Research on gender stereotypes has consistently shown that people tend to think that women and men differ from one another in basic traits such as being more or less sensible, emotional, caring or intelligent. It has been shown that those stereotypes vary along two dimensions named instrumentality and expressiveness (Bem, Reference Bem1974), or communion and agency (Eagly & Mladinic, Reference Eagly and Mladinic1989). In line with this classical literature on gender stereotypes, the stereotype content model assumes ambivalence in the attribution of competence and warmth traits to both genders: Female stereotypes include the ascription of high warmth and low competence traits to women (i.e., paternalistic), whereas male stereotypes imply low warmth and high competence (i.e., envious) (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, Reference Fiske, Cuddy, Glick and Xu2002). More recent research has shown that this traditional pattern of stereotypes is malleable and contingent on different contextual factors even at the implicit level (i.e., Blair, Reference Blair2002; de Lemus, Spears, Bukowski, Moya, & Lupiáñez, Reference de Lemus, Spears, Bukowski, Moya and Lupiáñez2013; Lenton, Sedikides, & Bruder, Reference Lenton, Sedikides and Bruder2009). In our research we examine how interdependence goals (i.e., cooperation or competition) influence the activation of gender stereotypical associations related to warmth and competence on an implicit level of measurement.

Research on the two fundamental dimensions of social judgment has provided extensive evidence of the existing link between social structure (status and competition) and specific cultural stereotypes and prejudices (e.g., Caprariello, Cuddy, & Fiske, Reference Caprariello, Cuddy and Fiske2009; Fiske et al., Reference Fiske, Cuddy, Glick and Xu2002; Eckes, Reference Eckes2002; Russell, & Fiske, Reference Russell and Fiske2008). Similarly, Wojciszke’s (Reference Wojciszke2005) oriented goal theory proposes that the goals that underlie behaviours (e.g., Does the actor have good or bad intentions? Can the actor carry out his/her intentions?) lead to the ascription of communion and agency in person perception, which in turn leads to liking and respect, respectively. Abele and Wojciszke (Reference Abele and Wojciszke2007) showed that the dimensions of morality or warmth and communion on the one hand, and competence and agency on the other, largely overlap. All of these lines of research emphasize the importance of interdependence goals in person and social perception.

Outcome dependency between individuals (i.e., interdependence) influences the predominance of category or individually based modes of processing in impression formation (Fiske & Neuberg, Reference Fiske, Neuberg and Zanna1990; Neuberg & Fiske, Reference Neuberg and Fiske1987). The categorical mode might be undermined for the sake of a more piecemeal processing when cooperation, affiliation and self-presentational goals specify the type of interaction (Fiske, Lin, & Neuberg, Reference Fiske, Lin, Neuberg, Chaiken and Trope1999). Interestingly, people tend to form a representation of the competitor that is more varied and based on inconsistent information when competition goals are active (Ruscher & Fiske, Reference Ruscher and Fiske1990). Some of these apparently contradictory findings suggest that the type of interdependence goal does not determine by itself the activation and use of stereotypes but rather it interacts with other contextual cues (e.g. an interpersonal or intergroup related context) and the content of a particular stereotype. An interesting and fairly underexplored question regards the impact of interdependence goals (cooperation and competition) on the activation of gender stereotypical associations on the two dimensions of social perception, i.e. warmth and competence.

Research that brings together interdependence motives and the stereotype content model has shown that warmth judgments vary more as a function of competition and competence ratings vary more as a function of status descriptions in an interpersonal context (Russell & Fiske, Reference Russell and Fiske2008) and in an intergroup context (Caprariello, et al., Reference Caprariello, Cuddy and Fiske2009). Furthermore, it has been shown that these two fundamental dimensions of social perception relate to each other in a compensatory manner (Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, Reference Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt and Kashima2005). This more general compensation mechanism is leading the perceiver to an attribution of higher warmth, when competence disadvantage is made salient and vice versa. It has been proposed that gender stereotypes and ambivalent sexism are a good illustration of how compensation effects contribute to the formation and maintenance of stereotypes in intergroup relations (Kervyn, Yzerbyt, Judd, & Nunes, Reference Kervyn, Yzerbyt, Judd and Nunes2009).

