Attribution of gender to a gender-unspecified individual: An evaluation of the people = male hypothesis

Merritt, Rebecca Davis; Kok, Cynthia J.

doi:10.1007/bf01544608

Cited by 50 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…But the Biphobia Scale itself is limited in that the items specify attitudes toward''a bisexual individual. ''Since studies of gender-neutral language indicate that when gender is unspecified, participants assume maleness (Hamilton, 1991;Merritt & Kok, 1995), it is probable that the Biphobia Scale has inadvertently assessed attitudes toward bisexual men. The Biphobia Scale was chosen for use in the present study due to its greater range of items, but modification of the scale (to specify gender of the bisexual) was undertaken in order to explore our research questions.…”

Section: Biphobia and Binegativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and Binegativity: Men’s and Women’s Attitudes Toward Male and Female Bisexuals

2011

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This study assessed the influence of gender on attitudes about bisexuals. A total of 164 heterosexual female and 89 heterosexual male undergraduates completed the Biphobia Scale (Mulick & Wright, 2002), rewritten to refer to bisexual men and bisexual women and thus re-named the Gender-Specific Binegativity Scale. A mixed-design ANOVA revealed an interaction between rater's sex and target's sex: women equally accepted bisexual men and bisexual women, but men were less accepting of bisexual men than bisexual women. A mediation analysis indicated the relationship between rater's sex and greater acceptance of bisexual women was partially explained by eroticization of female same-sex sexuality. Finally, participants also responded to two open-ended items, which provided additional information about the content of binegativity: participants described male bisexuals negatively, as gender-nonconforming, and labeled them "really gay," whereas participants described female bisexuals positively, as sexy, and labeled them "really heterosexual." These findings suggest multiple underlying beliefs about bisexuals that contribute to binegativity, particularly against bisexual men. Results also confirm the importance of considering gender (of both the target and the rater) when assessing sexual prejudice.

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Section: Biphobia and Binegativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and Binegativity: Men’s and Women’s Attitudes Toward Male and Female Bisexuals

2011

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“…There is evidence to suggest a 'people-as-male' bias, however, in that people attribute to gender-unspecified targets characteristics that are more similar to men than to women. For example, participants perceived a gender-ambiguous target as less caring, less cheerful, and less feminine than an explicitly female target (McKelvie and Waterhouse 2005; Merrit and Kok 1995). These findings lead us to believe that evaluations of a gender-ambiguous applicant will be most similar to those of a male applicant.…”

Section: Gender-ambiguous Applicantsmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…One study by Merrit and Kok (1995) found that the perceived gender of a gender-unspecified target was not related to scores on the Bem Sex Role Inventory. There is evidence to suggest a 'people-as-male' bias, however, in that people attribute to gender-unspecified targets characteristics that are more similar to men than to women.…”

Section: Gender-ambiguous Applicantsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Ambivalent Sexism and Applicant Evaluations: Effects on Ambiguous Applicants

Salvaggio

Streich²,

Hopper

2009

Sex Roles

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The purpose of the current research was to evaluate how gender stereotypes and sexist attitudes affect responses to hypothetical job applicants. In Study 1 (N=93) undergraduate and graduate students in the Southwestern USA evaluated a male, female, or gender-ambiguous resume. They also completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick and Fiske 1996). Hypotheses were tested using ANOVA. Results suggested that participants who expressed more hostile sexist attitudes evaluated the gender-ambiguous applicant more negatively than a male or female applicant. In Study 2 (N=117), graduate and undergraduate participants were asked to indicate the gender of the ambiguous applicant. Those who scored high on hostile sexism, and perceived a gender-ambiguous applicant to be male, provided the most favorable evaluations.

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“…If this is the case for children as well, when gender-neutral contexts are involved, it may lead boys to inflect verbs in the male direction and girls to inflect verbs in the female direction. Second, gender-neutral contexts may be resolved by the application of what has been dubbed the Male as Default heuristic, a default which leads to the attribution of maleness rather than femaleness to others, barring the availability of contradictory information (e.g., Hamilton 1991;Merritt and Kok 1995). For instance, Hamilton found that a typical person with a typical name was more often thought of as male than as female.…”

Section: Hebrew and Gendermentioning

confidence: 97%

Children’s Production of Subject–Verb Agreement in Hebrew When Gender and Context are Ambiguous

Karniol

Artzi

Ludmer

2016

J Psycholinguist Res

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Third and 5th grade Hebrew-speaking children performed two sentence completion tasks, one requiring the assignment of male, female, or gender-ambiguous names and the inflection of verbs for male-stereotyped, female-stereotyped, and gender-neutral activities, and the other task, of inflecting verbs for male- and female-stereotyped activities performed by children with gender-ambiguous names. The question of concern was whether when faced with the need to inflect verbs to match the conceptual gender of the sentence subject, the gender-stereotyped nature of the activities in question and children's own gender would play a role in resolving the dilemma created by gender-ambiguous names and contexts. In both parts of the study, we found that (1) children's own gender played a role in determining the pattern of verb inflection, and (2) children used their semantic knowledge regarding the gender-stereotyped nature of activities to inflect verbs so as to create subject-verb agreement. Hence, subject-verb agreement in children draws on both their grammatical and semantic knowledge.

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Attribution of gender to a gender-unspecified individual: An evaluation of the people = male hypothesis

Cited by 50 publications

References 18 publications

Gender and Binegativity: Men’s and Women’s Attitudes Toward Male and Female Bisexuals

Gender and Binegativity: Men’s and Women’s Attitudes Toward Male and Female Bisexuals

Ambivalent Sexism and Applicant Evaluations: Effects on Ambiguous Applicants

Children’s Production of Subject–Verb Agreement in Hebrew When Gender and Context are Ambiguous

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