Automatic stereotyping

Abstract

Two experiments tested a form of automatic stereotyping. Subjects saw primes related to gender (e.g., mother, father, nurse, doctor) or neutral with respect to gender (e.g., parent, student, person) followed by target pronouns (stimulus onset asynchrony = 300 ms) that were gender related (e.g., she, he) or neutral (it, me) or followed by nonpronouns (do, all; Experiment 2 only). In Experiment 1, subjects judged whether each pronoun was male or female. Automatic gender beliefs (stereotypes) were observed in faster responses to pronouns consistent than inconsistent with the gender component of the prime regardless of subjects' awareness of the prime-target relation, and independently of subjects' explicit beliefs about gender stereotypes and language reform. In Experiment 2, automatic stereotyping was obtained even though a gender-irrelevant judgment task (pronoun/not pronoun) was used. Together, these experiments demonstrate that gender information imparted by words can automatically influence judgment, although the strength of such effects may be moderated by judgment task and prime type.