The salience of sex role instructions to mental health professionals

This experiment was concerned with the question of how gender might affect clinical judgment. Mental health professionals (MHP) were asked to rate a protocol (varied for gender) describing a depressed pseudopatient who displayed stereotypically masculine behaviors. The major hypothesis was that, when subjects were aware that the experimental purpose was to measure how patient gender affected clinical ratings, they would suppress bias. If awareness were not present, then bias would be apparent in the ratings. The results failed to support this hypothesis. However, serendipitous results had meaningful relevance for the methodology of gender research. Data from subjects, given a credibility check to determine whether they had guessed the intent of the research, showed that aware subjects were more likely to make incorrect guesses about the study when they rated a male pseudopatient, whereas unaware subjects were more likely to make correct guesses when they rated a female pseudopatient. The interpretation of the data indicated that MHPs differed in their vigilance concerning women's issues. As a result, there may exist a woman's role within the context of psychological experimentation.Thanks to Drs. Tom Morgan, Ed Fischer, and John Turner for their help and support in statistical analyses.