Gender stereotypes and assumptions about expertise in transactive memory

This experiment investigated how people use gender stereotypes to infer the relative knowledge of interdependent others, and how those assumptions can affect the division of knowledge responsibilities in transactive memory systems. Participants indicated their expertise relative to the average male and female undergraduate student on six knowledge categories. Two of these were consistent with female stereotypes (soap operas and cosmetics), two were consistent with male stereotypes (sports and cars), and two were neutral (geography and history). Everyone then worked on a collective memorization task with an assumed partner. The design was a 2 × 2 factorial, with the participants’ gender and their assumed partners’ gender (same or different as the participant’s) as factors. The results showed that both male and female participants shared similar gender stereotypes across knowledge domains. Participants with opposite-sex partners were more likely to assign categories based on gender stereotypes than were participants with same-sex partners. As a result, participants with opposite-sex partners learned more information in categories consistent with those stereotypes. These findings suggest that transactive memory systems may perpetuate gender stereotypes.     

Effects of perpetrator gender and victim sexuality on blame toward male victims of sexual assault

Most researchers who have investigated attributions of blame toward victims in sexual-assault depictions have considered only female victims of male perpetrators. Few researchers have investigated the effects of perpetrator gender or victim sexual orientation on blame attributions toward male victims. The present authors investigated those two variables. Participants were 161 undergraduates at a British university in social science courses, each of whom read one scenario of a set in which perpetrator gender and victim sexual orientation were varied between subjects, and who completed a questionnaire measuring their blame toward the victim and the perpetrator. The present results showed that male participants blamed the victim more if a person of the gender that he was normally attracted to assaulted him. Male participants also regarded the female perpetrator in more favorable terms than they did the male perpetrator regardless of the victim's sexual orientation. The authors discussed the present results in relation to gender role stereotypes.     

Sexual preference, gender, and blame attributions in adolescent sexual assault

The study investigated the impact of victim sexual orientation, perpetrator gender, and participant gender on judgements toward a 15-year-old male victim of a depicted sexual assault. One hundred and eight-eight participants (97 male, 91 female) read a hypothetical scenario depicting the sexual assault of a 15-year-old male victim where the victim's sexual orientation and the perpetrator's gender were varied between subjects. Participants then completed a questionnaire assessing their attributions toward both the victim and the perpetrator. Results revealed that male participants blamed the victim more than female participants when the victim was both gay and attacked by a male perpetrator. All participants, regardless of gender, made more positive judgements toward the female as opposed to male perpetrator. Results are discussed in relation to gender role stereotypes and homophobia.     

Sexual Preference,Gender, and Blame Attributions in Adolescent Sexual Assault

ABSTRACT

The study investigated the impact of victim sexual orientation, perpetrator gender, and participant gender on judgements toward a 15-year-old male victim of a depicted sexual assault. One hundred and eight-eight participants (97 male, 91 female) read a hypothetical scenario depicting the sexual assault of a 15-year-old male victim where the victim's sexual orientation and the perpetrator's gender were varied between subjects. Participants then completed a questionnaire assessing their attributions toward both the victim and the perpetrator. Results revealed that male participants blamed the victim more than female participants when the victim was both gay and attacked by a male perpetrator. All participants, regardless of gender, made more positive judgements toward the female as opposed to male perpetrator. Results are discussed in relation to gender role stereotypes and homophobia.     

Brain potentials reflect violations of gender stereotypes

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while 14 males and 14 females read sentences containing a reflexive pronoun that referred to a definitionally or stereotypically male or female antecedent noun. Pronouns that disagreed with the gender definition or gender stereotype of the antecedent elicited a large-amplitude positive wave. Violations of gender definitions elicited a larger positive wave than did violations of gender stereotypes. Furthermore, the positive wave elicited by stereotype violations persisted even when subjects judged these sentences to be acceptable. Finally, female subjects exhibited larger positivities than did male subjects, regardless of whether the gender mismatch involved a definitional or stereotypical antecedent. These results are taken to indicate that ERPs are sensitive to violations of gender-based occupational stereotypes and that the ERP response to stereotype violations is similar to the P600 effect elicited by a variety of syntactic anomalies.     

