“You were what you eat”: Food-gender stereotypes and their impact on evaluation of impression

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00259

Abstract

Abstract:

Food plays an important role in social life, endowed with cultural and gender connotations. We used two studies to explore ex-plicit and implicit food-gender stereotypes and their influence on person evaluation (i.e., perceived warmth and competence). Study 1 examined the presence of explicit and implicit food-gender stereotypes using nomination, self-reports, and semantic priming para-digms. The results demonstrated participants held explicit food-gender stereotypes that the male preferred masculine food, and the female preferred feminine food, and female participants hold implicit food-gender stereotypes. In Study 2, we used situational ex-periment and implicit relational assessment procedure to measure participants’ evaluation of the stereotype-(in)consistent targets’ warmth and competence. Results showed that participants implicitly elevated the warmth trait of the stereotype-inconsistent male target.

Key words: food-gender stereotype, implicit association test, semantic priming paradigm, implicit relational assessment, warmth-competence, impression

ZUO Bin, DAI Yuee, WEN Fangfang, GAO Jia, XIE Zhijie, HE Saifei. (2021). “You were what you eat”: Food-gender stereotypes and their impact on evaluation of impression. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 53(3), 259-272.

Figures/Tables 6

References 75

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Preference	M	SD	95% CI	t	Cohen's d
Male food preference	1.88	1.48	[1.69, 2.08]	19.26***	1.81
Female food preference	-2.24	1.50	[-2.43, -2.05]	-22.71***	2.13

Preference	M	SD	95% CI	t	Cohen's d
Male food preference	1.88	1.48	[1.69, 2.08]	19.26***	1.81
Female food preference	-2.24	1.50	[-2.43, -2.05]	-22.71***	2.13

Target individual	M	SD	95% CI	t	Cohen's d
Stereotypical male	0.20	0.81	[0.09, 0.31]	3.62^***	0.22
Stereotypical female	-0.51	0.85	[-0.62, -0.39]	-8.58^***	0.55
Counter-Stereotypical male	-0.57	0.89	[-0.69, -0.44]	-9.16^***	0.56
Counter-Stereotypical female	0.16	0.85	[0.04 0.27]	2.67^**	0.17

Target individual	M	SD	95% CI	t	Cohen's d
Stereotypical male	0.20	0.81	[0.09, 0.31]	3.62^***	0.22
Stereotypical female	-0.51	0.85	[-0.62, -0.39]	-8.58^***	0.55
Counter-Stereotypical male	-0.57	0.89	[-0.69, -0.44]	-9.16^***	0.56
Counter-Stereotypical female	0.16	0.85	[0.04 0.27]	2.67^**	0.17

Comparison object	M	SD	t	95% CI	p	Cohen's d
Male-Competence
Consistent positive - Negative	-5.02	19.88	-1.64	[-11.22, 1.17]	0.11	0.01
Inconsistent positive - Negative	2.83	93.87	0.20	[-26.42, 32.98]	0.85	0.01
Consistent positive - Inconsistent positive	-5.63	21.36	-1.71	[-12.29, 1.02]	0.10	0.02
Consistent negativity - Inconsistent negativity	2.22	95.56	0.15	[-27.56, 32.00]	0.88	0.01
Male-Warmth
Consistent positive - Negativity	-1.51	14.03	-0.69	[-5.94, 2.92]	0.50	0.00
Inconsistent positive - Negative	-6.70	19.39	-2.21^*	[-12.82, -0.59]	0.03	0.02
Consistent positive - Inconsistent positive	1.65	19.61	0.54	[-4.54, 7.83]	0.59	0.00
Consistent negativity - Inconsistent negativity	-3.55	15.64	-1.45	[-8.49, 1.39]	0.15	0.01
Female-Competence
Consistent positive - Negativity	-21.71	132.38	-1.10	[-61.48, 18.06]	0.28	0.06
Inconsistent positive - Negative	-0.12	13.59	-0.06	[-4.20, 3.97]	0.95	0.00
Consistent positive - Inconsistent positive	-0.93	18.43	-0.34	[-6.47, 4.61]	0.74	0.00
Consistent negativity - Inconsistent negativity	20.66	133.67	1.04	[-19.50, 60.82]	0.31	0.06
Female-Warmth
Consistent positive - Negativity	-3.65	24.27	-1.02	[-10.86, 3.56]	0.31	0.01
Inconsistent positive - Negative	0.86	14.72	0.40	[-3.51, 5.23]	0.70	0.00
Consistent positive - Inconsistent positive	-0.68	21.07	-0.22	[-6.93, 5.58]	0.83	0.00
Consistent negativity - Inconsistent negativity	3.83	14.02	1.85	[-0.34, 7.99]	0.07	0.01