Maria Ingrid Teresa Olsson

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences · Inland School of Business and Social Sciences

BACKGROUND: Recent research indicates that as men age, their tendency to ruminate about work decreases, while ruminating remains high in women, which poses an increased risk for impaired health among older women. OBJECTIVE: This study explored gender differences/similarities in the process of unwinding from work in men and women aged between 56–65...

Using data from 15 countries, this article investigates whether descriptive and prescriptive gender norms concerning housework and child care (domestic work) changed after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results of a total of 8,343 participants (M = 19.95, SD = 1.68) from two comparable student samples suggest that descriptive norms about unpai...

This study investigates the relationships between students’ psychosocial needs and their preferences for online vs. offline learning in a post-pandemic environment. A mixed-methods study was conducted at a higher education institution in Norway with 240 Bachelor students. Students in a post-covid learning environment value pedagogical forms of stud...

Despite global commitments and efforts, a gender‐based division of paid and unpaid work persists. To identify how psychological factors, national policies, and the broader sociocultural context contribute to this inequality, we assessed parental‐leave intentions in young adults (18–30 years old) planning to have children (N = 13,942; 8,880 identifi...

Research investigating occupational aspirations in childhood is scarce. In addition, most research on occupational aspirations has focused on increasing the number of women in agentic jobs. In the present work, we investigate factors associated with communal occupational aspirations in two studies with young children (Study 1: 159 children [84 boys...

Despite the growing importance of care economy careers (e.g., healthcare and education), men remain underrepresented in these fields. Past research suggests that, while economically developed nations tend to support equal rights for men and women, their labor markets tend to be highly gender-segregated (Charles 1992; 2003). By examining this parado...

Career development is a lifelong process that starts in infancy and is shaped by a number of different factors during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Even though career development is shaped through life, relatively little is known about the predictors of occupational aspirations in childhood. Therefore, in the present work we investigate ho...

Is there a ‘more helpful’ gender? The present research assessed gender differences in prosocial self‐perceptions, prosocial behavioural intentions, and prosocial (transfer) behaviour in same‐ and other‐gender interactions in 10 countries (N = 1,915). The present results showed negligible differences in the degree to which women and men saw themselv...

Social role theory posits that occupational gender roles give rise to gender differences in behavior, such that men and women engage in qualitatively different prosocial behaviors. Therefore, we expected that women who observed an unfair situation (involving a victim and a perpetrator) would respond by demonstrating communal prosocial behavior (by...

Occupational gender segregation is a worldwide phenomenon. Research from Western regions such as the United States and Europe shows that the observation of occupational gender segregation can perpetuate gender stereotypes (social role theory; men are ascribed agentic traits, whereas women are ascribed communal traits). However, predictions from soc...

A 2 × 2 × 2 experiment examined the role of immigrants’ religion and perceived acculturation strategy on majority members’ attitudes. Acculturation strategies were manipulated along the two dimensions of contact and culture maintenance. Italian majority members (N = 247) read fictitious but seemingly real interviews with Arab immigrants, in which t...

Gender roles are formed in early childhood and continue to influence behavior through adolescence and adulthood, including the choice of academic majors and careers. In many countries, men are underrepresented in communal roles in health care, elementary education, and domestic functions (HEED fields, Croft et al., 2015), whereas women are underrep...

A 2x2x2 experiment examined effects of the acculturation orientations seen to be endorsed by immigrants (of two different religions) on intergroup relations in Sweden. Swedish majority participants (N = 448) read interviews with Iraqi immigrants in which the immigrants’ religion (Muslim vs. Christian), desired level of contact with the host society...