Men Are Hierarchical, Women Are Egalitarian: An Implicit Gender Stereotype
Abstract
The goal of the present study was to provide empirical evidence for the existence of an implicit hierarchy gender stereotype indicating that men are more readily associated with hierarchies and women are more readily associated with egalitarian structures. To measure the implicit hierarchy gender stereotype, the Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald et al., 1998) was used. Two samples of undergraduates (Sample 1: 41 females, 22 males; Sample 2: 35 females, 37 males) completed a newly developed paper-based hierarchy-gender IAT. Results showed that there was an implicit hierarchy gender stereotype: the association between male and hierarchical and between female and egalitarian was stronger than the association between female and hierarchical and between male and egalitarian. Additionally, men had a more pronounced implicit hierarchy gender stereotype than women.
References
Anderson, C. , John, O. P. , Keltner, D. , Kring, A. M. (2001). Who attains social status? Effects of personality and physical attractiveness in social groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 116– 132Bargh, J. A. , Chen, M. , Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 230– 244Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155– 162Berger, J. , Fisek, M. H. , Norman, R. Z. , Zelditch, M. (1977). Status characteristics and social interaction. An Expectation States Approach.. New York: ElsevierCohen, J. (1977). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Academic PressEagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: ErlbaumEagly, A. H. , Karau, S. J. , Miner, J. B. , Johnson, B. T. (1994). Gender and motivation to manage in hierarchic organizations: A meta-analysis. Leadership Quarterly, 5, 135– 159Greenwald, A. G. , McGhee, D. E. , Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464– 1480Johnson, C. , Clay-Warner, J. , Funk, S. J. (1996). Effects of authority structures and gender on interaction in same-sex task groups. Social Psychology Quarterly, 59, 221– 236Lemm, K. , Sattler, D. N. , Khan, S. , Mitchell, R. A. , Dahl, J. (2002). February Reliability and validity of a paper-based Implicit Association Test. Poster presented at the annual convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Savannah, GALowery, B. S , Hardin, D. D. , Sinclair, S. (2001). Social influence effects on automatic racial prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 842– 855Nosek, B. A. , Banaji, M. R. , Greenwald, A. G. (2002). Math = male, me = female, therefore math ≠ me. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 44– 59Pratto, F. , Stallworth, L. M. , Sidanius, J. (1997). he gender gap: Differences in political attitudes and social dominance orientation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 49– 68Rosenthal, R. (1991). Meta-analytic procedures for social research. 6, Newbury Park, CA: SageRudman, L. A. , Greenwald, A. G. , McGhee, D. E. (2001). Implicit self-concept and evaluative implicit gender stereotypes: Self and ingroup share desirable traits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1164– 1178SchmidMast, M. (2001). Gender differences and similarities in dominance hierarchies in same-gender groups based on speaking time. Sex Roles, 44, 537– 556SchmidMast, M. (2002). Female dominance hierarchies: Are they any different from males’?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 29– 39Spangler, W. D. (1992). Validity of questionnaire and TAT measures of need for achievement: Two meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 140– 154Steele, C. M. , Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797– 811
