Gender Stereotypes as Contextualized Expectations

Gender stereotypes as situationbehavior proles
q
Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton
*
, Sang Hee Park, Alexander OConnor
Department of Psychology, University of California, 3210 Tolman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 19 September 2007
Revised 18 February 2008
Available online 7 March 2008
Keywords:
Gender
Situationbehavior proles
Social cognition
Impression formation
a b s t r a c t
Recent research suggests that social perceivers dispositional inferences are inuenced by information
about the ways others behavior varies stably across situations. We extend this research to stereotypes.
Specically, we examined peoples preconceptions about the situationbehavior proles that social
groups are likely to display, as well as the implications of such preconceptions for behavioral judgments.
Focusing on gender stereotypes, in Study 1 we found that perceivers expectations about mens and
womens assertiveness are qualied by situational information. Study 2 revealed that perceivers beliefs
about the mentalistic attributes (e.g., goals, beliefs, motivations) that characterize men and women med-
iated the relationship between target gender and perceivers expectations about situationbehavior pat-
terns. Study 3 explored how such contextualized stereotypes affect on-line judgments of targets
behavior, showing that perceivers judge a given behaviors assertiveness based not only on target gender
but also on situation type.
2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction
The stereotype of differential assertiveness between men and
women is well established in the literature (Heilbrun, 1976; Kelly
& Hutson-Comeaux, 1999; Locksley, Borgida, Brekke, & Hepburn,
1980). Nevertheless, the question of how people expect such asser-
tiveness to be played out across situational contexts has received
little empirical attention. What is the intuitive model that people
hold, for example, when they say men are assertive, or women
are passive?
Based on prior research showing that peoples trait descriptors
may be a type of shorthand for an intuitive theory that encodes
behavioral as well as situational information (e.g. Kammrath, Men-
doza-Denton, & Mischel, 2005), we argue here that people expect
men and women to display different if. . .then. . . proles of asser-
tiveness. Such if. . .then. . . situationbehavior proles (e.g., she does
X in situation A, but Y in situation B) have been shown to be char-
acteristic of peoples actual behavior (e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995;
Mischel, Shoda, & Mendoza-Denton, 2002; Shoda, Mischel, &
Wright, 1994), and research increasingly points to the fact that so-
cial perceivers are sensitive to targets stable behavioral variability
across situations (Chen-Idson & Mischel, 2001; Mendoza-Denton,
1999; Plaks, Shafer, & Shoda, 2003; Shoda, Mischel, & Wright,
1989, 1993). Here we extend this work to address whether stereo-
types can be conceptualized in terms of if. . .then. . .proles. We fur-
ther address the implications of such a view of stereotypes for
perceivers behavioral judgments. Specically, do perceivers judg-
ments of a targets behavior depend not only on category member-
ship of the target, as has been well established (Biernat, Manis, &
Nelson, 1991; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004; Rudman
& Glick, 2001), but additionally on the type of situation the target
is in?
Perceiving others: situationbehavior proles, traits, and mentalistic
attributes
Over the past three decades, the literature has emerged sug-
gesting that the social perceiver expects, is aware of, and actively
utilizes information from the way others behavior varies stably
across situations (Cantor, Mischel, & Schwartz, 1982; Shoda & Mis-
chel, 1993; Shoda, Mischel, & Wright, 1993; Tramow, 1998;
Wright & Mischel, 1988; Zuroff, 1982). Why would perceivers be
attentive to such information?
We propose that if. . .then. . . patterns provide perceivers with
windows into the mental lives of othershow those others see
and interpret the world, what they value, and what their goals
may be. In support of this notion, research shows that even when
two targets display the same overall average level of behavior,
their pattern of behavior vis--vis situations can lead to different
inferences (Kammrath et al., 2005; Plaks et al., 2003; Shoda & Mis-
chel, 1993). Kammrath et al. (2005), for example, presented partic-
ipants with targets who displayed the same overall level of
sociable behavior. Whereas one target was warm toward superiors
0022-1031/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.02.010
q
The authors thank Ozlem Ayduk, Serena Chen, Lara Kammrath, Walter Mischel,
Corey Ann Pallatto, Jason Plaks, and Yuichi Shoda for comments on earlier drafts of
this manuscript. We also thank Danielle Grant and Amy Blum for assistance with
data collection.
* Corresponding author. Fax: +1 510 642 5293.
E-mail address: rmd@berkeley.edu (R. Mendoza-Denton).
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44 (2008) 971982
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
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but cold toward peers, the other target was warm toward peers but
cold to superiors. The former target was assumed to have the goal
of getting ahead at the expense of others, and rated low on agree-
ableness. The latter target, by contrast, was assumed to have egal-
itarian beliefs and a genuine concern for others, and rated as highly
agreeable. In other words, from multiple observations that re-
vealed systematic situationbehavior covariations, perceivers ex-
tracted meaningful information about targets mentalistic
attributestheir construals, motivations, and beliefs.
Kammrath et al.s (2005) ndings are signicant for two rea-
sons. First, even though it has long been argued that inferring oth-
ers goals, beliefs, and motives is an important part of the person
perception process (Ames, 2004; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997; Malle,
Moses, & Baldwin, 2001; Read, Jones, & Miller, 1990; Reeder,
1993; Reeder, Vonk, Ronk, Ham, & Lawrence, 2004) these ndings
shed light on how people believe such mentalistic attributes are
manifested in terms of specic situationbehavior patterns. Sec-
ond, the ndings show that a conceptualization of the perceiver
as one who thinks about others in terms of goals, motives and
if. . .then. . . proles is not incompatible with the fact that people
routinely describe others using broad trait terms (see also John,
1990; Read et al., 1990; Read & Miller, 1998). This latter point is
central to an analysis of stereotypes due to a long-standing tradi-
tion emphasizing trait terms as a central component of stereotype
content (Katz & Braly, 1933; Gilbert, 1951; Karlins, Coffman, &
Walters, 1969; Madon et al., 2001).
Further evidence that trait terms may serve as shorthand sum-
mary labels for if. . .then. . . proles comes from a study revealing
that summer camp counselors ratings of the camps children on
a Global Child Assessment questionnaire were related to the ac-
tual patterns of situationbehavior variability displayed by the
children (Shoda et al., 1993). For example, while children who
had been rated as aggressive were likely to be physically aggres-
sive when peers provoked or threatened them, withdrawn chil-
dren were likely to display such aggression when their peers
were friendly toward them. Shoda and Mischel (1993) noted that
to characterize a prototype, it was not enough to specify relevant
behaviors. Rather, they must be contextualized in the appropriate
context, suggesting that the intuitive representation of the proto-
type may be in terms of characteristic sets of if. . .then. . . situation
relations, or specic patterns by which the behaviors (the thens)
vary over particular situations (the ifs) (p. 581, author italics).
Moving beyond the level of the individual, Plaks et al. (2003)
have demonstrated that perceivers can extract if. . .then. . . prole
information and make mentalistic inferences about social groups
as well. Specically, Plaks et al. (2003) presented participants with
information about the open-minded behavior of fraternity group
members. Members of fraternity A were consistently open-minded
in situations related to physical tness, but not in situations unre-
lated to physical tness (intimacy situations, independence situa-
tions). Members of a fraternity B, by contrast, displayed similar
levels of open-mindedness, but their behavior did not covary sys-
tematically with any situation type. Participants were also asked
how well they understood the group, and how much the group
made sense to them. The results revealed that fraternity A made
more sense and was better understood than fraternity B. Further-
more, when participants were asked to describe what the group
was like in a sentence-completion format, participants made goal
and value attributions more readily for fraternity A than fraternity
B.
