Warm, but Maybe Not So Competent?—Contemporary Implicit Stereotypes of Women and Men in Germany

Is Your Accent Right for the Job? A Meta-Analysis on Accent Bias in Hiring Decisions

Standard-accented job candidates are perceived as more hireable than non-standard-accented candidates. Two broad perspectives have emerged as to what drives this effect: (a) that it is a pragmatic response to the perception that non-standard accents can impede job-relevant communication (processing fluency explanation) and/or (b) that non-standard accents signal "otherness" and candidates are devalued as a result (prejudice explanation). This meta-analytic integration of 139 effect sizes (N = 4,576) examined these two perspectives. Standard-accented candidates were considered more hireable than non-standard-accented candidates (d = 0.47)-a bias that was stronger for high communication jobs. Other findings, however, are difficult to explain from a processing fluency explanation: candidates' relative comprehensibility was not a significant moderator of hiring bias. Moreover, the degree of accent bias was associated with perceptions of the candidates' social status, and accent bias was particularly pronounced among female candidates and for candidates who spoke in foreign (as compared with regional) accents.

„Sie erscheint durch ihr Übergewicht keineswegs entstellt.“

Wie nehmen Psychoanalytiker*innen ihre männlichen bzw. weiblichen Patient*innen wahr? Anhand von Textanalysen der Berichte an den Gutachter aus Anträgen zur Kostenübernahme für Psychotherapien untersuchten wir, ob es hierbei geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede gibt. Es wurden 20 Berichte von Patienten und 20 Berichte von Patientinnen qualitativ analysiert, resultierend in 399 kodierten Textsegmenten.

Es zeigte sich, dass bei Frauen deutlich häufiger über deren Aussehen (Frisur, Körperbau, Augen, Kleidungsstil und so weiter) geschrieben wird. Auch in der Bewertung des Aussehens zeigten sich Unterschiede: Patientinnen wurden häufiger als hübsch/attraktiv oder als kindlich/jünger wirkend beschrieben, während diese Attribute fast nie bei Männern verwendet wurden. Diese wurden hingegen häufiger als überdurchschnittlich intelligent geschildert.

In der Gegenübertragung zeigten sich bei Frauen häufiger Gefühle von Vorsichtig-sein-Müssen, aber auch von Mitgefühl und Sympathie, bei Männern hingegen häufiger der Wunsch, sie zu beschützen und ihnen zu helfen, der Wunsch, sie zu begrenzen, sowie Ärger/Wut.

Diese Befunde legen nahe, dass Genderstereotype bei der Wahrnehmung von (und dem Schreiben über) Patient*innen eine wesentliche Rolle spielen.

Gender inequality in incivility: Everyone should be polite, but it is fine for some of us to be impolite

Civility is formed by social norms that guide our behavior and allow us to interact appropriately with others. These norms affect everyone and are learned through the socialization process. However, in the same process, people also learn gender norms that dictate how men and women should behave, leading to gender stereotypes and differentiated behavioral characteristics. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between gender and civility, and how we react to those who behave uncivilly given their gender. The results of Study 1 (N = 153) showed that even in a fictional and gender-neutral society, uncivil behaviors were associated with stereotypically masculine characteristics, and those who behaved uncivilly were dehumanized. In Study 2 (N = 144), gender differences were observed in incivility. Women were harsher when facing uncivil transgressors than men, especially if the transgressor was another woman. Our findings support the notion that gender norms are applied to civility, leading those supposedly equal social norms to unequal perceptions and evaluations.

