Structure of gender stereotypes: Interrelationships among components and gender label.

Abstract

Various components of gender stereotypes were examined in three studies to determine their interrelationship and their influence relative to gender label. In the first two experiments, male and female college students were given information about gender and either role behaviors or traits and were asked to assess the probability that the stimulus person possessed other gender-related characteristics. In the third experiment, each of four gender stereotype components was presented in a within-subjects design and subjects made judgments about each other component. Results indicate that (a) information about one stereotype component can implicate other components; (b) specific component information may outweigh gender identification; and (c) components differ in their ability to implicate other components of gender stereotypes, with physical appearance playing a dominant role. The significance of these findings in understanding the structure and operation of gender stereotypes is discussed. Stereotypes play an important role in human judgment, and investigators have shown sustained interest in exploring the content and consequences of such judgments. From Lippman's (1922) early and insightful analysis of the pictures in our heads, through the work of Katz and Braly (1933), Allport (1954), Campbell (1967) and others, stereotypes have continued to hold the interest of social scientists concerned with ways in which we judge and misjudge members of recognizable groups. In recent years, interest in the topic has accelerated, with new attention focused both on the general nature of stereotypes as well as on specific content categories (Hamilton, 1979, 1981; Miller, 1982). At the general level, investigators are increasingly coming to conceptualize stereotypes as one particular instance of more general cognitive processes (Ashmore D Hamilton, 1979;McCauley,