Gendered Races

Abstract

Six studies explored the overlap between racial and gender stereotypes, and the consequences of this overlap for interracial dating, leadership selection, and athletic participation. Two initial studies captured the explicit and implicit gender content of racial stereotypes: Compared with the White stereotype, the Asian stereotype was more feminine, whereas the Black stereotype was more masculine. Study 3 found that heterosexual White men had a romantic preference for Asians over Blacks and that heterosexual White women had a romantic preference for Blacks over Asians; preferences for masculinity versus femininity mediated participants' attraction to Blacks relative to Asians. The pattern of romantic preferences observed in Study 3 was replicated in Study 4, an analysis of the data on interracial marriages from the 2000 U.S. Census. Study 5 showed that Blacks were more likely and Asians less likely than Whites to be selected for a masculine leadership position. In Study 6, an analysis of college athletics showed that Blacks were more heavily represented in more masculine sports, relative to Asians. These studies demonstrate that the gender content of racial stereotypes has important real-world consequences.

Putting prejudice into perspective: Does perceived suitability for adoption depend on sexual orientation more than on other applicant features?

“…Such boundary conditions were not obvious in our experiments, and it is thus an open question when they are relevant and when they are not. Based on previous research, one could assume that ethnicity and sexual orientation should interact more strongly than the factors we investigated because stereotypes of ethnicities appear to be gendered (e.g., Galinsky, Hall, & Cuddy, 2013;Remedios et al, 2011). Our preliminary conclusion is that identity intersections of sexual orientation, age, and SES play a minor role in the context of prejudice against adoptive parents.…”

The neural basis of stereotypic impact on multiple social categorization

“…In support of the hypothesized overlap in stereotype content between Black male and Asian female, participants deviated more toward the male category when categorizing Black targets, and more toward the female category when categorizing Asian targets. Most importantly, individuals harboring stronger Black male and Asian female stereotypical associations exhibited greater mouse-trajectory deviations toward the category response congruent with these stereotypes (Johnson et al, 2012; see also Galinsky et al, 2013). Thus, an incidental overlap in stereotypes between multiple category dimensions (e.g., Black, male, and anger associations with hostility) can alter the perception of each dimension.…”

More Than Meets the Eye: Split-Second Social Perception

“…These ‘race is gendered’ effects are exacerbated for perceivers holding stronger overlapping stereotypes between Black and male categories, and Asian and female categories [48,50]. These perceptual biases also have lasting impacts, predicting leadership selection or interracial dating [51]. Other categories also become perceptually entangled with race and gender, such as emotion.…”