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Sex Roles (2006) 55:259266 DOI 10.1007/s11199-006-9078-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Implicit and Explicit Occupational Gender Stereotypes
Michael J. White & Gwendolen B. White
Published online: 8 November 2006 # Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006
Abstract This study was designed to compare implicit and explicit occupational gender stereotypes for three occupations (engineer, accountant, and elementary school teacher). These occupations represented the end points and middle of a masculinefeminine continuum of explicit occupational gender stereotypes. Implicit stereotypes were assessed using the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which is believed to minimize self-presentational biases common with explicit measures of occupational gender stereotypes. IAT results for the most gender stereotyped occupations, engineer (masculine) and elementary school teacher (feminine), were comparable to explicit ratings. There was less agreement with less stereotyped comparisons. Results indicated that accounting was implicitly perceived as more masculine than explicit measures indicate, which calls into question reports of diminishing gender stereotyping for such occupations.
Keywords Occupational gender stereotypes . Implicit stereotypes . Stereotypes . Implicit Association Test
Popular beliefs have long held that because of their stereotyped traits and temperaments men and women are
suited for different kinds of occupations. One of the earliest empirical examinations of these occupational gender stereotypes was conducted by Shinar (1975) who showed that college students thought that some occupations required masculine traits, while others required feminine traits. The method that Shinar (1975) and others (Beggs & Doolittle, 1993; White, Kruczek, Brown, & White, 1989) used to study occupational stereotypes is the traditional method of measuring stereotypes of all types. Indeed, it was first used by Katz and Braly (1935) in their very early work on national stereotypes. This approach treats stereotypes as a collection of traits or attributes that the respondent consciously and explicitly associates with members of different groups. Most conceptual treatments of stereotypes, and all popular accounts, have emphasized these explicit processes and their contents.
Persons acquire stereotypes, in part, through personal experience. But because stereotypes are part of the beliefs and shared assumptions that societies have about different types of people and groups, they are also part of the societys collective knowledge. In order for a society to socialize its members, these stereotypes must be explicitly, even if subtlety, taught (Stangor & Shaller, 1996). Whether stereotypes are individual...