The colour of gender stereotyping

Despite legislative attempts to eliminate gender stereotyping from society, the propensity to evaluate people on the basis of their sex remains a pernicious social problem. Noting the critical interplay between cultural and cognitive factors in the establishment of stereotypical beliefs, the current investigation explored the extent to which culturally transmitted colour-gender associations (i.e., pink is for girls, blue is for boys) set the stage for the automatic activation and expression of gender stereotypes. Across six experiments, the results demonstrated that (1) consumer choice for children's goods is dominated by gender-stereotyped colours (Experiment 1); (2) colour-based stereotypic associations guide young children's behaviour (Experiment 2); (3) colour-gender associations automatically activate associated stereotypes in adulthood (Experiments 3-5); and (4) colour-based stereotypic associations bias impressions of male and female targets (Experiment 6). These findings indicate that, despite prohibitions against stereotyping, seemingly innocuous societal practices may continue to promote this mode of thought.     

Comprehending pronouns: a role for word-specific gender stereotype information

The research investigated how word-specific gender stereotype information can be used during language comprehension. In a rating study, the gender stereotypes for 405 noun and noun compounds were assessed. From these norms, 32 words strongly stereotyped to refer mostly to males and 32 words strongly stereotyped to refer mostly to females were selected and used in a reading experiment. Comprehenders read pairs of sentences. The subject of the first sentence was a gender stereotyped word (e.g., executive or secretary). The subject of the second sentence was either the pronoun he or she. Reading time was significantly longer when gender of the pronoun mismatched the gender stereotype of the antecedent than when the genders of pronoun and antecedent matched. This gender mismatch effect occurred on the two regions immediately following the region containing the pronoun. The results indicated that word-specific gender stereotypes can influence coreference resolution of pronouns.     

Unconscious processing of dichoptically masked words

In three experiments, the subjects' task was to decide whether each of a series of words connoted something good (e.g., fame, comedy, rescue) or bad (stress, detest, malaria). One-half second before the presentation of each such target word, an evaluatively polarized priming word was presented briefly to the nondominant eye and was masked dichoptically by either the rapidly following (Experiment 1) or simultaneous (Experiments 2 and 3) presentation of a random letter-fragment pattern to the dominant eye. (The effectiveness of the masking procedure was demonstrated by the subjects' inability to discriminate the left vs. right position of a test series of words.) In all experiments, significant masked priming effects were obtained; evaluative decisions to congruent masked prime-target combinations (such as a positive masked prime followed by a positive target) were significantly faster than those to incongruent (e.g., negative prime/positive target) or noncongruent (e.g., neutral prime/positive target) combinations. Also, in two of the three experiments, when subjects were at chance accuracy in discriminating word position, their position judgments were nevertheless significantly influenced by the irrelevant semantic content (LEFT vs. RIGHT) of the masked position-varying words. The series of experiments demonstrated that two very different tasks--speeded judgment of evaluative meaning and nonspeeded judgment of word position--yielded statistically significant and replicable influences of the semantic content of apparently undetectable words. Coupled with previous research by others using the lexical decision task, these findings converge in establishing the reliability of the empirical phenomenon of semantic processing of words that are rendered undetectable by dichoptic pattern masking.     

Effects of antecedent order and semantic context on Chinese pronoun resolution

Three reading time experiments were conducted in order to examine the relative contributions of order of antecedents and semantic context to the resolution of temporarily ambiguous Chinese pronouns. These pronouns were ambiguous because each of them was preceded by two antecedents, both of which were likely candidates for coreference. The identity of the pronoun was revealed by subsequent disambiguating information that constrained the pronoun to one particular interpretation. Experiment 1 showed that reading of the disambiguating phrase was slower when the phrase confined the pronoun to the second rather than to the first antecedent. Experiment 2 produced the same effect of antecedent order (first vs. second antecedent) regardless of whether the target antecedent was an action-performing or an action-receiving entity. In Experiment 3, the order effect was eliminated by a biasing modifier inserted immediately before the pronoun. These results indicate that in a semantically neutral environment, the first-appearing antecedent is the preferred candidate for coreferencing the ambiguous Chinese pronoun. The interaction between order of antecedents and semantic context (in the form of preposed biasing modifiers) suggests that the initial comprehension of Chinese pronouns depends as much on contextual as on structural factors.     

