How Gender Stereotypes Impact Health Information Seeking Intention: Insights from an Implicit Association Test

Figures & data

Table 1. Predictors of intention to seek information on lung cancer screening

	β	Adjusted R^2	R^2 change	F
Step 1
		.02	–	2.67^†
Gender stereotype	−.18*
Participant gender	−.03
Step 2
		.02	.00	1.85
Gender stereotype X participant gender	.06

Note. *p < .05, ^†p < .10

Table 2. Predictors of intention to seek information on family planning

	β	AdjustedR^2	R^2 change	F
Step 1
		.10	–	8.22***
Gender stereotype	−.29**
Participant gender	−.10
Step 2
		.11	.02^†	6.50***
Gender stereotype X participant gender	.18^†

Note. ***p < .001, ** p < .01, ^†p < .10

Figure 1. Information-seeking intention on family planning: gender stereotype X participant gender

Table

Block	No. of trials	Function	Items assigned to left-key response	Items assigned to right-key response
1	20	Practice	Male	Female
2	20	Practice	Lung cancer screen	Family planning
3	20	Practice	Male + Lung cancer screening	Female + Family planning
4	40	Test	Male + Lung cancer screening	Female + Family planning
5	20	Practice	Female	Male
6	20	Practice	Female + Lung cancer screening	Male + Family planning
7	40	Test	Female + Lung cancer screening	Male + Family planning

Note: For half of the subject, the positions of Blocks 1, 3, and 4 are switched with those of Block 5, 6, and 7, respectively. The procedure in Blocks 3, 4, 6, and 7 is to alternate trials that present either lung cancer screen or family planning with trials that presented either male or female. The procedure used for the IAT reported in this article differed from this standard procedure by including 40 practice trials in Block 6. The procedure for the IAT reported in this article differed from the standard procedure by using 40 practice trial in Block 5. These strategies were used successfully to reduce the typical effect of order in which the two combined tasks are performed. Based on the suggestions in previous literature, the participants were instructed to correct wrong sorting to continue to the next trial.