Stereotype Content at the Intersection of Gender and Sexual Orientation

According to the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), the content of stereotypes differs on two dimensions: communion and agency. Research shows that for stereotypes about the general gender categories of “women” and “men,” there is an ambivalent pattern of communion and agency, where high levels on one dimension are associated with low levels on the other. For sexual minority stereotypes, a gender inversion has been found, whereas homosexual women are seen as more similar to men in general than to women in general, whereas homosexual men are seen as more similar to women in general than to men in general. However, there is limited research on how stereotype content for general groups relate to stereotype content for subgroups with intersecting category memberships. This research addresses this gap by investigating stereotype content at the intersection of gender and sexual orientation, including stereotype content for general gender groups, heterosexual groups, homosexual groups, and bisexual groups. In Study 1, a community sample from Sweden (N = 824) rated perceived communion and agency for women and men in general, as well as hetero-, homo-, and bisexual women and men. In Study 2, a nationally representative Swedish sample (N = 424) performed the same rating task, and in addition completed Single-Category IATs (SC-IATs) for warmth and competence. Results from both studies show that the stereotype content for the general categories “women” and “men” overlap with the stereotype content for heterosexual same-gender targets. Homosexual and bisexual groups were rated as more similar to their non-congruent gender category than same gender heterosexual categories were, but stereotype content for sexual minority groups did not overlap with either general gender categories, thus showing only incomplete gender inversion of stereotype content. Implicit associations between “women” and “warmth” were significantly stronger than associations between “men” and “warmth.” There were no other significant relations between implicit associations to warmth/competence and gender or sexual orientation. Theoretical and methodological implications for future research into intersectional stereotype content are presented, including how the findings inform the co-dependent relationship between a binary gender structure and a heteronormative ideology.

Executive Search Consultants' Biases Against Women (or Men?)

Women remain under-represented in leadership positions in many countries. Since executive search consultants (also known as headhunters) act as gatekeepers in the hiring process, headhunters' biases might influence the female under-representation. There is preliminary evidence that suggests headhunters favor men, but direct evidence is missing. Thus, this study directly tested this assumption using implicit and explicit measures (an implicit association test and a gender role attitudes survey), completed by 123 German executive search consultants. Although neither measure showed an anti-women bias (with the explicit measure being compared to a match sample from a representative survey using propensity score matching), the implicit association test showed an in-group bias (i.e., male headhunter had a stronger association of men and competence than of women and competence). The latter is worrisome because the majority of consultants in this business are men. Thus, organizations interested in more female managers need to carefully consider who they hire as their executive search consultants.

Direct and indirect dimensional compensation: Is there a difference between observers and group members?

Dimensional compensation takes place when perceivers judge one of two social targets higher on one of the two fundamental dimensions while judging the other target higher on the second dimension. Interestingly, the majority of studies on the dimensional compensation effect focused on direct measures, with almost no attempt to rely on more indirect measures. We tested whether dimensional compensation also takes place at a more indirect level (Brief-IAT). In Experiment 1, observers presented with unknown groups dimensionally compensated both directly and indirectly. Experiment 2 had participants assigned to one of two novel groups. Whereas low-competence group members dimensionally compensated on both direct and indirect measures, high-competence group members dimensionally compensated at the direct level but did not conceed any advantage to the low-competence group at the indirect level. As a set, our findings shed new light on direct and indirect dimensionally compensatory judgments as a function of perceivers’ vantage points as observers and group members.

Cognitive biases and excessive use of social media: The facebook implicit associations test (FIAT)

Many theoretical accounts of addictive behaviors, including models of Internet use disorders, implicate cognitive biases in the formation and maintenance of excessive behaviors. Yet, little empirical evidence regarding the role of such biases, including implicit attitude, in the development and maintenance of excessive use of social media exists. We seek to bridge this gap in this study. To this end, we present the development of the Facebook Implicit Association Test (FIAT) and employ it in a sample of 220 Facebook users. The results (1) confirm the validity of the concept of implicit attitude and its measure in the context of social media, (2) demonstrate that implicit attitude is significantly positively associated with excessive use scores, in a magnitude similar to that observed for associations with substance use, and (3) show that implicit attitude is sheltered against social desirability bias, unlike self-reported and explicit measures, such as excessive use. Overall, this study builds theoretical and methodological foundations for further inquiries into the role of implicit attitude in research on the excessive use of social media.

Evolved but Not Fixed: A Life History Account of Gender Roles and Gender Inequality

The rift between evolutionary psychology and the biosocial model of gender relations impedes a fuller understanding of gender roles and gender inequality. In a novel evolutionary account that complements both existing theories, we highlight life history strategies as intermediate mechanism linking distal environmental forces to variations in gender relations. Specifically, traditional versus modernized gender roles are seen as shaped by present-oriented versus future-oriented reproductive strategies, which are sensitive to uncontrollable morbidity-mortality risks. Gender inequality stems from a combination of present-oriented reproductive strategies adapted to high-risk environments and dominance hierarchies resulting from societal competition (i.e., the probability of obtaining resources desired by others through personal efforts). By contrast, gender egalitarian values develop as people increasingly enact future-oriented reproductive strategies in a competitive but orderly and controllable environment, which is conducive to prestige hierarchies. The current account provides novel interpretations of phenomena ranging from sex differences in mate preference, sociosexuality, and sexism to cross-cultural variability in marital systems and cultural practices. All of these serve to support the view that gender relations are evolved, changeable, and influenced by the interaction between ecological and social environments in ways predicted by the life history mechanism.

