Intersectional race-gender stereotypes in natural language

How are Asian and Black men and women stereotyped? Research from the gendered race and stereotype content perspectives has produced mixed empirical findings. Using BERT models pre-trained on English language books, news articles, Wikipedia, Reddit and Twitter, with a new method for measuring propositions in natural language (the Fill-Mask Association Test, FMAT), we explored the gender (masculinity-femininity), physical strength, warmth and competence contents of stereotypes about Asian and Black men and women. We find that Asian men (but not women) are stereotyped as less masculine and less moral/trustworthy than Black men. Compared to Black men and Black women, respectively, both Asian men and Asian women are stereotyped as less muscular/athletic and less assertive/dominant, but more sociable/friendly and more capable/intelligent. These findings suggest that Asian and Black stereotypes in natural language have multifaceted contents and gender nuances, requiring a balanced view integrating the gender schema theory and the stereotype content model. Exploring their semantic representations as propositions in large language models, this research reveals how intersectional race-gender stereotypes are naturally expressed in real life.

What influences judgments of physical attractiveness? A comprehensive perspective with implications for mental health

Judgments of physical attractiveness are based on appearance but are influenced by and influence more than just physical features of the face and body (e.g. clothing and personality traits). This is explored in a selective review of previous research, plus new analyses of data from three previously published studies: the Boston Couples Study, the Multiple Identities Questionnaire, and the Intimate Relationships Across Cultures Study, with implications for mental health. Self-ratings of attractiveness are inflated by self-esteem and confidence in self-halo effects. Partner-ratings are inflated by love and relationship satisfaction in partner-halo effects. Positive responses from others influence attractiveness-enhancing cycles, while negative responses influence attractiveness-deprecating cycles, with impacts on well-being. These influences are represented in a comprehensive Attractiveness Halo Model, which identifies Ten Components of Attractiveness that are inter-related, including physical, emotional, sexual, sensory, intellectual, behavioural, observer, situation, reciprocity, and time. Aspects of the model are supported by analyses of the three studies, generalising comprehensive attractiveness halo effects across time, identities, cultures, and relationship types.

Acculturation and Disordered Eating among Asian American College Students: The Role of Objectification through a Sociocultural Lens

Disordered eating is a public health problem because it's highly prevalent, dangerous, and costly. More research about its risk factors and mechanisms is needed to address this problem and prevent disordered eating among high-risk populations, particularly understudied ethnic minorities. The present study contributes to the limited existing research on acculturation and disordered eating among Asian American college students who represent an understudied and high-risk group. The sample consisted of 245 Asian American (primarily East and Southeast Asian American) college students who provided data on their acculturation status, internalization of thin and muscular body ideals, body surveillance, body shame, and disordered eating. Results show that after controlling for gender, both cultures are positively associated with internalization of the muscular body ideal, but only the Asian culture of origin is associated with disordered eating. Additionally, path analysis results show that Asian culture of origin has a significant total effect on disordered eating as well as a significant indirect effect on disordered eating, mediated by thin body ideal internalization. While American culture does not have a significant contribution to body ideal internalization or disordered eating, it interacts with Asian culture of origin and put participants with high levels of both cultures at a greater risk for muscular body ideal internalization. Findings highlight the importance of cultural context in the understanding of body experiences and disordered eating among Asian American college students and have implications for the prevention and intervention of these problems in this high-risk population.

Gender and ethnicity bias in medicine: a text analysis of 1.8 million critical care records

Gender and ethnicity biases are pervasive across many societal domains including politics, employment, and medicine. Such biases will facilitate inequalities until they are revealed and mitigated at scale. To this end, over 1.8 million caregiver notes (502 million words) from a large US hospital were evaluated with natural language processing techniques in search of gender and ethnicity bias indicators. Consistent with nonlinguistic evidence of bias in medicine, physicians focused more on the emotions of women compared to men and focused more on the scientific and bodily diagnoses of men compared to women. Content patterns were relatively consistent across genders. Physicians also attended to fewer emotions for Black/African and Asian patients compared to White patients, and physicians demonstrated the greatest need to work through diagnoses for Black/African women compared to other patients. Content disparities were clearer across ethnicities, as physicians focused less on the pain of Black/African and Asian patients compared to White patients in their critical care notes. This research provides evidence of gender and ethnicity biases in medicine as communicated by physicians in the field and requires the critical examination of institutions that perpetuate bias in social systems.