In this paper, we focus on the moderating role of goals related to an interdependence relation structure (cooperation vs. competition), in the activation of implicit gender stereotypes related to warmth and competence. Previous research has examined the activation of implicit gender stereotypes using indirect measures (de Lemus, Moya, Bukowski, & Lupiáñez, Reference de Lemus, Moya, Bukowski and Lupiáñez2008; Wade & Brewer, Reference Wade and Brewer2006). For example, Wade and Brewer (2008) studied the content structure of female ambivalent stereotypes (subgroups) measuring the implicit associations between specific subgroup categories and warmth and competence related traits. The main aim of our research is to examine, whether competition and cooperation goals influence the activation of warmth related traits as proposed by the stereotype content model (Fiske et al., Reference Fiske, Cuddy, Glick and Xu2002), but also affect the activation of competence traits, consistently with the compensation hypothesis (Judd et al., Reference Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt and Kashima2005). Importantly, the interpersonal (cooperation) or intergroup (competition) context is assumed to critically influence the gender stereotype activation pattern.

Our main research hypothesis states that the activation of gender stereotypical traits will be contingent on the type of interdependence goals. To test this hypothesis we designed a study with two experimental conditions to manipulate interdependence goals (cooperation, or competition with a female student) and a control group, where no interdependence goals are activated. Our main dependent variable is the relative comparison of reaction times (RTs) to warmth and competence traits as a function of the primed gender in a subsequent priming task. We use a modified version of the evaluative priming paradigm (Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, Reference Fazio, Jackson, Dunton and Williams1995), in which gender primes (women’s and men’s faces) are followed by warmth and competence related target-words. Participants’ task is to classify those words as positive or negative as fast as possible. This method is a valuable tool for investigating the accessibility of semantic and evaluative components of gender stereotypical associations simultaneously (de Lemus et al., Reference de Lemus, Spears, Bukowski, Moya and Lupiáñez2013). This previous research has shown that even during the operation of a processing objective of word evaluation, the meaning of the words was perceived and processed by the participants, resulting in stereotypical or counter-stereotypical patterns of trait activation depending on the salience of gender categories and stereotypical roles. This is consistent with the previous psycholinguistic research on word recognition which emphasizes that the meaning of a word, together with the contextual and sensory information can be processed in parallel (Seidenberg, Reference Seidenberg, Balota, Flores d’Arcais and Rayner1990).

Consistent with prior research using implicit methods (e.g., Rudman, Greenwald, & McGhee, Reference Rudman, Greenwald and McGhee2001) we expect to find a general ingroup bias effect such that female participants will favor their ingroup (women) over the outgroup (men), responding relatively faster to positive traits when primed with a member of the ingroup vs. outgroup (woman vs. man). The reversed pattern of activation is predicted for male participants. Regarding the activation of gender stereotypes, we predict that the activation of competence and warmth will be contingent on interdependence goals as described below.

In the control condition, where no interdependence goals are activated, we expect to find a traditional gender stereotype activation pattern that is, faster RTs to competence traits after male primes and faster RTs for warmth traits after female primes. In this and other effects related to the activation of gender stereotypical dimensions we did not expect to find differences between female and male participants, which means that more abstract, culturally shared knowledge about social category members would be active (Devine, Reference Devine1989). In a common interpersonal or intergroup interaction, traditional complementary gender stereotypes (men-competent; women-warm) are prone to be activated. However, would they also activate when the interaction is based on a competition goal? This is particularly an interesting question if we are competing against a woman, because the female stereotype itself contradicts the nature of the negative interdependence situation. Hence, we focus on a competitive simulated interaction with a woman, and we expect that in such conditions, the competitive nature of the interaction will significantly modify the traditional stereotype activation pattern.

In the competition goal condition we expected participants to reverse the stereotype activation. That is, because they are competing against a woman, we expect that female primes will activate less warmth (compared to male primes). Additionally we assume that this lower activation of warmth for women will be compensated by higher activation of competence, which is the status-defining dimension. These predictions are derived from the research on the stereotype content model that links competition with the warmth dimension and status with competence (Fiske et al., Reference Fiske, Cuddy, Glick and Xu2002). It is also consistent with the oriented goal theory, which proposes that communion leads to liking and agency to respect (Wojciszke, Reference Wojciszke2005; Wojciszke, Abele, & Baryła, Reference Wojciszke, Abele and Baryła2009). That is, we dislike our competitors, but we respect them.

Finally, what would happen when the interaction is based on a cooperation goal? We argue that a cooperative interaction is more likely to be the default setting in everyday life. Hence, one option is that the activation of gender stereotypes in the cooperative condition might not differ significantly from the control condition. Further, in this case, the positive interdependence is consistent with female stereotypes. In that sense, we expected an activation of warmth traits after female (vs. male) primes. However, in such an outcome–dependency setting, activating the low competence stereotype of women might be not instrumentally useful. For that reason, we expect that when positive interdependence with a woman is salient, negative competence stereotypes of women will be inhibited. That is, we predict a general ingroup bias effect to take place, which will manifest itself in the activation of warmth related traits after female primes and the reduction of the activation of competence after male compared to female primes.

