The role of gender counter-stereotypical information on cognitive and affective processes

Social stereotypes are communicated through language use. Among them, gender stereotypes are very hard to be defeated. This line of research addresses the cognitive, affective and social consequences of challenging gender stereotypes through counter-stereotypical information. In three experiments, linguistic information was systematically varied by presenting participants with stereotypical (i.e. female midwife/ male mechanic) or counter-stereotypical combination (i.e., female mechanic/ male midwife) of gender and occupation characteristics. Experiment 1 showed that the description of a counter-stereotypical target reduced gender stereotype and related negative emotions towards it. Experiment 2 demonstrated that thinking about counter-stereotypical combination of gender characteristics decreased not only gender stereotypes, but also susceptibility to heuristic biases that typically hamper attributions of causality. On the basis of the affective and cognitive effects that we found, in experiment 3, we tested whether solving gender stereotypical inconsistencies promotes generalized tolerance towards a range of unrelated target groups (i.e., asylum seekers and homeless). Consistent with expectations, this latter effect was explained by increasingly accurate and not heuristic way of thinking. Findings imply that educational initiatives that aim to challenge gender stereotypes may not only have societal benefits (intergroup positive emotions and generalized tolerance), but have tangible benefits for individuals (an enhanced capacity for analytic thinking).