Miyajima Takeru, Yamaguchi Hiroyuki
Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu UniversityFukuoka, Japan.
Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu UniversityFukuoka, Japan.
Front Psychol. 2017 Sep 20;8:1508. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01508. eCollection 2017.
The number of male employees who take paternity leave in Japan has been low in past decades. However, the majority of male employees actually wish to take paternity leave if they were to have a child. Previous studies have demonstrated that the organizational climate in workplaces is the major determinant of male employees' use of family-friendly policies, because males are often stigmatized and fear receiving negative evaluation from others. While such normative pressure might be derived from prevailing social practices relevant to people's expectation of social roles (e.g., "Men make houses, women make homes"), these social practices are often perpetuated even after the majority of group members have ceased to support them. The perpetuation of this unpopular norm could be caused by the social psychological phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance. While researches have explored people's beliefs about gender roles from various perspectives, profound understanding of these beliefs regarding gender role norms, and the accuracy of others' beliefs remains to be attained. The current research examined the association between pluralistic ignorance and the perpetually low rates of taking paternity leave in Japan. Specifically, Study 1 ( = 299) examined Japanese male employees' (ages ranging from the 20 s to the 40 s) attitudes toward paternity leave and to estimate attitudes of other men of the same age, as well as behavioral intentions (i.e., desire and willingness) to take paternity leave if they had a child in the future. The results demonstrated that male employees overestimated other men's negative attitudes toward paternity leave. Moreover, those who had positive attitudes toward taking leave and attributed negative attitudes to others were less willing to take paternity leave than were those who had positive attitudes and believed others shared those attitudes, although there was no significant difference between their desires to take paternity leave. Study 2 ( = 425) replicated these results and further indicated that they could not be explained by the participants' needs to be socially desirable. Together, our findings suggest that pluralistic ignorance occurs in the context of taking paternity leave in Japanese men, and this leads to the low use of available paternity leave.
在过去几十年里，日本休陪产假的男性员工数量一直很少。然而，大多数男性员工如果有孩子的话，实际上都希望休陪产假。先前的研究表明，工作场所的组织氛围是男性员工使用家庭友好政策的主要决定因素，因为男性经常受到污名化，并且担心受到他人的负面评价。虽然这种规范性压力可能源于与人们对社会角色期望相关的普遍社会习俗（例如，“男主外，女主内”），但即使大多数群体成员不再支持这些社会习俗，它们往往仍会持续存在。这种不受欢迎的规范的持续存在可能是由多元无知这一社会心理现象造成的。虽然研究已经从各种角度探讨了人们对性别角色的看法，但对这些关于性别角色规范的看法以及他人看法的准确性仍有待深入理解。当前的研究考察了多元无知与日本陪产假使用率持续偏低之间的关联。具体而言，研究1（N = 299）调查了日本男性员工（年龄在20多岁到40多岁之间）对陪产假的态度，并估计同年龄段其他男性的态度，以及他们如果未来有孩子休陪产假的行为意图（即愿望和意愿）。结果表明，男性员工高估了其他男性对陪产假的负面态度。此外，那些对休陪产假持积极态度并将负面态度归因于他人的人，比那些持积极态度且认为他人也持相同态度的人更不愿意休陪产假，尽管他们休陪产假的愿望没有显著差异。研究2（N = 425）重复了这些结果，并进一步表明这些结果不能用参与者想要符合社会期望的需求来解释。总之，我们的研究结果表明，多元无知在日本男性休陪产假的背景下存在，这导致了陪产假的低使用率。