Stereotypes as mentalistic theories
The paradigms described in the preceding section demonstrate
that perceivers are able to extract meaning from if. . .then. . . prole
information if they are presented with such information. In this
research, we extend the above work by asking whether perceivers
hold preconceptions about the types of if. . . then. . . proles mem-
bers of social groups are likely to display. Such a possibility is sug-
gested by Kelly and Hutson-Comeaux (1999), who found that
despite the stereotype that women are more emotional than
men, social perceivers nevertheless expected more extreme emo-
tional reactions (happiness & sadness) from women in interper-
sonal contexts, but more extreme emotional reactions from men
in contexts related to personal advancement. Eckes (1996)
showed that people have beliefs about the kinds of situations in
which different gender subtypes are most likely to feel comfort-
able in. Likewise, Wittenbrink, Judd, and Park (2001) demon-
strated that the activation of negative implicit attitudes toward
African Americans depend on the social context so that, for exam-
ple, when an African American target was shown to be in a posi-
tive stereotypic situation (a family barbecue), participants
implicit racial attitudes as measured by IAT reliably changed more
positively, compared with the same stimulus in a negative stereo-
type situation (a gang incident). Taken together, then, the above
research suggests that stereotypes can encode situationbehavior
relationships.
Beyond our interest in linking stereotypes to if. . .then. . . proles,
we additionally sought to show that such proles are the assumed
behavioral manifestations of the mentalistic attributes that per-
ceivers believe characterize the group. In the case of gender stereo-
types, recent research (e.g., Hall & Carter, 1999; Niemann, Jennings,
Rozelle, Baxter, & Sullivan, 1994) shows that mentalistic attributes
such as motivation for high achievement and feels that oneself
is in control of ones fate and outcomes gure alongside trait
terms like assertive in intuitive conceptualizations of gender dif-
ferences. Integrating this research with the ndings from Kamm-
rath et al. (2005) as well as Shoda et al. (1993) described earlier,
we propose that mentalistic attributes help explain the link be-
tween target gender and the different if. . .then. . . proles people
expect men and women to have.
If. . .then. . . expectations and behavioral judgments
A third and nal question we ask is this: What are the implica-
tions of if. . .then. . . expectations for the perception and evaluation
of group members behavior? Drawing on prior research showing
that perceivers assessments of behavior are inuenced by their
prior stereotypic expectations (Biernat et al., 1991; Biernat &
Manis, 1994), we postulated that perceivers judgments of the
assertiveness of a target would differ not only as a function of the
gender of the target, but also as a function of the situation in which
the target displayed the behavior. More specically, we predicted
that if men are expected to be more assertive than women in cer-
tain types of situationsbut women are expected to be more asser-
tive than men in others (i.e., an if. . .then. . . prole)then the
standards along which mens and womens assertiveness are
judged should shift accordingly (see also Biernat & Manis, 1994).
We address this idea directly in a study where we examine how
if. . .then. . . stereotypes affect judgments of a targets actual
behavior.
The present studies
To summarize, we had three primary goals. First, for both gen-
ders, we predicted that perceivers expectations of assertiveness
would take on situation-specic if. . .then. . . proles unique to each
gender (Study 1). Second, we address the relationship between
mentalistic theories and if. . .then. . . proles (Study 2). Specically,
if perceivers expectations about a groups if. . .then. . . prole reect
an underlying theory about the mental life of group members
that leads group members to behave differently depending on
972 R. Mendoza-Denton et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44 (2008) 971982
the situation, then perceivers mentalistic attributes should medi-
ate the link between target gender and expectations of proled
behavior. Finally, we examined whether perceivers if. . .then. . .
expectations affect the perception of novel targets behavior (Study
3). The above ideas were tested through assessments of partici-
pants predictions and judgments of ctional targets.
Study 1
As a rst step in this research, we sought to examine
whether gender stereotypes could be characterized by patterns
of situationbehavior relations, or if. . .then. . . proles. In a pur-
ported personality judgment task, participants were provided
with a Barnum description of a person. Target gender was
manipulated between conditions. Participants then made asser-
tiveness judgments about the target across different types of
situations (see below for piloting of these situations). Our main
interest was in participants expectations of assertiveness, given
the centrality of the label assertive for the traditional male
stereotype (Hall & Carter, 1999; Locksley et al., 1980). Partici-
pants were also asked to make judgments about various other
behavioral dimensions to mask our interest in stereotype-rele-
vant attributes. We note that although we focus on assertive-
ness as a rst step in exploring the mentalistic nature of
gender stereotypes, this is not meant to imply that this is the
only dimension differentially associated with men and women,
or to deny the potential interactive effects of such attributes
(e.g., Asch & Zukier, 1984).
Method
Pilot testing of situations
Our research team rst generated a list of 20 different situations
that might be relevant to assertiveness and gender. The generation
of these situations was guided by our intuitions about the types of
situations that could elicit assertiveness in men and women. To
verify the representativeness of these intuitions, 42 university stu-
dents subsequently completed a brief questionnaire in which they
were asked to imagine either a stereotypical man or a stereo-
typical woman, then to rate how assertive this person would be
across 20 different situations. The results yielded three examples
of situations in which men were expected to be more assertive
than women (Work & Sport situations; e.g., in a conversation
about what is happening on Wall Street), and three examples of
situations in which women were expected to be more assertive
than men (Home & Hearth situations; e.g., with her partner when
deciding on how to redecorate their apartment). These situations,
listed in Table 1, served as the stimuli for the experiment proper,
explained in more detail next.
Participants
Two hundred and forty students (127 women, 111 men; two
did not report their gender) at Columbia University in New York
participated in a computerized study for course credit. One hun-
dred and ten participants (45.8%) were White or European
American, 53 (22.1%) were Asian or Asian American, 36
(15.1%) were Black or African American, and 41 (17%) were from
other backgrounds. Two hundred and twenty-four participants
provided their age (M = 21.7 years, SD = 4.28). One hundred nine-
teen participants were assigned to the female target condition
and 121 participants were assigned to the male target
condition.
1
Procedure
While participants were reading and signing the consent form,
the experimenter assigned the participant to an experimental
condition and began the corresponding experiment on a com-
puter. The computerized instructions explained that the aim of
the study was to understand how people go about forming
impressions of others, and that participants would thus be asked
questions about a person following a brief personality description
of the target. Participants were told that they would be judging
how conscientious, assertive, and open-minded the target would
be in a variety of situations. To minimize the possibility that par-
ticipants might use different working denitions for the term,
each term was dened for participants according to the deni-
tions provided in the website medicalglossary.org. Assertive
was dened for participants as strongly insistent, self-assured,
and demanding behavior.
Target description
Participants read a personality description associated with a
31-year old person living in New York City whose name was
either Jack or Jill: target names were used to communicate gen-
der. Jack was described as measuring 5 feet 11 in. and weighing
160 lbs., while Jill was described as being 5 feet 4 in. and weigh-
ing 131 lbs. The description was otherwise the same across con-
ditions, and was meant to increase participants comfort with
providing a series of judgments based on very little information
(pilot testing revealed participants felt uncomfortable guessing
others behavior solely based on gender information; c.f. Darley
& Gross, 1983; Yzerbyt, Schadron, Leyens, & Rocher, 1994). The
personality description was constructed using stimuli from For-
ers (1949) classic study on the Barnum effect, in which people
accept universally valid personality descriptions as truthful and
unique about themselves. Specically, ve independent judges
were asked to choose the items which would be the most rele-
vant for modern adults from the 13 items in Forers (1949) ori-
ginal study. The items that were agreed upon by at least four of
the judges were used as the Barnum paragraph, and are shown
in Appendix A.
