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Emerging adults’ preferred surnames: Reasons and social cognitive dispositions

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Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
Authors:
Laura Stafford at Bowling Green State University
Laura Stafford
Susan L. Kline at The Ohio State University
Susan L. Kline
Xiaodan Hu
Xiaodan Hu
Xiaodan Hu
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Abstract and Figures

Surname practices in the U.S. are believed to reflect and reinforce the enduring patriarchal nature of U.S. society. Yet, some women and men reject patriarchal expectations. Calls for research accounting for such individual variations have been made. We examine the role that dispositional differences play in preferences for and reasoning about marital surnames in a sample of U.S. heterosexual women and men. With an online survey, we examined 799 heterosexual unmarried emerging adults’ (mean age = 19.9) preferences for their own and a future partner’s surname, reasons for their preferences, and associations with social cognitive dispositions relevant to self- and other-orientations: narcissism and perspective-taking. The findings suggest greater flexibility about women’s surname preferences than previously reported. Approximately one-third of men and women were open to nontraditional options. Reasons for preferences included heritage, tradition, masculinity norms, conceptions of marriage and family, identity, family pressures, and practical reasons. After controlling for age, relational status, traditionalism, autonomy, and career aspirations, lower perspective-taking was predictive of women’s preferences for both partners to retain their birth names, whereas greater narcissism was associated with women’s preferences to retain their birth name. Greater narcissism was associated with men’s desires for both partners to use his name. Taken together, the addition of individual difference dispositions provides greater insight into surname preferences and reasons for those preferences beyond gender masculinity norms.
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Article
Journal of Social and
Personal Relationships
2022, Vol. 39(3) 796–820
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02654075211046391
journals.sagepub.com/home/spr
Emerging adults’preferred
surnames: Reasons and social
cognitive dispositions
Laura Stafford
1
, Susan L. Kline
2
, and Xiaodan Hu
2
Abstract
Surname practices in the U.S. are believed to reflect and reinforce the enduring patri-
archal nature of U.S. society. Yet, some women and men reject patriarchal expectations.
Calls for research accounting for such individual variations have been made. We examine
the role that dispositional differences play in preferences for and reasoning about marital
surnames in a sample of U.S. heterosexual women and men. With an online survey, we
examined 799 heterosexual unmarried emerging adults’(mean age = 19.9) preferences
for their own and a future partner’s surname, reasons for their preferences, and as-
sociations with social cognitive dispositions relevant to self- and other-orientations:
narcissism and perspective-taking. The findings suggest greater flexibility about women’s
surname preferences than previously reported. Approximately one-third of men and
women were open to nontraditional options. Reasons for preferences included heritage,
tradition, masculinity norms, conceptions of marriage and family, identity, family pres-
sures, and practical reasons. After controlling for age, relational status, traditionalism,
autonomy, and career aspirations, lower perspective-taking was predictive of women’s
preferences for both partners to retain their birth names, whereas greater narcissism was
associated with women’s preferences to retain their birth name. Greater narcissism was
associated with men’s desires for both partners to use his name. Taken together, the
addition of individual difference dispositions provides greater insight into surname
preferences and reasons for those preferences beyond gender masculinity norms.
Keywords
Surnames, emerging adulthood, narcissism, perspective-taking, patriarchy, gender
1
School of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University, USA
2
School of Communication, The Ohio State University, USA
Corresponding author:
Laura Stafford, School of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University, 306 Kuhlin Center,
Bowling Green, OH 43402, USA.
Email: llstaff@bgsu.edu
... This study also aimed to extend this research by examining perceptions of men who make nontraditional surname choices (i.e., who adopt their wives' surnames) as well as through the consideration of the more ubiquitous ambivalent, rather than hostile, sexism as a potential moderator of these effects. These questions are particularly important given emerging research suggesting that approximately one-third of unmarried heterosexual young adults, both men and women, are considering making a nontraditional surname choice when they eventually marry (Stafford et al., 2022). It was hypothesized that nontraditional surname decisions (to keep the maiden name for women and to adopt the spouse's surname for men) would be associated with differential perceptions of relationship commitment, quality, power, and likelihood of divorce depending on the gender of the individual making the surname choice. ...
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