Does Underrepresentation of Women Lead to Stronger Gender Categorization and Gender Stereotypes Among Women?

Abstract

In this study gender categorization and stereotypical bias on gender in relationship to leadership was researched in underrepresented women. Social categorization has often been studied with ethnicity but not yet with gender. However it is known that the underrepresentation of women has major psychological and behavioural effect. Therefore gender categorization and stereotype studies are necessary. Women in this study were divided in two groups; a threat and a non-threat condition. In the threat condition women were underrepresented compared to men in a leadership task. It was expected that women in the threat condition would have stronger brain activity in response to male faces and a more pronounced stereotype concerning men and leadership compared to those in the non-threat condition. This would be illustrated by differences in the N100, P200 and N200 event-related potentials (ERPs) peaks which were measured with electroencephalography (EEG). Moreover, a more pronounced stereotype would show in smaller reaction times when leadership words were primed with a male face and subordinate words were primed with a female face. In total 68 right-handed women with no known psychological or neurological disorders participated. The study consisted of questionnaires and a sequential priming task. Participants were told that either an even amount of men and women (non-threat condition) or considerably more men than women (threat condition) had the needed leadership abilities and preceded them in this study. A repeated-measures ANCOVA revealed no significant results concerning the peak amplitudes. A one-way ANCOVA also revealed no significant effects concerning the implicit bias. Overall this study revealed no effects of underrepresentation on gender categorization and stereotypes were found. However it needs mentioning that the manipulation used might not have been strong enough to generate the expected results. Therefore, gender categorization should be further investigated in future studies.