The relationship between implicit gender-stereotyped knowledge and person judgment

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between implicit gender-stereotyped knowledge (female-dependence) and the construct accessibility effect on person judgment. Thirty-six male and 36 female undergraduates participated in two ostensibly unrelated tasks. First, the participants were exposed to stimuli related to either neutral or dependent personality traits in a vigilance task. Second, the participants read a story about either a male or a female target and evaluated their impressions about the target. In addition, the participants undertook the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures the strength of implicit associations. The results indicate that the participants had an implicit gender-stereotyped association between females and dependence. Consistent with that association, the participants who were exposed to dependent stimuli judged the female target, but not the male target, as more dependent than did the participants who were exposed to the neutral stimuli. Moreover, there was a positive correlation between the ratings of dependence for the target person and the strength of the implicit association. These results suggested that implicit associations are closely related to the effect of previous exposure to primes on person judgments.