Gender Self-Stereotyping Is Context Dependent for Men But Not for Women

Two experiments tested whether activation of associations between the self and specific aspects of the gender stereotype is context dependent. Self-stereotype associations were assessed with a sequential priming paradigm, using the words “I” versus “others” as primes, and gender-stereotypic trait words as targets in a lexical decision task. For males, self-primes increased the accessibility of male-stereotypic traits in a context in which the stereotypic trait target was relevant but not in an irrelevant context. For females, self-primes increased the accessibility of female-stereotypic traits irrespective of the context. Difference in context dependence of self-stereotyping reflect more flexible gender-role self-concepts for males than females.