Gender-stereotype accuracy as an individual difference.

Abstract

Accuracy of participants' ratings of gender differences on 77 behaviors and traits was assessed by correlating participants' ratings with actual gender differences based on meta-analyses. Accuracy at the group level was impressively high in 5 samples of participants. Accuracy of individuals showed wide variability, suggesting that ability to accurately describe gender differences is an individual difference. Analysis of correlations between individual accuracy and a battery of psychological measures indicated that accuracy was negatively related to a tendency to accept and use stereotypes, negatively related to a rigid cognitive style, and positively related to measures of interpersonal sensitivity.People hold elaborate theories about how people behave, and they have many beliefs about social groups. Any belief about a social group can be considered a stereotype according to currently accepted definitions that do not distinguish between the general truth and falsehood of the belief (Judd & Park, 1993). Understanding how much truth might be contained in a given stereotype is an important and relatively recent undertaking in psychology (e.g.,

An exploration of stereotypical beliefs about leadership styles: Is transformational leadership a route to women's promotion?

“…These results are conceptually similar to Swim's (1994) and Hall and Carter's (1999) findings that perceivers accurately estimate the sex differences obtained in meta-analyses of social behavior. As in those studies, some of the sex differences reported by our participants were larger than those in the criterion data.…”

“…Indeed, research has shown that stereotyping of individuals weakens when people possess clear-cut behavioral information relevant to a judgment (Kunda & Spencer, 2003). Moreover, gender stereotypes in relation to many behavioral criteria are quite accurate (e.g., Hall & Carter, 1999;Swim, 1994; see review by Ryan, 2002). Therefore, we predict that descriptive stereotypes about sex differences in leadership style are substantially accurate and similar to assessments of real male and female managers on these behaviors.…”

The role of gender, task success probability estimation and scores as predictors of the domain-masculine intelligence type (DMIQ)

“…In particular, the TSP results support the assertions that individuals are capable of accurate selfassessments of ability (e.g. Ackerman et al, 2002;Chamorro-Premuzic et al, 2010;Hall & Carter, 1999;Swim, 1994), but not in the psychometric task condition. Equally, the observed male hubris in DMIQ estimates, provided support for the literature in the field.…”

The politics of gaydar: Ideological differences in the use of gendered cues in categorizing sexual orientation.

“…In other words, in any large sample of the population, some gay men will have more masculine than feminine facial features, and some straight men will have more feminine than masculine facial features. Thus, consistently using gender inversion cues to infer sexual orientation can produce inaccuracy when the stereotypical relationship between gendered facial features and actual sexual orientation is reversed or nonexistent (Freeman et al, 2010, Study 3;Funder & Sneed, 1993;Hall & Carter, 1999). If conservatives are indeed more likely than liberals to use gender inversion cues, then they should be more accurate than liberals to the extent that such cues are reflective of stereotype accuracy (e.g., when males with feminine facial features are more likely to be gay).…”