title: Gender stereotype susceptibility.
abstract: Gender affects performance on a variety of cognitive tasks, and this impact may stem from socio-cultural factors such as gender stereotyping. Here we systematically manipulated gender stereotype messages on a social cognition task on which no initial gender gap has been documented. The outcome reveals: (i) Stereotyping affects both females and males, with a more pronounced impact on females. Yet an explicit negative message for males elicits a striking paradoxical deterioration in performance of females. (ii) Irrespective of gender and directness of message, valence of stereotype message affects performance: negative messages have stronger influence than positive ones. (iii) Directness of stereotype message differentially impacts performance of females and males: females tend to be stronger affected by implicit than explicit negative messages, whereas in males this relationship is opposite. The data are discussed in the light of neural networks underlying gender stereotyping. The findings provide novel insights into the sources of gender related fluctuations in cognition and behavior.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Magnetic Resonance, Medical School, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Marina A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Pavlova
authors.affiliation: Social and Neural System Research, Department of Economics, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Susanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.affiliation: Center for Women's Health, University Hospital, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Simoes
authors.affiliation: Center for Women's Health, University Hospital, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Sokolov
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D012919:Social Behavior; D013240:Stereotyping; D055815:Young Adult