Gender-Based Food Stereotypes Among Young Japanese

Abstract

In the last few decades, some studies have demonstrated that people hold gender-related stereotypical attitudes toward foods and eating. These reports have mostly emanated from Western countries, whereas cultural differences in Asian countries have remained unclear. Here, we review the cultural aspects of gender-based food stereotypes and explore the feasibility of introducing implicit attitude measures for the study of food-related stereotypes. Measurements of stereotypical attitudes toward food have depended heavily on the self-reports of participants, which are susceptible to social desirability and self-presentation biases. Psychological techniques developed for measuring implicit attitudes are useful in avoiding such experimental biases. Thus, we elucidated gender stereotypes toward food among young Japanese using not only a self-report questionnaire, but also a semantic priming paradigm.