Judgment task
Participants rated their expectations of how assertive the target
would be across Work & Sport and Home & Hearth situations. These
six situations were interspersed among 10 distracter situations in
which participants provided their expectations of the targets
open-mindedness and conscientiousness (e.g., How open-minded
Table 1
Situations used to assess expectations of target assertiveness (Studies 1 and 2)
Category Situation
Work & Sport (1) . . .in a conversation about what is happening on Wall
Street
(2) . . .with his/her mechanic when discussing what was
wrong with his/her car
(3) . . .if s/he thought her/his opponent had fouled her/him
during a sports competition
Home & Hearth (4) . . .with her/his partner when planning their 4-year old
sons birthday party
(5) . . .with her/his partner when deciding on how to
redecorate their apartment
(6) . . .when talking to her/his friends about getting hurt in a
relationship
1
Research shows that perceivers rely on stereotypes more extensively when their
cognitive resources are depleted and the stereotype has been previously activated
(Bodenhausen, 1990; Gilbert & Hixon, 1991; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994).
Thus, in Studies 1 and 2, we implemented a between-subjects cognitive load
manipulation following Gilbert and Hixon (1991) in which half of the participants
were rst presented with the target information, then asked to make judgments while
mentally rehearsing a string of digits. This factor made no difference in the results in
either study and is not discussed.
R. Mendoza-Denton et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44 (2008) 971982 973
would [Jack/Jill] be when selecting a new breakfast cereal?). As
expected, no signicant target gender differences were observed
for either of these distracter dimensions; they will not be discussed
further. The presentation of the situations was randomized. The
dependent variables in this study were participants ratings of
assertiveness for the target, averaged within the two respective sit-
uation types. Participants were asked to rate the targets assertive-
ness on a scale from 1 (much less assertive than other people) to 7
(much more assertive than other people). After the judgment task,
participants were debriefed, thanked, and paid or given credit.
Results
Preliminary analyses yielded no main effects or interactions as a
function of participant gender or race/ethnicity. The data from
Study 1 was analyzed in a 2 (target gender: male vs. female) 2
(situation type: Home & Hearth vs. Work & Sport) ANOVA with re-
peated measures on the latter factor. The analysis yielded no sig-
nicant main effects, but did reveal the predicted target
gender situation type interaction, F(1, 238) = 38.67, p < .0001,
d = .81.
Fig. 1 illustrates this interaction graphically. In the Work &
Sport situations, participants expected greater assertiveness from
the male target (M = 4.8, SD = 1.15) than the female target
(M = 4.25, SD = 1.05), t(238) = 3.92, p < .0001, d = .51. By contrast,
in the Home & Hearth situations, participants expected greater
assertiveness from the female target (M = 4.68, SD = 0.98) than
the male target (M = 4.19, SD = 1.03), t(238) = 3.79, p < .0002,
d = .49. Within-target comparisons revealed that the female target
was expected to be more assertive in Home & Hearth situations
than in the Work & Sport situations, t(117) = 3.59, p < .0005,
d = .42. Similarly, the male target was rated as more assertive in
the Work & Sport than in the Home & Hearth situations,
t(119) = 5.24, p < .0001, d = .56.
Discussion
In summary, the results of Study 1 support the notion that
stereotype content can include information on situational con-
straints. On the dimension of assertiveness, participants expec-
tations of the target persons behavior showed clear person by
situation patterns, and the situations could be grouped into
meaningful, systematic categories. People predicted that in Work
& Sport situations a man would behave more assertively, while
in Home & Hearth situations a woman would behave more
assertively. Despite the fact that these patterns make intuitive
sense, such a cross-over pattern in expectations of assertiveness
as a function of gender has not, to our knowledge, been hereto-
fore demonstrated in the literature.
In some respects, our ndings are analogous to Kunda, Sinclair,
and Grifn (1997), who demonstrated that the same trait adjective
can have different meanings when applied as stereotypes to differ-
ent groups. Kunda et al. (1997) found that the trait termaggressive
was applicable to stereotypes about both lawyers and construction
workers, but the kinds of behavior associated with the term de-
pended on the target group (instrumental, verbal behavior of law-
yers vs. violent, physical behavior of construction workers). By
contrast, our ndings demonstrate that the same stereotypic
behavior is applicable to different groups (men and women), but
that such behavior is expected to be applicable in different
situations.
What is it about the Work & Sport and Home & Hearth situations
that lead perceivers to predict men and women will behave differ-
ently in them? We have suggested that these proles may be the
expected behavioral manifestations of a set of mentalistic attri-
butes that are assumed to differentially characterize men and wo-
men. Study 2 was designed to test this idea.
Study 2
Having provided support for the idea that men and women are
expected to display different levels of assertiveness depending on
the situation, our next step was to explore whether gender stereo-
types about behavior are also associated with beliefs about group
members goals, values, and beliefsthe types of mentalistic attri-
butes that may help resolve surface-level inconsistencies in behav-
ior across situations for social targets (Kammrath et al., 2005; Plaks
et al., 2003).
In Study 2, we sought to examine the relationship between
mentalistic attributes and if. . .then. . . proles. We asked partici-
pants to provide both prole and mentalistic attribute information
about stereotyped targets using a procedure similar to the one em-
ployed in Study 1. This allowed us to test the general notion that
perceivers stereotypes may constitute an intuitive belief system
in which a groups expected if. . .then. . . prole is the behavioral
manifestation of that groups assumed goals, values, beliefs, and
construals. More specically, we hypothesized that the link be-
tween target gender and expectedif. . .then. . . prole would be
mediated by the targets assumed mentalistic attributes.
Method
Pilot testing of mentalistic attributes
We rst sought to identify the types of goals, motives, and be-
liefs that people differentially associate with stereotypical men
and women. A total of 108 university students (80 women) were
given either a description of the stereotypical female if. . .then. . .
prole for a woman named Jill, or the stereotypical male if. . .then. . .
prole for a man named Jack (see Study 1). They were asked to
form an impression of the person described and then to complete
a series of cued-sentences. These cues included Jack/Jill believes
_____, Jack [Jill]s goals are_____, Jack [Jill] values _____, Jack
[Jill] feels _____, and Jack [Jill] construes the world as _____.
These prompts are in line with procedures used in prior research
(Chen-Idson & Mischel, 2001; Plaks et al., 2003) to elicit informa-
tion other than global trait terms in personality descriptions. Par-
ticipants were free to write as many sentences as they chose
following each cue. Following an established procedure for the
Fig. 1. Expected prole of assertiveness across situations for male and female tar-
gets (Study 1).
coding of open-ended responses into meaningful units (Mendoza-
Denton, Ayduk, Shoda, & Mischel, 1997), the rst author rst read
all participants responses, and identied a nite set of attributes
that recurred and were common to at least some of the partici-
pants responses. A total of 24 such attributes were identied using
this procedure. Each essay was then coded by two research assis-
tants for the presence or absence of each of the attributes, and
the number of people who mentioned each attribute was com-
pared between the two target genders using chi-square analyses.