When “Just Say No” is not enough: Affirmation versus negation training and the reduction of automatic stereotype activation

Previous research has shown that extended training in non-stereotypic responding (i.e., negating stereotypes and affirming counterstereotypes) can reduce automatic stereotype activation. In the present research, we claim that the effects of non-stereotypic association training on automatic stereotype activation are primarily driven by the affirmation of counterstereotypes rather than by the negation of stereotypes. In two experiments, participants received extensive training in either (a) negating stereotype-congruent information or (b) affirming stereotype-incongruent information, and then completed a measure of automatic stereotyping (Experiment 1) or automatic evaluation (Experiment 2). Consistent with our predictions, only training in the affirmation of counterstereotypes led to a reduction in the activation of stereotypes and negative evaluations. In contrast, extended training in the negation of stereotypes enhanced rather than reduced the activation of stereotypes and negative evaluations. Implications for prejudice and stereotype control are discussed.     

Shallow processing of ambiguous pronouns: Evidence for delay

Two self-paced reading-time experiments examined how ambiguous pronouns are interpreted under conditions that encourage shallow processing. In Experiment 1 we show that sentences containing ambiguous pronouns are processed at the same speed as those containing unambiguous pronouns under shallow processing, but more slowly under deep processing. We outline three possible models to account for the shallow processing of ambiguous pronouns. Two involve an initial commitment followed by possible revision, and the other involves a delay in interpretation. In Experiment 2 we provide evidence that supports the delayed model of ambiguous pronoun resolution under shallow processing. We found no evidence to support a processing system that makes an initial commitment to an interpretation of the pronoun when it is encountered. We extend the account of pronoun resolution proposed by Rigalleau, Caplan, and Baudiffier (2004) to include the treatment of ambiguous pronouns under shallow processing.     

Shallow processing of ambiguous pronouns: evidence for delay

Two self-paced reading-time experiments examined how ambiguous pronouns are interpreted under conditions that encourage shallow processing. In Experiment 1 we show that sentences containing ambiguous pronouns are processed at the same speed as those containing unambiguous pronouns under shallow processing, but more slowly under deep processing. We outline three possible models to account for the shallow processing of ambiguous pronouns. Two involve an initial commitment followed by possible revision, and the other involves a delay in interpretation. In Experiment 2 we provide evidence that supports the delayed model of ambiguous pronoun resolution under shallow processing. We found no evidence to support a processing system that makes an initial commitment to an interpretation of the pronoun when it is encountered. We extend the account of pronoun resolution proposed by Rigalleau, Caplan, and Baudiffier (2004) to include the treatment of ambiguous pronouns under shallow processing.     

Changes Over Time in the Comprehension of <Emphasis Type="Italic">He</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">They</Emphasis> as Epicene Pronouns

An epicene pronoun is a gender-neutral singular pronoun used in sentences when the gender of the subject is unknown or unspecified. In English, he and they are commonly-used epicene pronouns. Until recently, he has been widely accepted as being grammatically correct. However, many have argued that he is sexist because it may bias people to think about males. Two experiments were performed using a lexical decision task in which participants reacted to gendered words (e.g., aunt and uncle) after reading sentences using he, they, or unrelated epicene pronouns. We conducted the experiments 15 years apart in order to explore whether change in pronoun usage and the social significance of pronouns would be associated with different priming effects. Both experiments demonstrated that pronouns influence the processing of gendered nouns. However, in Experiment 1 they facilitated the processing of feminine nouns whereas in Experiment 2, he slowed the processing of feminine nouns. We discuss these results with respect to language change and conclude that they is a more effective epicene.     

Violating stereotypes: Eye movements and comprehension processes when text conflicts with world knowledge

We investigated the effect of discourse context on the access of word meaning during reading. Target words were role names (e.g., electrician) for which there was a gender stereotype (e.g., electricians are stereotypically male). Target sentences contained a reflexive pronoun that referred to the role name (e.g., The electrician taught herself ...). Participants read these target sentences with or without paragraph context while their eye movements were monitored. In the absence of discourse context and in neutral discourse contexts, fixation times on the reflexive pronoun and immediately following the pronoun were inflated when the pronoun specified a gender that mismatched the stereotype, indicating that the gender stereotype was activated upon encountering the role name. When prior discourse context indicated the gender of the role-named character, this mismatch effect was eliminated. The mismatch effect indicates that gender stereotypes are automatically activated in the absence of disambiguating information. The lack of an effect when gender has previously been specified is consistent with the lexical reinterpretation model proposed by Hess, Foss, and Carroll (1995).     

Facial expressions can inhibit the activation of gender stereotypes

ABSTRACT

Using faces as the priming stimuli, the present study explored the influence of facial expressions on the activation of gender stereotypes using a lexical decision paradigm. Experiment 1 explored the activation of gender stereotypes when the facial primes contained only gender information. The results showed that gender stereotypes were activated. In Experiment 2, the facial primes contained both gender category and expression information. The results indicated that gender stereotypes were not activated. Experiment 3 required the participants to make emotion, gender, or impression decisions concerning the facial primes before the lexical decision task. The results showed that gender stereotypes were not activated in emotion and impression decisions conditions, whereas stereotypes were activated in gender decisions condition. These finding suggest that facial expressions can inhibit automatic activation of gender stereotypes, unless the perceivers perform gender categorization processing to prime faces intentionally.     

