STUDY: Sorry guys, chivalry isn’t dead after all
London - Old-fashioned chivalry is alive and well despite decades of gender equality and feminism, research shows.
And social norms mean a man is still more at risk of being sacrificed when it comes to saving lives, experiments revealed.
And social norms mean a man is still more at risk of being sacrificed when it comes to saving lives, experiments revealed.
British actor Colin Firth looks like the quintessential gentleman. Credit: EPA
In one scenario, test subjects picked whether they would push a man, woman or gender-neutral bystander into the path of a tram in order to save five others.
Both male and female participants were far more likely to push the man or person of unspecified gender. In another test, a group were given £20 (about R360) each and told the sum would be multiplied up to tenfold, giving them as much as £200.
But researchers’ colleagues would be given mild electric shocks if they kept the cash. Again, women were less likely to be hurt, even when subjects lost cash.
Finally, more than 350 subjects were asked questions such as “on a sinking ship, whom should you save first? Men, women, or no order?”
Both genders’ answers suggested they believed that: women were less tolerant to pain; that it was unacceptable to harm females for gain – and that society still endorses chivalry.
Prof Dean Mobbs, of Columbia University in New York, said: “Society perceives harming women as more morally unacceptable.”