From this pool, we selected those items with chi-squares that were
signicant below the p = .01 level. This yielded 14 attributes, six of
which were revealed to be more representative of Jill and eight of
which were revealed to be more representative of Jack. Based on
the content of these items, and echoing prior research (e.g., Hall
& Carter, 1999; Niemann et al., 1994) we labeled the former Afl-
iation & Intimacy attributes and the latter Power & Achievement
attributes. The items are listed in Table 2, and served as stimuli for
the experiment proper, explained next.
Participants
Participants were 91 undergraduates (55 female, 36 male) at
the University of California, Berkeley, who participated in the
experiment in return for course credit. Forty ve participants
(49.5%) were Asian or Asian American, 23 (25.3%) were White or
European American, and 23 (25.3%) were from other backgrounds.
The mean age of participants was 19.96 years (SD = 1.58 years).
Procedure
The overall procedure was similar to Study 1. Participants were
given a large manila envelope in which all the materials were in-
cluded. They were asked to read a description of a person, allegedly
selected at random from a le of 52 individuals. This description
again used Forers (1949) Barnum sentences to help participants
feel comfortable making both behavioral and mentalistic attribute
judgments. Given that participants would be asked to generate
predictions both about the targets behavior and his/her mental
life, the description was slightly lengthened from the target
description used in Study 1 (See Appendix B).
Having read the personality description, participants turned
to a new sheet that informed them of the researchers interest
in impression-formation processes. Participants were asked to
predict what the persons behavior in various situations would
be like in regards to four behavior dimensions: the target
dimension of assertiveness, as well as three llers of extrover-
sion, conscientiousness, and open-mindedness (as with Study
1, no signicant effect of target gender was observed for the l-
ler dimensions). We used the 3 Work & Sport and 3 Home &
Hearth situations that were obtained in Study 1. Participants
rated the predicted behaviors on a seven-point scale from 1
(much less than others) to 7 (much more than others). The behav-
ioral dimensions were dened for participants using the same
denitions as in Study 1.
After completing the behavior prediction task, participants
rated the person along the 14 mentalistic attributes derived from
pilot testing (see above): those more strongly associated with
males (Power & Achievement), those more strongly associated
with females (Afliation & Intimacy), as well as six ller items.
No signicant effect of target gender was observed for the ller
attributes. Lastly, participants lled out demographic information,
and were thanked and debriefed.
Results
Expected assertiveness
Preliminary analyses revealed no main effects or interactions as
a function of participant gender or race/ethnicity. Therefore, the
data on expected target assertiveness were submitted to a 2 (target
gender: male vs. female) 2 (situation type: Work & Sport vs.
Home & Hearth situations) ANOVA with repeated measures on
the latter factor. No main effect of target gender was found; how-
ever, the analysis yielded a signicant main effect of situation type,
F(1, 89) = 57.34, p < .001, d = 1.60, such that targets of both genders
were expected to be signicantly more assertive in Home & Hearth
situations than in Work & Sport situations. More importantly, rep-
licating ndings from Study 1, there was a signicant target gender
by situation type interaction, F(1, 89) = 9.55, p < .003, d = .66. As
Fig. 2 illustrates, in Work & Sport situations, participants expected
the male target (M = 3.98, SD = .91) to be signicantly more asser-
tive than the female target (M = 3.56, SD = .67), t(89) = 2.51, p < .02,
d = .53. In Home & Hearth situations, participants expected the fe-
male target (M = 4.91, SD = .96) to be marginally more assertive
than the male target (M = 4.55, SD = .92), t(89) = 1.83, p = .07,
d = .38.
Mentalistic attributes
Preliminary analyses revealed no main effects or interactions as
a function of participant race/ethnicity.
2
We submitted the mental-
istic attribute data to a 2 (target gender: male vs. female) 2 (men-
talistic attributes: Power & Achievement vs. Afliation & Intimacy)
ANOVA with repeated measures on the latter factor. There was no
signicant main effect of target gender, while the main effect of
mentalistic attributes was signicant, F(1, 89) = 86.28, p < .0001,
d = 1.97, such that Afliation & Intimacy items were rated as signif-
icantly more descriptive of both targets than Power & Achievement
items. Nevertheless, as Fig. 3 illustrates, we found the expected sig-
nicant target gender by mentalistic attributes interaction,
F(1, 89) = 20.71, p < .0001, d = .96. Participants rated the Power &
Achievement items to be marginally more characteristic of the male
target (M = 4.01, SD = .76) than of the female target (M = 3.74,
SD = .71), t(89) = 1.73, p = .09, d = .37. In addition, participants rated
Afliation & Intimacy items to be signicantly more characteristic
Table 2
Mentalistic attributes used in Study 2
Category Mentalistic attributes
Power & Achievement Seeks social status & power, has a need to
dominate and win
Values rigidly dened gender roles
Values being self-condent and in control
Devalues/is not concerned with domestic affairs and
emotional issues
Believes the world is a competitive, dog-eat-dog place
Values nancial success, work, winning, making money
Feels uncomfortable expressing emotions
Believes in not showing weakness; dont let them see
you sweat
Afliation & Intimacy Values romantic love, intimacy, emotions
Values being a good parent and a good spouse; feels
rewarded by family life
Gives family and children priority over money and
success
Wants to make others happy; cares for and nurtures
others
Feels strongly about appearances, style, and presentation
Feels insecure in domains of little knowledge; feels safe
only in areas of knowledge
2
We also ran an additional analysis with participant gender added, and a target
gender participant gender effect was found: it seems that participants tend to more
strongly believe the target with the same gender with themselves to have the
mentalistic attributes, whether the attributes are those about Afliation & Intimacy or
Power & Achievement. This in itself is an interesting phenomenon, but since it is not
directly relevant to our hypotheses (i.e., there was no target gender participant
gender mentalistic attributes effect), we do not pursue this further.
of the female target (M = 5.05, SD = .72) than of the male target
(M = 4.46, SD = .69), t(89) = 4.01, p < .0001, d = .84.
Path models
To recap, our hypothesis was that targets assumed mentalistic
attributes would mediate the link between target gender and ex-
pected if. . .then. . . prole, so that the gender difference in expected
patterns of assertiveness in various situations would be explained
by the assumptions of mentalistic attributes for men and women.
We also tested an alternative model where the effect of target gen-
der on mentalistic attributes was mediated by if. . .then. . .
expectations.
For these analyses, we dened two composite variables, one
for if. . .then. . . proles and one for mentalistic attributes. We
operationalized if. . .then. . . prole extremity by averaging asser-
tiveness scores in the Work & Sport situations with reverse-
coded assertiveness scores in the Home & Hearth situations.
Likewise, we dened the composite variable for mentalistic
attributes as the average of Power & Achievement-related men-
talistic attributes and reverse-coded Afliation & Intimacy men-
talistic attributes. For both variables, then, a higher score means
a larger expected difference between the two genders, with
stronger endorsements of items associated with men versus
women.
We conducted structural equation modeling using SAS (see
Hatcher, 1994) to assess the t of two alternative models: in
which behavioral proles explained the link between target gen-
der and mentalistic attributes, and a second model in which men-
talistic attributes explained the link between target gender and
behavioral proles (our hypothesized model). The model chi-
square value for the former model, v
2
(1, N = 91) = 9.2, p < .002,
suggests that this model deviated signicantly from the data. By
contrast, the model chi-square value of the hypothesized model,
v
2
(1, N = 91) = 2.6, p > .05, supported the null hypothesis that
the model t the data. In addition, for the hypothesized model,
the goodness-of-t index (GFI) and the comparative t index
(CFI) yielded values of .98 and .95, respectively, indicating accept-
able t (Hu & Bentler, 1998).