The Development of Intersectional Social Prototypes

Race and gender information overlap to shape adults’ representations of social categories. This overlap may contribute to the psychological “invisibility” of people whose race and gender identities are perceived to have conflicting stereotypes. The present research (N = 249) examined when race begins to bias representations of gender across development. Children and adults engaged in a speeded task in which they categorized photographs of faces of women and men from three racial categories: Asian, Black, and White (four photographs per gender and racial group). In Study 1, participants were slower to categorize photographs of Black women as women than photographs of White and Asian women as women and Black men as men. They also were more likely to miscategorize photographs of Black women as men and less likely to stereotype Black women as feminine. Study 2 replicated these findings and provided evidence of a developmental shift in categorization speed. An omnibus analysis provided a high-powered test of this developmental hypothesis, revealing that target race begins biasing children’s gender categorization around age 5. Implications for the development of social-category representation are discussed.

The influence of defendant race and mental disorder type on mock juror decision-making in insanity trials

This study examined the joint influence of defendant race (Black/White) and mental disorder type (schizophrenia/depression) on mock juror decisions in a Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) case. We reasoned that unwillingness to vote for insanity would be more pronounced for a Black defendant with schizophrenia, given overlapping dangerousness and criminality stereotypes associated with those groups. Online community participants (N = 216) read a fictional second-degree murder case in which we varied mental disorder type and defendant race, then provided a verdict (guilty/NGRI) and answered questions regarding the trial. In line with hypotheses, participants were significantly more likely to vote guilty for a Black defendant with schizophrenia as compared to depression, but there were no significant differences for the White defendant. Results of this study suggest that bias in insanity trials can be exacerbated for a racialized defendant.

Are Black Women and Girls Associated With Danger? Implicit Racial Bias at the Intersection of Target Age and Gender

We investigated whether stereotypes linking Black men and Black boys with violence and criminality generalize to Black women and Black girls. In Experiments 1 and 2, non-Black participants completed sequential-priming tasks wherein they saw faces varying in race, age, and gender before categorizing danger-related objects or words. Experiment 3 compared task performance across non-Black and Black participants. Results revealed that (a) implicit stereotyping of Blacks as more dangerous than Whites emerged across target age, target gender, and perceiver race, with (b) a similar magnitude of racial bias across adult and child targets and (c) a smaller magnitude for female than male targets. Evidence for age bias and gender bias also emerged whereby (d) across race, adult targets were more strongly associated with danger than were child targets, and (e) within Black (but not White) targets, male targets were more strongly associated with danger than were female targets.

Who Can Lean In? The Intersecting Role of Race and Gender in Negotiations

Research on gender disparities in negotiation often does not address the intersectional influence of other demographic categories. We tested the hypothesis that race intersects with gender to play a role in constraining assertive behavior in negotiations. In two studies, we examined White non-Latinx and Asian/Asian American women and men’s phrasing of requests for higher salaries (Study 1) and the amounts they requested (Study 2) in hypothetical salary negotiation scenarios. White women reported less confidence and less assertiveness in their salary requests and proposed lower first offers than did White men; Asian and Asian American participants did not show gender differences in these measures. Negotiation backlash, measured by the amount that participants felt they could request without being punished for being too demanding, mediated the relation between demographic factors and first offers. We explored outcomes in light of intersectionality theories and the status incongruity hypothesis of backlash. These results indicate that differences in negotiation are shaped not only by gender but also by racial category membership.