A Man Wouldn't Know a Woman If He Saw One: Sex Differences in Gender Perceptions

摘要

While gathering data for a research project using stories written by 371 males and females to Thematic Apperception Test-like pictures, we discovered that our male participants, when compared to our female participants, had a significantly harder time distinguishing the gender of the characters in the stimulus pictures. Two of the six pictures portrayed either two males, two females, or one male and one female engaged in a male-dominated occupation. Out of 42 male participants at the beginning of the study, 25 (60%) did not recognize that the women characters were women. In contrast, out of 49 female participants, only 17 (35%) did not correctly identify the women. The difference in mistakes was significant. We twice modified the pictures to make identification easier. We saw no significant difference in the mistakes of the female participants before and after the modifications; however, the male participants still had trouble after the second modification, although their mistakes were significantly less. Explanations for this phenomenon and directions for future research are discussed.