Effects of Prime Type and Delay on Multiplication Priming: Evidence for a Dual-process Model

Two experiments investigated effects of numerical primes on production of simple multiplication facts (e.g. 4 × 8 = ?). In Experiment 1, a correct (32), related (24), unrelated (27), or neutral (##) prime appeared for 200 msec and was followed by a target problem at an ISI of 0, 750, or 1500 msec. Relative to neutral primes, correct primes produced constant RT and accuracy benefits across ISIs, and unrelated primes produced constant RT costs. Related primes produced costs compared to unrelated primes at the 0-msec ISI only. In Experiment 2, eliminating correct-answer primes from the stimulus set eliminated all the false-prime effects except the costs of related primes at the 0-msec ISI. We propose a dual-process account incorporating a familiarity-based name-the-prime strategy that produces benefits and costs insensitive to ISI and an automatic retrieval-priming process that is measurable only at short ISIs.     

THE BACON not the bacon: how children and adults understand accented and unaccented noun phrases

Two eye-tracking experiments examine whether adults and 4- and 5-year-old children use the presence or absence of accenting to guide their interpretation of noun phrases (e.g., the bacon) with respect to the discourse context. Unaccented nouns tend to refer to contextually accessible referents, while accented variants tend to be used for less accessible entities. Experiment 1 confirms that accenting is informative for adults, who show a bias toward previously-mentioned objects beginning 300 ms after the onset of unaccented nouns and pronouns. But contrary to findings in the literature, accented words produced no observable bias. In Experiment 2, 4 and 5 year olds were also biased toward previously-mentioned objects with unaccented nouns and pronouns. This builds on findings of limits on children's on-line reference comprehension [Arnold, J. E., Brown-Schmidt, S., & Trueswell, J. C. (2007). Children's use of gender and order-of-mention during pronoun comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes], showing that children's interpretation of unaccented nouns and pronouns is constrained in contexts with one single highly accessible object.     

常识性知识和语篇语境对代词指认的影响

本研究围绕中文代词理解中, 读者的常识性知识和语篇语境的作用以及作用时程这一问题展开。实验1首先探讨在中文阅读理解中, 职业性别倾向这种常识性信息是否能对代词的指认产生早期影响。存在一致和冲突(如警卫-他; 警卫-她)两个实验条件, 结果在凝视时间、重读时间和总阅读时间上都发现了职业性别倾向所引发的性别冲突效应。实验2在实验1基础上增加一个代词(如：警卫-他-他; 警卫-她-她), 考察更正后的信息, 即文本语境内容是否可以覆盖常识的作用对代词加工产生影响。结果发现语篇语境确实可以覆盖常识性信息的作用, 对代词加工产生早期影响。但是, 职业性别倾向这种常识性知识仍然在代词加工的后期阶段发挥作用。考虑到代词所形成的语境较为含蓄, 实验3中采用更明确的方式来界定职业名称的性别, 例如男艺人、爸爸等, 然后再出现一个代词, 代词的性别始终和先前的性别描述一致, 而与职业性别倾向冲突, 这样也存在一致和冲突两个条件(例如：保姆-妻子-她, 警卫-妻子-她), 结果发现只有更正后的语境信息对代词加工产生影响, 职业性别倾向不再发挥作用。说明在中文这种高语境依赖性的语言文字中, 语境可以覆盖常识性知识对代词加工产生早期作用。但是, 语境作用的持续性问题会受到语篇语境中性别信息明确程度的影响。     

The use of heuristic strategies in the interpretation of pronouns

The aim of the two experiments reported here was to distinguish between two heuristic strategies that have been proposed to account for the assignment of pronouns: the subject assignment strategy and the parallel function strategy. According to the subject assignment strategy, a pronoun is assigned to a preceding subject noun phrase, whereas according to the parallel function strategy, a pronoun is assigned to a previous noun phrase in the same grammatical position as the pronoun. These two strategies were tested by examining the interpretation of single object pronouns, first in a reading task and second in an assignment task. In both experiments, there was a strong preference for assigning an object pronoun to the preceding subject noun phrase, thus supporting the subject assignment strategy. However, this was only the case for pronouns that were linguistically ambiguous. When assignment was constrained by gender, there was no effect of either strategy. It is suggested that heuristic strategies are only used in the absence of other strong cues to assignment.     

