Effects of subliminal affective priming on occupational gender stereotypes

Abstract

We investigated the effects of subliminal affective priming on implicit and explicit occupational gender stereotypes and their correspondence. First, we manipulated 3 types of affective priming (positive, neutral, and negative) and utilized the Implicit Association Test to find that positively affective priming decreased, and negatively affective priming increased, implicit occupational gender stereotyping at the subliminal level. We then measured participants' explicit occupational gender stereotypes and found that, at the subliminal level, positive affective priming deterred, and negative affective priming enhanced, explicit occupational gender stereotypes. Also, in the condition of subliminal affective priming, implicit and explicit occupational gender stereotypes were not significantly related and affect did not moderate the correspondence between them. In sum, our results showed that affect moderated both implicit and explicit occupational gender stereotypes in the condition of subliminal affective priming, but did not moderate the correspondence between them.