Stereotyping

stereotyping

• A stereotype comprises a set of characteristics, traits, behaviours and attitudes attributed to social and cultural groups based on broad, often biased information about that group

Marting and halverson

Aim

to investigate whether existing sex-typing schemas distort memories of experiences that are inconsistent with existing schemas

Participants

48 children (24 boys, 24 girls) aged 5-6

Procedure

First each child's knowledge of traditional sex-roles was assessed using some inventories. then each child was individually shown 16 pictures for ten seconds. the children were asked to identify the sex and age of the actor in the picture who was either a woman, man, girl, or boy. Half the pictures displayed the actor doing something consistent with a traditional gender stereotype, and the rest of the pictures something inconsistent with a traditional gender stereotype. answers were recorded and mistakes corrected. for each picture, the child was asked to rate how similar the actor was to him/herself.
one week later the child was tested for memory for the pictures. they were asked to remember any of the pictures and were then asked: "Do you remember seeing a picture doing [activity] in the picture I showed you last week?". the child rated how confident he/she was of having seen that activity in the remembered pictures.
finally, the child was asked whether the activity was performed by a woman, man, girl, or boy and to show how confident they were in their answer.

Results

both boys and girls were more likely to misremember the sex of an actor on inconsistent pictures than on consistent pictures.
both boys and girls were more confident in their recollection of the actor's sex on consistent pictures than on inconsistent pictures. 84% of the errors were made on pictures with a sex-inconsistent activity

Conclusion

the participants were more susceptible to remember classic/stereotypical gender roles and are less likely to remember those that they have not been taught; therefore, childhood is a critical phase of development as biases and prejudices are hard to get rid of at an older age

Method

lab experiment
IV: pictures (in)consistent with traditional gender stereotypes
DV: ability to recall gender-specific activities, confidence in response, correct/incorrect response

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