Modeling Unconscious Gender Bias in Fame Judgments: Finding the Proper Branch of the Correct (Multinomial) Tree

Abstract

Abstract. In the preceding article, Buchner and Wippich used a guessing-corrected, multinomial process-dissociation analysis to test whether a gender bias in fame judgments reported by Banaji and Greenwald (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1995, 68, 181-198) was unconscious. Buchner and Wippich concluded that the gender-bias effect was not unconscious on the basis of finding no difference in model-estimated familiarity between previously presented nonfamous male and female names. This conclusion is questioned by noting that (a) the gender difference in familiarity that Buchner and Wippich modeled was different from the critical gender difference in criterion for fame judgments reported by Banaji and Greenwald, (b) the assumptions of Buchner and Wippich s multinomial model exclude processes that are plausibly involved in the fame judgment task, and (c) constructs of Buchner and Wippich s that correspond most closely to Banaji and Greenwald s gender-bias interpretation are formulated so as to preclude modeling that interpretation. Banaji and Greenwald (1995; BG, hereafter) used the false fame effect (Jacoby, Kelley, Brown, and Jasechko, 1989) to examine an implicit, and possibly unconscious, stereotype that associates male (more than female) gender with fame-deserving achievement. In BG s four experiments subjects were asked, in the first of two sessions, to judge the pronounceability of each of a list of male and female names, half famous and half not. One or two days later, subjects were asked to judge the fame of names on a larger similarly composed list, including both the old names (i.e., those seen in the previous session), and new ones. BG performed a signal detection analysis on the fame judgments, examing whether name gender affected sensitivity to fame (measured by dN) or the criterion for fame judgments (measured by log $). Consistently in all four of BG s experiments, subjects used a lower (more liberal) criterion of fame for judging old male (than female) names. The findings showed that subjects were more likely to attribute their sense of familiarity with old names to fame when the name was male rather than female.Because BG s gender difference in fame judgments occurred only when names had presumably been given a boost in familiarity by an unremembered prior presentation, BG suggested that it reflected an unconsciously operating, or implicit, stereotype. The implicitcognition interpretation was also supported by subjects self-reported post-experimental unawareness of a relation betwen name gender and their judgments, and by the lack of correlation of individual differences in criterion difference between male and female familiarized

Investigating Fame Judgments: On the Generality of Hypotheses, Conclusions, and Measurement Models

“…Thus, the notion of unconscious processes in both our hypothesis and our conclusion was much more specific than has been portrayed by Draine et al (1996), and we did not reject Banaji and Greenwald's (1995) suggestion that the gender bias was unconscious in some general, yet to be specified sense. Rather, if the basis of the gender bias is to be conceptualized as unconscious, then our results suggest that this should be done in some sense other than the one underlying the interpretation of the parameters representing unconscious, uncontrolled processes in process dissociation measurement models.…”

“…However, we did not set out to test the supposedly unconscious nature of the gender bias in such a general sense (see the above quote from our article). Correspondingly, our conclusion about the test of this hypothesis was more specific than Draine et al (1996) interpreted it to be. They write that ''in judging whether greater judgments of fame for male names could be given an interpretation as reflecting unconscious processes, [Buchner and Wippich (1996)] concluded no.''…”

“…Using the extended measurement model, Buchner and Wippich (1996) had found that the parameter representing these familiarity effects did not differ for male and female names. Draine et al (1996) comment that this finding of no difference in the parameter representing familiarity was ''fully consistent (and not, as [Buchner and Wippich] suggested, at odds) with [Banaji and Greenwald's] interpretation.'' We have pointed out already that we did not interpret our result as being incompatible to Banaji and Greenwald's (1995) interpretation of the gender bias.…”

“…More precisely, we wanted to test whether the gender bias in fame judgments could be conceived of as ''a purely unconscious 'familiarity' process as defined within the process dissociation procedure'' (Buchner & Wippich, 1996, emphasis added). In contrast, Draine, Greenwald, and Banaji (1996) state, as the basis of their comment, that we had ''set out to test whether the gender stereotyping observed by [Banaji and Greenwald (1995)] could be considered unconscious.'' However, we did not set out to test the supposedly unconscious nature of the gender bias in such a general sense (see the above quote from our article).…”

“…In other words, our results indeed confirm Banaji and Greenwald's (1995) assumption when the extended measurement model is used, but using the measurement model which does not correct for response biases would have lead one to conclude erroneously that the gender bias was based on an unconscious process as defined within the process dissociation procedure. Draine et al (1996) critically analyze one of the assumptions implemented in the typical measurement models for the process dissociation procedure as applied to fame judgments. More precisely, they state two situations in which the model assumptions about the effects of familiarity given no successful recollection of the name seem to neglect some of the mental states that participants sometimes report as the bases of their fame judgments.…”