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Perceptions of Gender Subtypes: Sensitivity to Recent Exemplar Activation and In-Group/Out-Group Differences

Purdue University

Eliot R. Smith

Purdue University

People’s perceptions of gender subtypes were explored by investigating the extent to which these perceptions are context sensitive. Traditional views regard stereotypes as stable structures that are retrieved from memory intact, whereas more recent views contend that stereotypes are constructed at the time that they are evoked and are thus relatively flexible. Context sensitivity was demonstrated by having participants list characteristics of subtypes after being exposed to one of two dissimilar exemplars of the subtypes. As predicted, descriptions of subtypes were found to differ between exemplar conditions. The authors also hypothesized that exemplars would have a stronger effect for participants describing in-group (same-gender) subtypes than for participants describing out-group subtypes, and this hypothesis was confirmed. The role of exemplar information in judgments about in-groups and out-groups is discussed.

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