Male Majority, Female Majority, or Gender Diversity in Organizations: How Do Proportions Affect Gender Stereotyping and Women Leaders' Well-Being?

Whereas popular wisdom often centers on character differences between women and men when explaining work-related behavior, Kanter (1977) predicted that the proportion of women and men present in organizations is the crucial factor: With unequal proportions, women (similar to other minority persons) are singled out as "tokens" and gender becomes salient, which has been theorized to have a range of negative consequences. In contrast, if proportions of women and men are similar (i.e., in the presence of gender diversity), gender is not salient, and the work environment becomes much more positive for women. These considerations imply that not only a male majority, but also a female majority at work has negative consequences, because gender becomes salient in both cases. However, empirical research on work environments with female majorities at the top of organizations is scarce. The present study tested the perception of a range of negative consequences, including work-related well-being, among women in leadership positions in Spain who reported a male majority, a female majority, or similar proportions of both genders at the top level of their organization. The online convenience sample consisted of a total of N = 649 women leaders. In addition to work-related well-being, we measured perceived work-family conflict and perceived feelings of guilt associated with work-family conflict, traditional gender stereotypes regarding warmth and competence, women-leadership stereotypes, negative work-related stereotypes of mothers, gender harassment, and stigma consciousness. Almost all of our findings support Kanter's theorizing that equal proportions of both genders go along with more positive perceptions as compared to a male majority. However, a female majority went along with as negative perceptions as a male majority regarding several of the outcome variables, but was associated with the most positive perceptions for other outcomes. We discuss implications and possible reasons for the latter mixed findings.

Age and Gender Differences in Facial Attractiveness, but Not Emotion Resemblance, Contribute to Age and Gender Stereotypes

Considerable research has shown effects of facial appearance on trait impressions and group stereotypes. We extended those findings in two studies that investigated the contribution of resemblance to emotion expressions and attractiveness to younger adults (YA) and older adults (OA) age and gender stereotypes on the dimensions of warmth and competence. Using connectionist modeling of facial metrics of 240 neutral younger and older faces, Study 1 found that, neutral expression older faces or female faces showed greater structural resemblance to happy expressions and less resemblance to angry expressions than did younger or male faces, respectively. In addition, neutral female faces showed greater resemblance to surprise expressions. In Study 2, YA and OA rated the faces of Study 1 for attractiveness and for 4 traits that we aggregated on the dimensions of competence (competent, healthy) and warmth (trustworthy, not shrewd). We found that YA, but not OA, age stereotypes replicated previous research showing higher perceived warmth and lower perceived competence in older adults. In addition, previously documented gender stereotypes were moderated by face age for both YA and OA. The greater attractiveness of younger than older faces and female than male faces influenced age and gender stereotypes, including these deviations from prior research findings using category labels rather than faces. On the other hand, face age and face sex differences in emotion resemblance did not influence age or gender stereotypes, contrary to prediction. Our results provide a caveat to conclusions about age and gender stereotypes derived from responses to category labels, and they reveal the importance of assessing stereotypes with a methodology that is sensitive to influences of group differences in appearance that can exacerbate or mitigate stereotypes in more ecologically valid contexts. Although the gender differences in attractiveness in the present study may not have generalizability, the age differences likely do, and the fact that they can weaken the attribution of greater warmth and strengthen the attribution of lower competence to older than younger individuals has important practical implications.

Can Big Five Facets Distinguish between Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being? A Dominance Analysis

In this study, the aim was to analyze the relative importance of Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality facets for eudaimonic or psychological well-being (PWB) and hedonic or subjective well-being (SWB) through dominance analyses. The participants were 1,403 adult residents of Spain (mean age 37.2 years, SD = 13.9). As expected, facets captured a substantial proportion of the variance in PWB and SWB, with PWB being better predicted than SWB (explaining around 36-55% of the variance of PWB vs. 25% of the variance of SWB). Some facets were common to both types of well-being such as depression (explaining between 5-33% of the variance), vulnerability (explaining between 4-21% of the variance), positive emotions (explaining between 2-9% of the variance) and achievement striving (explaining between 2-10% of the variance), whereas others made a unique contribution according to type of well-being. Certain facets had a greater relative importance for women's well-being -e.g., positive emotions explained 9% of the variance of self-acceptance for women vs. 3% for men- and others for men's well-being -e.g., achievement striving explained 9% of the variance of personal growth for men vs. 2% for women-. The present results contribute to the literature by identifying which Big Five facets showed greater relative importance in explaining and distinguishing between PWB and SWB for women and men.

