Why do Women Self-Stereotype more than Men? The Mediational Role of Implicit Gender Self-Categorization.

Previous research by Latrofa et al. (2010) found that women were more strongly identified with their gender then men, thus leading to stronger self-stereotyping. However, other research has found that women are not identified with their gender more strongly than men. Therefore, ingroup identification cannot be the primary cause of self-stereotyping. Consistent with this premise, in Experiment 1 (N = 67) we showed that women were equally identified with their gender ingroup as men, but nevertheless they self-stereotyped more strongly than men. Given the findings of Experiment 1, we tested the hypothesis that ingroup membership is chronically more accessible for women, thus leading to stronger self-stereotyping. In Experiment 2 (N = 39) and Experiment 3 (N = 56), participants performed a) a Gender Self-Categorization IAT to assess the associations between the Self and the Ingroup Gender, that is the accessibility of ingroup membership, and b) a Self-Stereotyping IAT to assess the strength of automatic associations between Self and ingroup stereotypical traits. As expected, women showed stronger implicit Self-Categorization as well as stronger implicit Self-Stereotyping than men. Moreover, as predicted, the relation between participants’ Gender and Self-Stereotyping was mediated by the level of Self-Categorization. Therefore, for women, the chronic salience of ingroup membership causes Self-Stereotyping. Results are discussed with reference to women as a minority status group.