave certain players a subtle position of greater power. People in the lower power positions thought that rules or actions in the game that would advantage them over the higher power players were fairer than the higher power players did. Likewise, higher power players thought that rules or actions that would advantage them were fairer than lower power players did. D) Inequality and Stress: In our experiments, inequality increased over time due to how players plaid the game. The more simulated violence was used in a given game session, the more people did not "survive" the game. More inequality made the players who had become more powerful feel better, and the ones who became less powerful felt worse. However, the more inequality there was in a game session, the more everyone's feelings went up and down during the game. This is analogous to research showing that in more unequal societies, such as the US and UK, people feel more stressed and have worse health than in more equal societies, such as Japan and the Nordic countries.
