Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Towards Male Looking Females and Female Looking Males: Evidence from China

Abstract

In many reports, it is not difficult to see that some beautiful and feminine boys have received a lot of criticism from society. We investigated whether people’s attitude is biased against males wearing female-type and females wearing male-type. Thirty-five adults were included and measured their implicit and explicit attitudes. In the implicit test, we find that people tend to use less time and make fewer mistakes to associate the female wearing male-type with positive words and the male wearing female-type with negative words. Meanwhile, in the explicit survey, the data displays that Chinese people prefer females wearing male-type rather than males wearing female-type. This study explores people's attitudes towards others' dress and provides a new connection between positive and negative views and between female cross-gender wearers and male cross-gender wearers.