Janine Bosak

Nations' income inequality predicts ambivalence in stereotype content: How societies mind the gap

Income inequality undermines societies: The more inequality, the more health problems, social tensions, and the lower social mobility, trust, life expectancy. Given peoples tendency to legitimate existing social arrangements, the stereotype content model (SCM) argues that ambivalence-perceiving many groups as either warm or competent, but not both-may help maintain socio-economic disparities. The association between stereotype ambivalence and income inequality in 37 cross-national samples from Europe, the Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Africa investigates how groups overall warmth-competence, status-competence, and competition-warmth correlations vary across societies, and whether these variations associate with income inequality (Gini index). More unequal societies report more ambivalent stereotypes, whereas more equal ones dislike competitive groups and do not necessarily respect them as competent. Unequal societies may need ambivalence for system stability: Income inequality compensates groups with partially positive social images.

Exploring the dynamics of incongruent beliefs about women and leaders

People tend to have similar beliefs about leaders and men but dissimilar beliefs about leaders and women. A decrease in this perceived incongruity between beliefs about women and leaders might follow from perceived changes in either or both of these stereotypes. In two experiments we investigated the dynamics of this stereotype incongruity by examining cross-temporal perceptions of change in womens roles and leadership demands. In Experiment 1, participants judged a target group (leaders, men, or women) in a specified year in the past, the present and the future with regard to gender-stereotypic traits. In Experiment 2, participants evaluated the same target groups in a future society in which the role distribution between the sexes was described as traditional, same-as-today, or equal. Altogether our findings indicate that the perceived incongruity between the leader stereotype and the female stereotype is a dynamic phenomenon. Participants beliefs indicated erosion of the perceived incongruity between leaders and women because of a perceived change in womens roles. We discuss the implications of these beliefs for future social change.

Die Bedeutung von Informationen zur sozialen Rolle für die Reduktion geschlechtsstereotypen Urteilens: Ein methodisches Artefakt?

Zusammenfassung: Die Forschung zur sozialen Rollentheorie hat durchweg gezeigt, dass die Vorgabe derselben Rolleninformation geschlechtsstereotype Personlichkeitsbeurteilungen von Mannern und Frauen reduziert. Die vorliegende Studie hinterfragt die rollentheoretische Erklarung dieser Befunde und untersucht, inwieweit die bisherigen Ergebnisse dadurch zustande kamen, dass Personen unterschiedliche Standards fur Manner und Frauen bei ihren Beurteilungen anwendeten. Die Versuchspersonen verglichen Manner und Frauen in derselben Rolle, d. h. im Haushalt tatig, Vollzeit berufstatig oder nicht spezifiziert, hinsichtlich geschlechtsstereotyper Eigenschaften. Um einen Wechsel der Beurteilungsmasstabe zu verhindern, gaben die Versuchspersonen auf derselben Ratingskala an, ob das jeweilige Personlichkeitsmerkmal bei einem/einer durchschnittlichen Mann/Frau mehr oder weniger ausgepragt ist als bei einer durchschnittlichen Person des anderen Geschlechts. In Ubereinstimmung mit der sozialen Rollentheorie wurden im Hau...