Familiarity and sex based stereotypes on instant impressions of male and female faculty

Abstract

To address the stranger-to-stranger critique of stereotyping research, psychology students \((n= 139)\) and law students \((n = 58)\) rated photographs of familiar or unfamiliar male or female professors on competence. Results from Study 1 indicated that familiar male psychology faculty were rated as more competent than were familiar female faculty, whereas unfamiliar female faculty were rated as more competent than unfamiliar male faculty. By contrast, in Study 2, familiarity had a stronger positive effect on competence ratings of female faculty than it did for male faculty. Among psychology students, familiarity increased sex bias against female faculty, whereas among law students familiarity decreased sex bias. Together, these studies call into question the stranger-to-stranger critique of stereotyping research. Our findings have direct implications for the context of student evaluations. In male-dominated disciplines it is important for students to be exposed to female instructors in order to reduce pre-existing biases against such instructors.