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Person (mis)perception: functionally biased sex categorization of bodies

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: Social perception is among the most important tasks that occur in daily life, and perceivers readily appreciate the social affordances of others. Here, we demonstrate that sex categorizations are functionally biased towards a male percept. Perceivers judged body shapes that varied in waist-to-hip ratio to be men if they were not, in reality, exclusive to women, and male categorizations occurred more quickly than female categorizations (studies 1 and 4). This pattern was corroborated when participants identified the average body shapes of men and women (study 2) and when we assessed participants' cognitive representations (study 3). Moreover, these tendencies were modulated by emotion context (study 4). Thus, male categorizations occurred readily and rapidly, demonstrating a pronounced categorization bias and temporal advantage for male judgements.

Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2060

Authors: Kerri L. Johnson, Masumi Iida, Louis G. Tassinary

Institutions: University of California, Los Angeles, Arizona State University, Texas A&M University

Language: English

Topic: Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Gender equality

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2160608813

FWCI: 6.861

Cites: 40

Cited by: 63

Related to: 10