Given the above results, as well as our theoretical position
that perceivers assumptions about mens and womens mentalis-
tic attributes lead them to expect situationally-specic behavior
(rather than assumptions about if. . .then. . . proles bringing
about mentalistic attributes consistent with these proles), we
retained the hypothesized model. This model and its estimates
are presented graphically in Fig. 4. As the gure shows, the di-
rect link between target gender and behavioral proles (b = .32,
p < .003) was signicantly reduced by the addition of the mental-
istic attributes path (b = .16, p = .12). A Sobel test revealed this
decrease to be signicant, z = 2.78, p = .005. These results support
the idea that the more perceivers expect the goals, motives, and
values of men and women to differ, the more pronounced their
expectations of differential if. . .then. . . patterns for the genders
become.
Discussion
Studies 1 and 2 illustrate how gender stereotypes might be
implicitly contextualized in terms of if. . .then. . . contingencies that
capture beliefs about patterns of covariation between stereotypic
behavior and stereotypic situations. Study 2 extended the ndings
of Study 1 by exploring how these patterns are related to underly-
ing assumptions about the stereotypic groups shared mentalistic
attributes. Study 2 explicitly probed participants beliefs about
the goals, values, feelings, and encoding strategies that character-
ize a typical man or woman.
We found unexpected main effects of both situation and men-
talistic attribute type, such thatfor both targetsperceivers ex-
Fig. 3. Expectations of targets mentalistic attributes across situations as a function
of target gender (Study 2).
Fig. 2. Expectations of assertiveness as a function of target gender in Work &
Sport and Home & Hearth situations (Study 2).
Fig. 4. Path analysis of the relation between target gender, if. . .then. . . patterns and
mentalistic theories, with the mentalistic theories as the mediator (Study 2).
pected more assertiveness in the Home & Hearth situations, and
attributed greater Afliation & Intimacy attributes. These main ef-
fects may have resulted from our unintentionally painting a pic-
ture of a relatively gentle person in the Barnum description used
in this study. Another possibility is that unlike Study 1, the data
from Study 2 was collected on a campus widely regarded as pro-
gressive, and the explicit nature of the task may have led partici-
pants to compensate for potentially stereotypic ratings.
Nevertheless, these main effects were qualied in both cases by
the expected higher order cross-over interactions. More speci-
cally, we replicated the nding from Study 1 that people expect
men to be more assertive than women in Work & Sport situations,
and women to be more assertive than men in Home & Hearth sit-
uations. In addition, we found that people attributed greater Afl-
iation & Intimacy motives to women than men, and greater Power
& Achievement motives to men than women.
Study 2 also demonstrated the link between the expected
behavioral patterns of each gender and the mentalistic attributes
that participants assume the stereotypical male/female person to
have. Specically, we showed that the assumed mentalistic attri-
butes mediated the relationship between gender stereotypes and
behavior patterns, such that the larger the gender difference in
motives/goals is expected to be, the stronger the effect of gender
on expected situation pattern becomes. The pattern of ndings
supports the idea that perceivers have dynamic (albeit stereo-
typic) conceptualizations about the psychology of men and wo-
men; namely, that differences in these groups mentalistic
attributes should lead them to display characteristic if. . .then. . .
proles.
One limitation of Studies 1 and 2 lies in their relatively explicit
methodology, such that people were directly asked how much
assertiveness they expected from targets across situations. There
remains the possibility that without being prompted to make
behavioral predictions in specic situations, perceivers stereo-
types might not be contextualized. As such, it is important to show
that even when not explicitly asked to report on their preconcep-
tions, participants judgments of targets behavior reect the inu-
ence of such if. . .then. . . expectations. In other words, do people
then use this information to judge targets actual behavior in the-
oretically expected ways? Study 3 was designed to address this
question directly.
Study 3
In a recent media interview, a one-time friend and campaign
supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, David Geffen, offered unex-
pectedly sharp comments against Hillary Clintons presidential
aspirations. Geffen was quoted as saying Senator Clinton could
not bring the country together, no matter how smart she is or
how ambitious she isand God knows, is there anybody more
ambitious than Hillary Clinton? (Preston, 2007).
It is worth noting that the charge of over-ambitiousness is
rarely brought upon men seeking the U.S. presidency. One explana-
tion for this discrepancy is that perceivers have preconceptions
about how stereotyped targets are likely to behave, and that the
behavior of targets is therefore judged against different standards
(Biernat et al., 1991; c.f. Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). To the degree
that men are stereotypically expected to be interested in politics,
but women are not, the same level of interest in political ofce is
then more likely to be interpreted as normative for men but overly
ambitious for women.
An analysis of gender stereotypes as if. . .then. . . proles neces-
sarily leads to the prediction that perceivers evaluation of the
same assertive behavior will depend not only on the gender of
the target, but on the type of situation the assertiveness is dis-
played in. More specically, consistent with the above example,
we predicted that in Work & Sport situations (where men are ex-
pected to be more assertive than women) the same level of asser-
tiveness would be rated as more assertive if performed by a woman
than by a man. However, the ndings from Studies 1 and 2 also led
us to predict that the same behavior in a Home & Hearth situation
(where women are expected to be more assertive than men)
should be judged as less assertive when performed by a woman
than when performed by a man.
3
To test these predictions, we asked participants to rate the
same assertive behavior when performed by either a man or a
woman, in the context of either a Home & Hearth or a Work &
Sport situation. Support for the hypothesis would come in the
form of a target gender situation type interaction in judgments
of assertiveness.
Method
Generation and pilot testing of assertive behavior
We sought to generate a list of behaviors that were applicable
with respect to assertiveness across our four gender/situation
combinations (i.e., male vs. female actor/Home & Hearth vs.
Work & Sport situation type). Doing so required a three-step
process.
First, we grouped one Home & Hearth situation and one Work &
Sport situation to make a superordinate description that would
t both types of situations yet remove potential gender cues. For
example, the Work & Sport situation In a conversation about what
is happening on Wall Street and the Home & Hearth situation
With his/her partner when deciding how to redecorate their
apartment were grouped together into the broader description
The protagonist and his/her partner are discussing an important
issue (since both situations involve discussion). As the example
shows, we were also careful not to specify the gender of the actor
in these descriptions. The three superordinate situations are listed
in the left hand column of Table 3.
Second, we pilot tested several potentially assertive behaviors
using these superordinate descriptions. We sought to identify
behaviors that were both concretely described and unambiguously
classiable as assertive. We did this to ensure that when paired
back with gender and context information, the behaviors would
not be reclassied and thus not comparable (see Kunda & Sher-
man-Williams, 1993). The authors rst generated eight behaviors
as potential candidates for assertive behavior in each situation.
