The Effects of Social Category Salience and Self-Construals upon Self-Stereotyping Strategies

Abstract

Investigated the effect of gender salience, gender group membership, and independent-interdependent construals of self on self-defining strategies, suggesting that self-stereotyping strategies are employed under conditions of salient gender categories, while self enhancement strategies defining self in positive terms are employed under conditions of salient individual differences. Four hypotheses were tested. Response latencies of 79 Ss' (aged 18-21 yrs) self-descriptions were measured. Results reveal that an unexpected interaction was observed between salience conditions and self construals only in the content of self-description, however, there was no evidence of the effect of salient conditions on self-defining strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)