Results

Trials with incorrect responses (7.41 %) or no response (.88 %) were eliminated from the analyses. In order to normalize the RT distribution we used cut-offs over maximal (1500 ms) and minimal (200 ms) values (Ratcliff, Reference Ratcliff1993), which were considered as lack of concentration and anticipations, respectively. This implied that a further .70 % of the trials were discarded.

In order to check whether there were significant differences between male and female participants, we analyzed the data using a 2 (Gender) x 2 (Dimension) x 2 (Valence) x 3 (Goals) x 2 (Sex of participants) mixed ANOVA, with the first three factors as repeated measures and Goals and Sex as between groups factors. Mean RTs and standard deviations per condition are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Mean RTs and SDs (in brackets) for all the experimental conditions (independently of sex of the participant)

Results showed a main effect of the dimension on which targets were evaluated, F(1, 93) = 36.62, p < .0001, η_p ² = .28, indicating faster RTs for warmth words (M = 556) than for competence words (M = 579). There was also a main effect of valence, F(1, 93) = 93.24, p < .0001, showing a positivity bias, that is, participants reacted faster to positive (M = 543) than negative (M = 591) traits. The valence effect could be explained as a consequence of a more systematic processing of negative traits, considering their larger informative value in impression formation (Skowronski & Carlston, Reference Skowronski and Carlston1989). Also, the primacy of the warmth dimension over the competence dimension is consistent with prior research on stereotype contents (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, Reference Fiske, Cuddy and Glick2007).

Regarding the sex of participants, there was a significant interaction between gender of the prime, valence, and sex of participants, F(1, 93) = 6.78, p = .01, which indicated the expected ingroup bias effect, that is, favouring the ingroup over the outgroup in the relative activation of positive and negative traits. In the case of women there was a significant interaction Gender x Valence, F(1, 93) = 4.42, p = .038, indicating faster RTs for positive traits when they were primed with female faces (M = 524) compared to male faces (M = 535), F(1, 93) = 8.05, p = .006. A similar pattern was found in the case of men, although the Gender x Valence interaction was marginal, F(1, 93) = 3.26, p = .07.

Most importantly, the significant interaction between Gender x Dimension x Valence x Goals, F(2, 93) = 3.31, p = .041, was not moderated by sex of participants, F < 1, ns. The analysis showed that the three-way interaction Gender x Dimension x Goals was significant for positive traits, F(1, 93) = 12.17, p < .001, but not for negative traits, F < 1, ns. This might be due to the salience of an interdependent context. For instance, when cooperating or competing with someone in a performance task, it might be more relevant to think in terms of whether that person is competent to achieve her goals, rather than detecting whether she is incompetent. Another possible explanation of this lack of effect for the negative traits is that only positive traits activate the whole dimensions of competence or warmth, whereas negative traits are more specific. Otherwise, the lack of effects for the negative traits might simply indicate that the negative words selected were not the most appropriate ones. Since the three-way interaction was non-significant for negative traits, these were not considered in further analyses.

To disentangle the effects of cooperation and competition goals on the activation of gender stereotypes, we looked at the Gender x Dimension interaction for the positive traits in the three goal conditions (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Influence of goals on the activation of gender stereotypes with positive valence. The color of the bars indicates the prime gender.

In the control condition there was a significant interaction Gender x Dimension F(1, 93) = 6.97, p< .01, showing a classical stereotype activation pattern. Responses to competence traits were faster after a male prime than a female prime, F(1, 93) = 3.07, p = .08, whereas responses to warmth traits were faster after a female face was presented, F(1, 93) = 3.25, p = .07.

In the competition condition, there was an interaction Gender x Dimension, F(1, 93) = 9.21, p = .003, showing a reversal of the classical stereotype activation pattern found in the control condition. The analysis of the interaction showed faster RTs for positive warmth traits primed with a male face compared to a female face, F(1, 93) = 5.12, p = .026, and faster RTs for positive competence traits when they were primed with a female face compared to a male face , F(1, 93) = 3.48, p = .06.

In the cooperation condition, there was an interaction Gender x Dimension, F(1, 93) = 3.57, p = .06, indicating faster RTs for positive warmth traits when they were primed with a female face compared to a male face, F(1, 93)= 6.59, p = .01. There were no effects for the competence traits, F < 1, ns.