Thirteen independent judges (9 women, 4 men) rated each of these
behaviors on a scale from 1 (not at all assertive) to 4 (somewhat
assertive) to 7 (extremely assertive), with an additional check-
box for indicating whether they thought the behavior was not
applicable to assertiveness. For each situation, we looked for
behaviors that no respondent marked as being not applicable to
assertiveness and that participants rated higher than the midpoint
of the scale (4), with the goal of selecting behavior that was clearly
in the category of assertiveness. Within this range, two behaviors
3
An alternative hypothesis would be that, rather than expecting contrast effects as
a function of target gender and situation, one should expect assimilation effects, as
when an ambiguous push is interpreted as a violent shove when performed by a Black
target but as friendly horseplay when performed by a White target (e.g., Duncan,
1976; Sagar & Schoeld, 1980). As Higgins (1996) notes, however, assimilation effects
are more likely to occur when the stimulus is ambiguous with respect to more than
one category. For instance, Banaji, Hardin, and Rothman (1993) found assimilation
effects to gender stereotypes when the target stimuli were ambiguous with respect to
dependence and aggression. In this study, our pilot testing was specically intended
to yield unambiguously assertive behaviors, so that participants judgments would
not reect their classication of the behaviors into one category vs. another (yielding
assimilation effects), but rather their anchoring of an unambiguous behavior to a
relevant category. See Biernat and Kobrynowicz (1997) and Higgins (1996) for further
discussion of contrast vs. assimilation.
were chosen, one closer to the midpoint (moderately assertive) and
one closer to the endpoint (strongly assertive). The right-hand col-
umn of Table 3 lists the behaviors themselves. The results of Study
3 were similar across behavior type, and thus collapsed in the anal-
yses described below.
Finally, for the study proper, the assertive behaviors uncovered
through pilot testing were embedded in scenarios that now clearly
specied the original situation type (Home & Hearth/Work &
Sport) as well as the gender of the actor (male/female). These sce-
narios are listed in Appendix C. In sum, then, the procedure de-
scribed above allowed us to be reasonably condent that the
behaviors were applicable to assertiveness in the given context,
and that differences in the behaviors judged assertiveness resulted
from specication of the situation type and actor gender.
Participants
Participants were 108 students at the University of California,
Berkeley (68 women, 39 men, 1 did not report; M age = 20.38,
SD = 3.14) who completed in the study in exchange for monetary
compensation ($2). Fifty-ve participants (51%) were Asian or
Asian American, 37 (34.3%) were White or European American,
and 16 (14.8%) were from other backgrounds.
Procedure
Participants were approached by research assistants in campus
plazas and other public spaces and asked to partake in a short
study on personality. After lling out a consent form, participants
read brief instructions that they would read a brief personality
description of a real person, then read some scenarios involving
that person, and nally make ratings for three types of behavior:
open-mindedness, friendliness, and assertiveness (the former two
were distracters, and revealed no differences as a function of target
gender). As in the previous studies dictionary denitions were pro-
vided for each of these behaviors. For this particular study, the def-
inition of the Oxford American Dictionaries was used; assertive is
dened there as having or showing a condent or forceful
personality.
Having read the instructions, participants turned the page and
read the description of either a male or a female target; the
description was the same as that used in Study 1. On the next page,
participants were asked to rate the targets behavior across six sce-
narios on a six-point scale. Three were distracter situationbehav-
ior scenarios. The remaining three were either the 3 Home &
Hearth or the 3 Work & Sport situationbehavior scenarios listed
in Appendix C. Following the rating task, participants completed
a brief demographic questionnaire, and were thanked and paid.
Results
Preliminary analyses revealed a marginally signicant main ef-
fect of participant gender, F(1, 103) = 3.58, p = .06, d = .37, such that
male participants judged behavior to be more assertive overall. We
therefore controlled for participant gender in the subsequent anal-
ysis. No main effects or interactions with participant race/ethnicity
were found.
The data were subjected to a 2 (target gender: male or
female) 2 (situation type: Work & Sport vs. Home & Hearth) AN-
OVA, controlling for participant gender. The analysis revealed no
main effects of target gender or of situation type, but did yield
the predicted target gender X situation type interaction,
F(1, 103) = 7.98, p < .006, d = .55.
This interaction is illustrated graphically in Fig. 5. As predicted,
participants judgments of how assertive the targets behavior de-
pended both on the gender of the target and on the kind of situa-
tion. For the male target, the same behavior was rated as more
assertive if performed in a Home & Hearth situation (M = 4.70,
SD = 0.95) than if performed in a Work & Sport situation
(M = 4.15, SD = 0.93), t(105) = 2.07, p < .04, d = .59. For the female
target, the same behavior was rated as more assertive if it was per-
formed in a Work & Sport situation (M = 4.51, SD = 0.92) than if it
was performed in a Home & Hearth Situation (M = 4.03,
SD = 0.93), t(105) = 1.91, p = .06, d = .52. Within-situation analyses
revealed that the simple effect of target gender did not reach sig-
nicance but was in the predicted direction in the Work & Sport
situations, t(105) = 1.37, ns, while it was signicant in the Home
& Hearth situations, t(105) = 2.67, p < .009, d = 71.
Discussion
Study 3 provides support for the idea that peoples expecta-
tions of how much assertiveness men and women will display
across situations has important implications for how assertive
they will judge observed behavior to be. Replicating prior re-
search, we found that people anchor behavioral judgments to
Table 3
Situational descriptions used in Study 3 to generate assertive behaviors (left), and the
behaviors chosen for each situation 0 (right)
Superordinate situation Selected behaviors from
pilot testing
The protagonist and the protagonists partner are
discussing an important issue. The protagonist. . .
(1,4)
. . . says, let me point out
something (M = 4.3,
SD = 1.43)
. . . says, this is what we
need to do (M = 6.0,
SD = 1.15)
The protagonist and the protagonists partner are
purchasing goods and/or services. As the partner
asks what the protagonist thinks about a certain
item, the protagonist. . . (2,5)
. . . says, lets not decide
right now (M = 4.6,
SD = 1.75)
. . .says, No, I dont like
it (M = 5.92, SD = 1.32)
The protagonist is upset with X over their behavior. X
approaches the protagonist to talk about it. The
protagonist. . . (3,6)
. . . turns around and
walks away before X can
speak (M = 4.69,
SD = 2.01)
. . . says, I dont want
you to do that again
(M = 5.46, SD = 1.66)
Note: In the left hand column, numbers in parentheses indicate the situations from
Table 1 that each description represents. Behaviors in the right hand column were
rated on a scale from 1 (not at all assertive) to 7 (extremely assertive).
Fig. 5. Judgments of assertiveness as a function of target gender in Work & Sport
and Home & Hearth situations (Study 3).
preconceived expectations of behavior based on target group
membership (Biernat et al., 1991; see Rudman, 1998). However,
we reasoned that to the degree that these expectations differ as
a function of the situation, peoples behavioral judgments should
be anchored differentially based both on target gender and situ-
ation type. This is exactly what we found: in Work & Sport sit-
uations, the same behavior when performed by a woman is
judged as more assertive than when it is performed by a man.
In Home and Hearth situations, however, the pattern reverses,
and the same behavior when performed by a man is judged as
more assertive. As such, the ndings from Study 3 extend the
ndings from Studies 1 and 2 by showing the effects of contex-
tualized stereotypes on peoples on-line judgments about group
members.
Contextualized stereotypes and social prescriptions
The results of Study 3 are consistent with the notion that
gender stereotypes are not only descriptive, but prescriptive in
nature as well (Heilman, 2001; Rudman & Glick, 2001). Speci-
cally, we have shown that peoples expectations of how men
and women should behave across different situations serve as
benchmarks against which actual behavior is compared. Prior re-
search has shown that when a woman behaves agentically in the
workplace, she is seen as competent yet also unlikeable and so-
cially awkward (Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 2001). How are
such impressions generated? One mechanism suggested by the
current study is that compared to perceivers (low) expectation
for how assertive a woman should be in Work & Sport situa-
tions, agentic behavior in this context is so above what it
should be for a woman that it may go from being assertive
to being pushy or uncouthand reected in judgments of being
socially unskilled.