Traditional Masculinity and Femininity: Validation of a New Scale Assessing Gender Roles

Gender stereotype theory suggests that men are generally perceived as more masculine than women, whereas women are generally perceived as more feminine than men. Several scales have been developed to measure fundamental aspects of gender stereotypes (e.g., agency and communion, competence and warmth, or instrumentality and expressivity). Although omitted in later version, Bem's original Sex Role Inventory included the items “masculine” and “feminine” in addition to more specific gender-stereotypical attributes. We argue that it is useful to be able to measure these two core concepts in a reliable, valid, and parsimonious way. We introduce a new and brief scale, the Traditional Masculinity-Femininity (TMF) scale, designed to assess central facets of self-ascribed masculinity-femininity. Studies 1–2 used known-groups approaches (participants differing in gender and sexual orientation) to validate the scale and provide evidence of its convergent validity. As expected the TMF reliably measured a one-dimensional masculinity-femininity construct. Moreover, the TMF correlated moderately with other gender-related measures. Demonstrating incremental validity, the TMF predicted gender and sexual orientation in a superior way than established adjective-based measures. Furthermore, the TMF was connected to criterion characteristics, such as judgments as straight by laypersons for the whole sample, voice pitch characteristics for the female subsample, and contact to gay men for the male subsample, and outperformed other gender-related scales. Taken together, as long as gender differences continue to exist, we suggest that the TMF provides a valuable methodological addition for research into gender stereotypes.

Warm-hearted businessmen, competitive housewives? Effects of gender-fair language on adolescents' perceptions of occupations

Recent studies from countries with grammatical gender languages (e.g., French) found both children and adults to more frequently think of female jobholders and to consider women's success in male dominated occupations more likely when the jobs were described in pair forms (i.e., by explicit reference to male and female jobholders, e.g., inventeuses et inventeurs; French feminine and masculine plural forms for inventors), rather than masculine only forms (e.g., inventors). To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, we systematically varied the gender connotation of occupations (males overrepresented, females overrepresented, equal share of males and females) and measured additional dependent variables, predicting that gender fair language would reduce the impact of the gender connotation on participants' perceptions. In a sample of 222 adolescents (aged 12-17) from French speaking Switzerland, we found that pair forms attenuated the difference in the ascription of success to male and female jobholders in gendered occupations and attenuated the differential ascription of warmth to prototypical jobholders in male vs. female dominated jobs. However, no effect of language form on the ascription of competence was found. These findings suggest that language policies are an effective tool to impact gendered perceptions, however, they also hint at competence-related gender stereotypes being in decline.

Ironic Effects of Sexual Minority Group Membership: Are Lesbians Less Susceptible to Invoking Negative Female Stereotypes than Heterosexual Women?

The traditional stereotype of the typical woman has been described as "nice, but incompetent." However, such general gender stereotypes are applied to individual targets only under certain conditions: They are used to "fill in the blanks" (Heilman, 2012) if little personal information is provided about a target. "Typical lesbians" are regarded to have more typically masculine (agentic) characteristics such as task competence than the typical woman does. We thus hypothesized that if a woman displays behavior coinciding with the stereotype of the typical woman, it is more readily interpreted as stereotypically female if performed by a heterosexual woman than by a lesbian. Participants (N = 296) read a hypothetical job interview in which we manipulated the target's sexual orientation (between subjects). Findings demonstrated that a lesbian was judged as more competent than a heterosexual woman in the presence of behavior that may be interpreted as gender-stereotypical (Experiments 1 and 2). This difference in competence judgments was not found in the absence of gender-stereotypical behavior (Experiment 1). Judging the heterosexual woman as low in masculinity was related to a judgment of lower competence (Experiment 2). Our findings demonstrate that there are conditions under which lesbians, a group often stereotyped negatively, are less susceptible to invoking negative female stereotypes than heterosexual women are.