Brief Encounters: Impact of Gender, Sex-Role Attitudes, and Partner's Gender on Interaction and Cognition i

Research on sex differences in dyadic interactions has largely neglected the effects of sex-role attitudes and has focused on overt behavior to the relative omission of information-gathering and affective responses. In addition to behavioral observations, individuals in sameor opposite-sex pairs completed questionnaires on recall and descriptions o f the partners, as well as ratings o f liking. It was hypothesized that sex-role attitudes of the participant, his/her gender, and the partner's gender wouM affect responses. As anticipated, the sex-role-traditional individuals displayed behaviors most consistent with previous research, while sex-role-liberal students exhibited different patterns. Recall and description o f the partner were also affected in complex fashion by participant gender, partner gender, and participant sex-role attitudes. Methodological issues were raised, including the possible reactivity of measures o f sex-role attitude.