As Heilman and colleagues (2004) summarize, self-assertive
and tough, achievement-oriented, agentic behaviors for which
men are so positively valued are typically prohibited for women
(p. 416). The present work adds an important qualication to this
statement by suggesting contexts under which one would not ex-
pect backlash (Rudman & Glick, 2001) toward an agentic woman.
For example, after the TV network NBC criticized Chelsea Clinton
using crass metaphors, Hillary Clinton took decisive, agentic action
by writing a strong letter to the network and threatening to boy-
cott future debates sponsored by the network, noting I will always
be a mom rst and a public ofcial second (Seeyle, 2008). These
actions seemed to be greeted positively by the publicperhaps be-
cause agentic behavior is expected from women when it comes to
defending children. By the same token, the current work suggests
that even an agentic man may be at risk for backlashif he shows
such assertiveness in the inappropriate domain. As such, social
prescription may not only be a function of social prohibitions
against behavior classes for a particular gender, but rather social
prohibitions with respect to the particular behaviors in particular
situations.
Although we have addressed the ndings from Study 3 within
a shifting standards framework, the results from Study 2 in par-
ticular, as well as prior research (e.g., Read & Miller, 1998) sug-
gest that goal inferences may help explain the differential ratings
observed in Study 3. For example, when people observe a man
turning around and walking away from someone who has hurt
him in the past, they may assume the man does not want to
lose it with the other person. On the other hand, when a wo-
man performs the same action, perceivers may assume she
wants to get back at the person, albeit with relational aggres-
sion. The possibility of linking goal inferences to the types of ef-
fects on judgments observed in Study 3 represents a fascinating
avenue for future research, and is consistent with an increased
emphasis on the social perceiver as one who is interested in,
and will often try to intuit the mental life of social targets.
General discussion
Several years ago, a number of public buses in New York City
could be seen displaying ads for WFAN, a local sports talk radio
station. Against the backdrop of a silhouetted baseball player
making a diving catch, the ad featured the slogan Who says
men dont listen? Part of the ads humor comes from the fact
that while it seemingly challenges the stereotype of men as poor
communicators (e.g., Pease & Pease, 2000), on another level it
feels oddly familiar, and paradoxically consistent with the stereo-
type it dees.
If men stereotypically do not listen, yet are also stereotypi-
cally attentive to the baseball game, are these reections of dif-
ferent stereotypes? Or, alternatively, is there a way to
conceptualize such apparent inconsistencies as part of the same
stereotype? As Osland and Bird (2000) argue, apparent inconsis-
tencies in stereotypes have yet to receive adequate research
attention. One reason for this may be the absence of a theoret-
ical framework to understand how people are able to reconcile
apparent contradictions in targets behavior to form a coherent
impression of a person or group.
To address this gap in the literature, we have proposed a
view of stereotypes as mentalistic theories, whereby peoples
beliefs about men and womens mentalistic attributes lead them
to expect distinct if. . .then. . . proles for each genderand to
judge men and womens behavior in relation to these contextu-
alized expectations. In Study 1 we showed that perceivers ex-
pect men to be more assertive in Work & Sport situations,
yet expect women to be the more assertive ones when it comes
to Home & Hearth situations. We replicated this pattern in
Study 2, and further demonstrated that the link between target
gender and if. . .then. . . prole expectations is mediated by
assumptions about the mental life of men and women. Finally,
in Study 3, we explored the implications of perceivers contex-
tualized expectations for their on-line judgments of mens and
womens assertiveness. We found, as predicted, that the same
assertive behavior in a Work & Sport situation is judged to be
especially assertive when performed by a woman relative to a
man. Importantly, however, we also discovered that the reverse
held true in Home & Hearth situations, such that the same
assertive behavior here was judged to be more assertive in a
man than a woman.
The research here contributes to a growing body of the liter-
ature applying a person-by-situation perspective to group-level
analyses. For example, Mendoza-Denton and colleagues (Men-
doza-Denton & Hansen, 2007; Mendoza-Denton & Mischel,
2007) have recently proposed a framework for understanding
cultural homogeneity in social behavior. This framework rests
on the idea that culturally shared values, goals, and encodings,
when activated in relevant situations, can yield stable if. . .then. . .
proles shared by members of a cultural group. English and
Chen (2007) have shown, in contrast to the notion that the Asian
self-concept is not stable across situations (e.g., Cousins, 1989),
that Asian Americans self-concept is quite stable within situation
types, and forms an if. . .then. . . pattern. The current research re-
veals that perceivers also have conceptions about the ways that a
groups behavior changes stably as a function of the situation
and what those changes reveal about the groups mental life. To-
gether with ndings from Plaks et al. (2003), these ndings be-
gin to paint a picture of the perceiver as an intuitive mind
reader (Ames, 2004) not just of individuals, but of groups as
well.
Contextualized stereotypes as heuristic devices?
Conceptualizing stereotypes in terms of group-level
if. . .then. . . signatures, and underlying motivations that generate
them, suggests an alternative to the notion of stereotypes as
broad-brush generalizations that are a favorite tool of the cogni-
tive miser (Allport, 1954; Gilbert & Hixon, 1991; Macrae et al.,
1994). Although the simplifying function of stereotypes has re-
ceived broad support in the research literature, less attention
has been paid to the information-providing function that stereo-
types may concurrently serve for perceivers (Spears & Haslam,
1997).
As Medin (1988) notes, the use of stereotypes may repre-
sent perceivers efforts to cope with the problem of too little
rather than too much information (p. 122) in interpersonal
contexts where there is little else about a person to guide
ones expectations and behavior. Spears and Haslam (1997)
conceptualize this process as a search for meaning in which
perceivers try to capture the regularities of their social world,
so that they can take advantage of this knowledge in new and
relevant situations. Contextualism in stereotyping suggests that
perceivers may not only be motivated to simplify their social
world, but also to make their group-level representations dis-
criminative, informative and useful. Just as a persons chair
schema allows him or her to recognize new instances of a
chair with ease and also provides a script for what to do with
them (Rosch, 1978), so may stereotypes have simultaneous
simplifying and meaning-providing functions within the social
domain. The notion of contextualized stereotypes may open a
door for research into the latter, more neglected of these
two functions.
One might wonder if stereotypic mentalistic theories serve
any simplifying function. Prior research suggests that perceivers
have difculty keeping track of behavioral, situational, and group
membership information simultaneously when evaluating tar-
gets, unless they are personally involved in the task or have
had statistical training in trivariate relationships (Schaller,
1992; Schaller, Asp, Rosell, & Heim, 1996; Schaller & OBrien,
1992; see also Fiedler, Walther, Freytag, & Nickel, 2003). We
have argued here, however, that in instances where situation
behavior relationships can be meaningfully organized in terms
of a groups assumed goals, values, and beliefs, an otherwise
overwhelming and disparate amount of information is more
likely to cohere into a meaningful, organized whole (cf., Ahn,
Kalish, Medin, & Gelman, 1995). We propose that despite includ-
ing beliefs about if. . .then. . . patterns and mentalistic attributes, a
stereotype nevertheless continues to simplify members of social
groups as invariant and predictable entities, when information is
absent or limited. In other words, with stereotypes, group mem-
bers are simplied interpersonallybut not necessarily
intrapersonally.
Boundary conditions for if. . .then. . . patterns in stereotyping
Although we have shown the usefulness of an if. . .then. . . per-
spective for understanding gender stereotypes, not all stereo-
types are likely to be as complex and rich. Some characteristics
(e.g. intelligent), for example, may be inherently context-inde-
pendent and not show variability across situations, while other
behavioral tendencies (e.g. musical) might be narrow in scope
(Schlenker, Bonoma, Hutchinson, & Burns, 1976) and thus need
no generalization or mentalistic inference. Still, such conditions
should not preclude all other attributes, as somelike aggression
and conscientiousnesscould be ideal candidates for further
research.