Gender Differences in the Perception of Prisoner Abuse

We examined gender stereotypes and perceptions of aggression in 743 US psychology students at a northeastern university in the USA. Participants rated a vignette depicting torture of an Iraqi prisoner by an American soldier in which the gender of prisoner and guard were varied. The results showed that female participants viewed torture more negatively than male participants. Additionally, participants perceived the torture and killing of a female prisoner warranted significant compensation to her family. However, participants perceived violent acts by a male guard to be as serious as for a female guard, suggesting a shift in perceptions of gender role stereotypes. Our findings demonstrate a change in the gender role stereotyping for females in the military and suggest a number of future studies.     

印象形成中交叉刻板印象的加工机制

以大学生作为被试,旨在探究：在交叉刻板印象加工过程中,是否存在某一单维刻板印象的加工优势效应？如果存在,靶子熟悉度的差异是否会影响单维刻板印象的加工优势效应？该单维刻板印象加工优势效应是否还会受到其他单维刻板印象加工的调节。研究结果表明：（1）在对具有性别-年龄组合而成的交叉刻板印象的人群进行判断时,通过面孔进行启动,发现在不同的条件下分别存在性别单维刻板印象和年龄单维刻板印象的加工优势效应,即年轻男性或女性面孔的性别特征较年龄特征更容易得到加工和提取,老年男性或女性面孔的年龄特征较性别特征更具有加工优势。而在范畴词汇启动下,老年男性或女性词汇启动下的年龄特征较性别特征更具有加工优势。（2）熟悉性会影响单维刻板印象的加工优势,即在年轻被试感知面孔或范畴词汇时,其对老年男性或女性靶子间击中率的差异要显著大于对年轻男性或女性的靶子间击中率的差异。换言之,年轻被试感知老年人靶子的性别与年龄间的差异要显著大于年轻人靶子,出现自我参照现象。（3）在交叉刻板印象加工中,同时存在的各类单维刻板印象加工是彼此削弱的,具有优势加工效应的刻板印象的加工会受到非优势刻板印象加工的抑制。（4）在交叉刻板印象加工中,优势刻板印象加工会受到其相对刻板印象加工的削弱。     

Stereotypes of Suicide Causes for Three Age/Gender Cohorts

On the basis of open-ended questions and interviews using vignettes of fictitious male and female suicide committers of ages 15, 40, and 60, a list of reasons attributed to their suicides was obtained. From this list, a 45-item (5-point Likert scale) checklist was developed. This checklist was administered to a total of 232 respondents in a factorial design. The subjects were asked to respond to items concerning the fictitious suicide committer of their own age and gender, as well as to items for the other two age/gender cohorts. Thus, two groups of subjects answered the checklist. One group of respondents rated the checklist separately for the 3 age cohorts of fictitious male committers (15-year-old male, 40-year-old male, and 60-year-old male). The other group rated the checklist for the three fictitious female committers. The rank of endorsement for each cause was tabulated separately for age/gender cohorts, and indices of overall agreement were computed. The results indicated high agreement among all respondents on the causes of suicide considered to be most likely for a given cohort, as well as a distinct differentiation among cohorts and gender groups. The findings were discussed with reference to cultural stereotypes about suicide causes, and arguments were elaborated on the contribution of these shared beliefs to an individual's decision to commit suicide.     

The definition of sex stereotypes via the adjective check list

The Adjective Check List (ACL) was employed in the empirical definition of male and female stereotypes by 50 male and 50 female college student subjects. Judgments by male and female subjects correlated highly. There were 33 male adjectives and 30 female adjectives on which at least 75% of both sexes agreed. With a 60% agreement criterion, there were 98 male and 83 female adjectives. Both male and female stereotypes were treated as hypothetical persons and were shown to be highly deviant on standard ACL norms, with the male stereotype being more deviant and perhaps more “disturbed” than the female stereotype. It was concluded that the ACL is a promising method for the definition and study of sex stereotypes.     

Violent Female Action Characters in Contemporary American Cinema

This research is a content analysis of violent female action characters (“VFAC”) shown in American action films from 1991 through 2005. The analysis focused on three aspects of VFACs: (1) gender stereotypes, (2) demographics, and (3) quantity and type of violence. Findings showed that 58.6% of VFACs were portrayed in a submissive role to the male hero in the film, and 42% were romantically linked to him. The average VFAC was young, white, highly educated, and unmarried. VFACs engaged in masculine types of violence yet retained feminine stereotypes due to their submissive role and romantic involvement with a dominant male hero character. The findings suggest continued gender stereotypes set within a violent framework of contemporary American cinema.     