Further ironies of suppression: Stereotype and counterstereotype accessibility

Three experiments explored the accessibility of stereotypes and counterstereotypes following stereotype suppression. Using a lexical decision task, experiment 1 demonstrated that the counterstereotype showed greater accessibility following stereotype suppression compared to stereotype expressers and no prime control participants. Using a person perception task, experiment 2 revealed that suppression can make both the stereotype and the counterstereotype more accessible. Experiment 3 manipulated cognitive load and found evidence that the stereotype and counterstereotype are made accessible through two different processes associated with suppression: The stereotype is made accessible through the more automatic monitoring system, whereas the counterstereotype is made accessible through the resource-dependent operating system. The three experiments demonstrate a novel lack of inhibition of the counterstereotype by the stereotype, provide a clear demonstration of hyperaccessibility of suppressed stereotypes by comparing stereotype suppression to a stereotype expression condition, and contribute to the priming literature by demonstrating the interactive effects of accessibility, applicability, and judgment order on person perception evaluations.     

具有类属知识性的思维:群体区别判断过程中的复杂性、有效性、有用性和实质性

类属性思维(stereotypes)在一定的程度上是对群体区别正确反映的类属信仰.类属性思维比我们一般假想的更为复杂.首先,我们在本论文中探讨了在立体性的类属性思维EPA理论框架之下的多维度,即类属性思维的三维度:评估、激活和准确度.同时还特别讨论了类属性思维与具体集体共识的表征特点的图腾信仰之间的密切关系.其次,对于作为人类信仰一部分的类属性思维准确性莫衷一是的研究,我们进行了全面综述,并且本文还仔细考查文化类属性思维,个体类属性思维,个体与群体的判断,准确性评判的标准,和原分析的数据等等,同时进一步表明类属性思维和客观现实性有密不可分的关系.最后,我们指出类属性思维对解释群体和民族的区别非常重要,特别是人的感知的实质性寓于实在的客观群体本身(“感知的同一性”).我们认为,类属性思维的过程,对于高度的实体性和感知的实质性的群体来说,具有深刻影响,况且群体或部落(民族)的图腾也是其群体或民族的实体性的外在表现.尽管我们不可能解决同类属性思维的过程有关的所有争论,但我们所强调的观点是:类属性思维是人类相互影响和生存的有效类属性识别.     

Reducing prejudice through priming of control-related words

We investigated the effect of incidentally presented constructs that imply self-control on activated stereotypes associated with immigrants. To activate immigrant stereotypes, participants responded to a scale that measures people's prejudice toward immigrants. They were then primed, using scrambled sentences, with words that were related to self-control (e.g., control, restrain, self-regulate) or with neutral words. After the priming task, participants evaluated an ambiguous behavior of a target person. On the basis of three experiments, the results showed that participants primed with the control-related words rated the target behavior more positively than those primed with neutral words. The results are discussed in relation to previous research on self-control, automatic influence of activated constructs, and prejudice reduction.     

Capacité de mémoire de travail et traitement du pronom chez l’enfant

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and reading comprehension in children by testing the processing of pronouns. Two groups of nine- to ten-year-old children classified as high span and low span were administered a pronoun processing task. In this task, the computation of the antecedent referent for pronouns was varied by manipulating the distance between the pronoun and its antecedent and the availability of a gender cue. The results showed that compared to high-span children, low-span children experienced more difficulties in computing a pronoun's referent. High-span children spent longer reading sentences containing anaphoric pronouns when pronouns could not be resolved on the basis of the gender alone, suggesting that the pronouns were resolved as they were read. Low-span children tended to delay resolution until it was required by the task. In the question-answering times, low-span children were more adversely affected by distance than high-span children. Altogether these findings support the view that working memory capacity constrains resolution of anaphoric pronouns in children.     

Experimental evidence for a minimalist account of English resumptive pronouns.

In this article we provide evidence for a Minimalist account of English-type resumptive pronouns. Our findings provide empirical support for syntactic theories that, like Minimalist accounts, allow for competition among derivations. According to our account, resumptive pronouns are spell-outs of traces. For reasons of economy, the resumptive pronoun surfaces only when the derivation with the trace is precluded by syntactic principles. This account predicts that resumptive pronouns should only improve violations of constraints on representation, and not violations of constraints on movement. We tested this prediction by conducting an acceptability judgment task with 36 native speakers of English. The results bore out our prediction; subjects preferred the resumptive pronoun over the trace in cases where the trace itself was illicit, but not in cases where only the movement operation was illicit.     

动词隐含因果性对代词加工的影响

本研究探讨了在汉语句子理解中动词隐含因果性对代词指认的影响。在实验一巾,被试进行自定步速的阅读．结果发现当动词隐含因果性和句中代词实际所指一致时阅读时间较短,不一致时阅读时间较长。实验二采用眼动技术,句中两个参与者性别不同,代词上提供性别线索,结果显示了动词隐含因果性在代词加工上微弱的即时效应。