Significant other representations activate stereotypic self-views among women

Abstract

We predicted and found that the extent to which self-views were consistent with prevailing stereotypes depended on the cognitive accessibility of representations of a significant other. Seventy-nine women participated in a two-stage experiment. In the first stage, participants named and described significant or unimportant others who they perceived as viewing them in a stereotypic or counter-stereotypic way (i.e., as having communal vs. agentic qualities). Approximately a week later, one of the significant or unimportant others was made cognitively accessible prior to completing a self-view measure. The results showed that women shifted their stereotype relevant self-views to correspond with the perceived views of a significant other but not to those of an unimportant other.

Notes

1. We acknowledge that the link to the first session was not disguised and, therefore, participants may have explicitly recalled having identified the primed significant other as someone who views them as communal or agentic. We raise this concern in the discussion section.

2. We suspect that our inability to find a difference between ratings on feminine and masculine traits when participants thought about a significant other perceived to view them as agentic was a function of the fact that, overall, participants described themselves as more feminine than masculine. Participants described themselves as more agentic when thinking about a significant other thought to view them in that manner, but not so much so that it overcame the overall main effect.

3. The 3-way interaction of Relationship Significance, Perceived Views and Traits after controlling for the coding was consistent with previous results, F(1, 67) = 5.32, p = .02, η² = .08. Simple effect analyses yielded consistent results. The main effect of Traits was no longer significant, F(1, 67) < 1, p > .50.