Implicit Science Stereotypes Mediate the Relationship between Gender and Academic Participation

While the gender gap in mathematics and science has narrowed, men pursue these fields at a higher rate than women. In this study, 165 men and women at a university in the northeastern United States completed implicit and explicit measures of science stereotypes (association between male and science, relative to female and humanities), and gender identity (association between the concept “self” and one’s own gender, relative to the concept “other” and the other gender), and reported plans to pursue science-oriented and humanities-oriented academic programs and careers. Although men were more likely than women to plan to pursue science, this gap in students’ intentions was completely accounted for by implicit stereotypes. Moreover, implicit gender identity moderated the relationship between women’s stereotypes and their academic plans, such that implicit stereotypes only predicted plans for women who strongly implicitly identified as female. These findings illustrate how an understanding of implicit cognitions can illuminate between-group disparities as well as within-group variability in science pursuit.     

Gender stereotypes associated with vehicle driving among French preadolescents and adolescents

Gender differences in accidentology, notably on roads, are well documented and current research in social psychology tends to explain these differences by gender stereotypes, notably the association of risk-taking with social expectations concerning masculinity. To date, however, little research has explored gender stereotypes associated with vehicle driving. Beliefs about driving by men and women, as well as the effect of the age and gender of the perceiver, were explored using the free association method with 599 preadolescents and adolescents between 10 and 16 years of age. The results show that gender stereotypes are indeed associated with driving from the age of 10. While the representation of male drivers is already stable at this age, the representation of female drivers appears to develop with age. Furthermore, there is a notable in-group serving bias, but only among girls. The results are discussed in terms of an essentialist representation of genders, in-group/out-group relations, age differences in gender stereotypes associated with driving, and practical consequences on driver’s training and socialization to risk-taking.     

Gender-Related Stereotypes of Transformational and Transactional Leadership

This study investigated gender differences in transformational and transactional leadership, and gender-related stereotypes for these forms of leadership. Results indicated that there were no differences in the way the primarily Caucasian subordinates evaluated their actual male and female managers. There were, however, differences in ratings of stereotypic male versus stereotypic female leaders on transformational and transactional leadership, but only by female respondents. Finally, congruence between ratings of actual managers and ratings of stereotypic managers was found primarily for male respondents. Results suggest that stereotypes may be one explanation for gender differences found in prior research on transformational and transactional leadership.     

Children’s Gender Stereotypes Through Drawings of Emotional Faces: Do Boys Draw Angrier Faces than Girls?

The present study was designed to examine the impact of display rules and gender-emotion stereotypes on French children’s depiction of sadness and anger in their drawings of a human face. Participants were 172 school-aged French children (74 boys and 98 girls), who attended state schools in a middle-class district of a southern French city. The exact age range was as followed: 6 years 2 months to 8 years 1 month. They were asked to draw the emotion felt by a character (either male or female) after being told a scenario eliciting sadness and a scenario eliciting anger. By never mentioning the emotion felt by the character, we expected children’s interpretation of these scenarios to be therefore influenced by their own gender and/or by the character’s gender. Results indicate that anger is depicted by more boys than girls in response to the angry scenario, for male as well as for female characters. Furthermore, among the children who did depict anger, the expressive intensity of the drawings was scored lower for children who were presented the feminine character than for children who were presented the masculine character. However, no effect of gender was found on the drawings produced in response to the sad scenario. These results are discussed in terms of the influence of display rules and gender-emotion stereotypes on children. We also suggest some methodological and clinical implications.     

Influence of Gender Roles on Perceptions of Teacher/Adolescent Student Sexual Relations

In this study we explored the effects of respondent gender and the specific gender combination (i.e., cross- and same-gender dyads) on perceptions of a sexual encounter between a teacher and an adolescent student. Respondents (120 male and 120 female undergraduates) read a brief scenario and answered questions about their perceptions of the encounter. Significant interactions emerged between teacher gender and student gender. For example, the male teacher/male student dyad was viewed as the least normative, and the female teacher/male student dyad was perceived as the most normative. Significant interactions also were found between teacher gender and respondent gender. Results generally were consistent with gender role stereotypes.     

交叉分类群体的理科性别刻板印象

为探讨以性别与专业构成的交叉分类群体的理科性别刻板印象,研究采用了内隐联想测验和自我报告两种方式,分别从内隐和外显两个加工层面对其予以考察.结果发现,内隐层面上四类交叉分类群体都存在理科性别刻板印象,但外显层面上只有理科男性、 文科男性和文科女性存在该刻板印象,而理科女性不存在.该结果表明理科性别刻板印象非常顽固,即使...