Gender Processing and Person Perception

Abstract

In order to assess alternative theoretical predictions concerning the effects of gender schemas on memory, a paradigm was employed which varied gender trait information about a pictured stimulus. Descriptions given about this person were either discordant (opposite-sex adjectives), concordant (same-sex adjectives), or neutral. The picture of the target person was then presented tachistoscopically, and college student subjects were later asked to choose the previously seen figure from an array of figures that varied in physique traditionality. Categorization of gender schema type was made on the basis of the Personality Attributes Questionnaire. The four categories included: masculine schematics, feminine schematics, androgynous, and undifferentiated individuals. Results indicated that recognition errors were affected jointly by variations in behavioral information and gender schemas but not by either variable alone. Similarity of performance for the four groups was most in accordance with Bern's position (i.e., androgynous and undifferentiated subjects similar; both sex-typed groups similar), but the particular patterns obtained did not fit well with any of the theoretical positions previously espoused. Both sex-typed and non-sex-typed subjects exhibited biases but of differing kinds. Several possible explanations for these findings are discussed.