Explict and implicit stereotype content: the case of gender in academia

Abstract

Women's underrepresentation in the sciences has been ascribed to a variety of causes, including their perceived lack of competence and their abundance of warmth. The stereotype content model (SCM) theorizes that warmth and competence are universal aspects of social cognition and that these two factors underlie stereotypes held about outgroups. Three studies were conducted using subgroups of gender in the sciences as a framework to extend the use of SCM, using both explicit and implicit methods. Study 1 established that female professors in the sciences are perceived as less competent and more warm than their male counterparts. Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1, and attempted to connect explicit SCM to implicit measures. Study 3 attempted to extend findings from the previous studies using an experiment to investigate whether explicit and implicit SCM can predict behavior and behavioral intentions.