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The effects of individual differences in sexism and sex on learning of nonsense syllables paired with pictured situations differing in sex-role appropriateness

Faculty Advisor

Date

1975

Keywords

attitudes, Paired Associate Learning, pictorial stimuli, psychological studies, sex differences, sex discrimination, sex stereotypes

Abstract (summary)

This study evaluated the effects of individual differences in attitudes toward sex roles on the learning of neutral material associated with situations differing in rated sex-role appropriateness. It was hypothesized that if sexism is a valid dimension as measured in this study, then "sexists" would learn nonsense syllables associated with scenes rated "role appropriate" faster than those rated "role inappropriate," since the latter scenes would be expected to be somewhat aversive for them. Forty-eight female and 44 male subjects were presented two separate sets of eight nonsense syllables paired with chosen pictures which differed in role appropriateness. The results revealed that for all subjects inappropriate scenes were learned faster than appropriate scenes, and scenes depicting females were learned faster than those depicting males. Among females, sexist subjects took a slightly longer tine to learn syllables associated with appropriate scenes than those associated with inappropriate scenes compared to nonsexists. Among males, nonsexists learned syllables paired with inappropriate scenes faster than those paired with appropriate scenes, while sexists showed relatively little difference in learning rates as a function of appropriateness.

Publication Information

Auerbach, S. M. & Gackenbach, J. I. (1975). The effects of individual differences in sexism and sex on learning of nonsense syllables paired with pictured situations differing in sex-role appropriateness. Resources in education, 10(4), 43.

DOI

Notes

Item Type

Article

Language

English

Rights

All Rights Reserved