Categorization and Stereotypes about Men and Women

Abstract

This experiment examined the relationship between categorization by gender and stereotyping of men and women. After listening to a recorded discussion, college students tried to match up the male and female discussants with their statements. They then evaluated on stereotype measures either these speakers or men and women they had not seen before. Results showed that categorization, that is, the difference between intra -and intersex recognition errors, was correlated with sex-stereotyping of discussion participants on one of two stereotype measures. Categorization was unrelated to stereotyping of individuals whose behavior was not observed. These results suggest that categorization may produce different impressions of individuals from different categories by biasing the specific information associated with them, but that these impressions may not generalize to stereotypes about category members in general.