Beyond qualities of attributes themselves, it is likely that
experience plays a signicant role in determining the complex-
ity of a stereotype. For example, we expect that contextualized
stereotypes should be more readily found among people who
have many more opportunities to interact with members of
different groups than in environments affording little exposure
to group members across multiple situations (Dawson, Zeitz, &
Wright, 1989). As such, gender stereotypes might seem ideal
candidates for being represented in terms of if. . .then. . . pro-
les, given the high degree of interaction between men and
women in society. On the other hand, if all the information
one gets about Latinos comes from the T.V. show COPS,
the type of situational and behavioral information one has that
is related to this group may not be as situationally
discriminative.
It is also important to recognize that social groups can have
various degrees of importance to the perceiver. Some groups
may be those which have political or economic interests con-
icting with the perceivers ingroup, while other groups are
those with whom the perceiver would not expect to have
any interaction whatsoever (see Alexander, Brewer, & Hermann,
1999; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). If the perceiver is in
such a situation that he or she has to engage in behaviors
or make decisions that involve the target groupeven if there
is no direct contact with any members of that groupit would
be sensible to have elaborate, detailed knowledge of the target
groups behavioral and mentalistic characteristics (of course,
whether that knowledge is accurate is a different question).
In sum, understanding the boundary conditions surrounding
if. . .then. . . conceptualizations of stereotypes may yield impor-
tant clues about the exible strategies perceivers may use to
represent others, and is an important venue for future
research.
Dominant situations
Why is it that, even though stereotypes take contextualized
if. . .then. . . patterns, certain trait terms are associated more
heavily with one group over another? For example, why is
the term assertive more closely linked to men than to wo-
men, if women are also expected to be assertive in Home &
Hearth situations? One possible reason is that, when broad
impressions about social groups are made, some situations
are more salient in the perceivers mind than others and
the less salient situations are neglected. In other words, when
people are asked to evaluate a group member in regard to a
certain trait in a decontextualized manner, they may tend to
imagine the person in a specic situation that is typically
associated with the given trait. For example, when we judge
the assertiveness of individuals, we may more likely imagine
them in a situation involving competition (a Work & Sport
situation) than a family-related situation (a Home & Hearth
situation), and consequently a male person would be judged
as more assertive than a female person. This would not hap-
pen if both kinds of situations are equally considered when
global evaluation of assertiveness is made. Because situations
are different in their accessibility in memory, those situations
which are more accessible than others should have more
weight when people make general evaluations of the group
member (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Another related possi-
bility is that the all the possible situations for male-assertive
and female-assertive behaviors are equally salient, but that
people believe the latter ones to be fewer than the former
ones, so that on average, males are thought to be more
assertive in general.
Limitations
We acknowledge several limitations to this study. First, as sta-
ted earlier, we did not test stereotypes about other groups, and
the results reported here should be considered with this caveat
in mind. Second, we only studied gender stereotypes of traditional
men and women, and we expect if. . .then. . . patterns for other sub-
groups of men or women are likely to be different from what we
show here. For example, our Jill is similar to the housewife sub-
group used in the gender subgroup literature (Deaux, Winton,
Crowley, & Lewis, 1985; Eckes, 1994; see Richards & Hewstone,
2001), and for other subgroups such as career woman or sex ob-
ject, we may see different patterns. Or it is even possible that those
stereotypes may not be adequately captured with if. . .then. . . pat-
terns of assertiveness if perceivers have less experience with these
subgroups and thus, less opportunity to infer or observe these sub-
groups goals and behavior proles. This is an exciting venue for fu-
ture research, as our knowledge about the different processes
through which perceivers understand others grows.
Conclusions
In this article, we have asked whether stereotypes, which have
historically been operationalized as collections of decontextualized
trait terms (Gilbert, 1951; Karlins et al., 1969; Katz &Braly, 1933; see
Kunda, 1999; Worchel & Rothgerber, 1997), can also contain beliefs
about the ways in which group members behavior varies across sit-
uationsand about the motives and goals that are associated with
such behavioral variability. Conceptualizing stereotypes not only
as lists of traits, but as theories about the mental lives of target group
members, has implications for efforts directed at countering stereo-
types. Specically, rather than showing people exemplars of count-
erstereotypic behavior, one may need to challenge perceivers false
beliefs more directly and deeply at the level of the implicit underly-
ing theory. We hope the framework presented here opens up new
avenues for research related to gender stereotypes specically, and
stereotyping processes more generally.
Appendix A. Barnum description for Study 1
Jack [Jill] is 31 years old, 160 [131] lbs., and 5
0
11
00
[5
0
4
00
] tall. Jack
[Jill] lives in New York City. One of his [her] major goals in life is
security. And, while he [she] has some personality weaknesses,
he [she] is generally able to compensate for them. Jack [Jill] prefers
a certain amount of change and variety and becomes dissatised
when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. Over time he
[she] has found it unwise to be too frank in revealing himself [her-
self] to others.
Appendix B. Barnum description for Study 2
All in all, he (she) is quite a traditional kind of man/woman. He
(She) has some personality weaknesses, but he (she) has some very
good qualities too. I think he (she) has many talents that he (she)
has not yet turned to his (her) advantage. He (She) is disciplined
and self-controlled on the outside, but sometimes he (she) seems
to be worrisome and insecure. He (She)s kind of person that pre-
fers change and variety, and becomes dissatised when hemmed
in by restrictions and limitations. To his/her close friends, he
(she) shares his/her inner thought s and feelings, but he (she) does
not open himself (herself) up so easily with strangers. At times, he
(she) is extroverted, affable and sociable, while at other times he
(she) is introverted, wary and reserved. He (She) is a modest per-
son, but he (she) does not hesitate to show his/her talents. You
can say that he (she) is a dreamer, but one with a sense of reality.
Appendix C. Situation cues used in Study 3
Home & Hearth Work & Sport
[Jack/Jill] and [his wife/her
husband] are having dinner,
and the conversation topic
turns to planning the
childrens party. [Jack/Jill]. . .
husband] are having dinner,
and the conversation topic
turns to investing on Wall
Street. [Jack/Jill]. . .
husband] are at the curtain
store. They are trying to
decide on what curtains to
get. When [she/he] asks [Jack/
Jill] what [he/she] thinks
about a particular fabric,
[Jack/Jill]. . .
husband] are at the mechanic.
They are trying to decide on
what repairs to get. When
[she/he] asks [Jack/Jill] what
[he/she] thinks about a
particular repair, [Jack/Jill]. . .
husband] are at a party. As
people arrive and begin to
mingle, [Jack/Jill] bumps into
[Carl/Carla]. [Carl/Carla]
recently said something that
hurt [Jack/Jill]s feelings, and
[Jack/Jill] feels this has hurt
their relationship. [Carl/Carla]
approaches [Jack/Jill] to talk
about what happened, and
[Jack/Jill]. . .
husband] are at a party.
Someone organizes a co-ed
game of touch football in the
yard. [Mark/Marcia] does
something that hurts [Jack/
Jill] physically, and [Jack/Jill]
feels that [Mark/Marcia]
fouled [him/her]. [Mark/
Marcia] approaches [Jack/Jill]
to talk about what happened,
and [Jack/Jill]. . .
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