Elaborative and Nonelaborative Processing of a Behavior-Related Communication

Abstract

Experiment 1 unexpectedly found sex differences in evaluative gender stereotypes (only men associated male with potency and only women associated female with warmth). Experiment 2 dramatically reduced sex differences in gender-potency judgments when measures were redesigned to avoid implying that potency was positive (the concepts, strong and weak, were represented by evaluatively matched words; e.g., destroy vs. feeble, loud vs. quiet, and mighty vs. gentle). Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that these sex differences were in the service of self-esteem but found no correlation between own-gender-favorable stereotyping and implicit self-esteem. Rather, participants showed a correlation between linking self to the favorable potency trait and linking own gender to that trait. Experiment 4 confirmed the correlation between implicit self-concept and gender stereotype using the contrast between potency and warmth for the implicit stereotype measure. In concert, results suggest that people possess implicit gender stereotypes in self-favorable form because of the tendency to associate self with desirable traits.