The impact of social role information on reducing gender-stereotypical judgments: A methodological artifact?

Research on the social role theory has consistently demonstrated that the presentation of men and women in the same social role reduced gender-stereotypical traits judgments. The present study challenged the role-based explanation of these findings and investigated the extent to which these results were caused by the application of different judgmental standards to men and women. Participants directly compared men and women in the same social role (homemaker, full-time employee, not specified) on gender-stereotypical traits. To prevent a shift to a within-sex standard, participants made comparative ratings of whether an average stimulus person of one sex had more or less of each quality than an average stimulus person of the other sex. Consistent with the social role theory, the results indicate that male and female homemakers and male and female employees were judged as more similar in communal and agentic traits than men and women without role information. This role effect was more pronounced among female participants than male participants.