Guys: As you walked into the office this morning, did you hold the door open for a colleagueIJ Was this co-worker a manIJ If so, thanks a lot. You may have done him more harm than good. That’s the surprising conclusion of recently published research, which suggests holding a door open while you let another man enter first can lower his self-esteem and self-confidence. Real men, it seems, navigate doorways unassisted.
There is a down side to “seemingly innocuous but unexpected helping behaviour that violates gender norms,” Purdue University psychologists Megan McCarty and Janice Kelly write in the journal Social Influence. Their results suggest even a simple act of kindness can convey a negative message — He thinks I’m weak! — which can lead to increased self-doubt.
McCarty and Kelly describe an experiment featuring 196 people who walked into a building on a university campus. The entrance had two doors directly next to one another, each of which opened outward.
Each subject was approached by a male member of the research team as they walked toward the building. For half, the research associate “took a step in front of the participant, opened the door, and let the participant walk through the door first.” For the other half, he reached for the adjacent door, so that the two opened their doors more or less simultaneously. (Agencies)