Strategies for overcoming gender stereotypes in cognitive representations

Gender stereotypes are activated spontaneously and unintentionally when certain role nouns are read. For example, people expect a builder to be male and a beautician to be female. Such gender inferences lead to processing difficulties when violations of stereotypical gender occur. The aim of this thesis was to devise strategies aimed at overcoming the activation of gender stereotype biases in English. Across nine studies, a variety of stereotype reduction strategies were investigated in conjunction with a judgement task, devised by Oakhill, Garnham and Reynolds (2005). This judgement task asked participants to decide, without deliberation, whether two terms presented onscreen could refer to one person. In the absence of a stereotype-reduction training, participants consistently showed evidence of succumbing to stereotype biases on stereotype incongruent pairings (e.g. Builder/ Mother) compared to stereotype congruent pairings (e.g. Builder/ Father). However, accuracy and response time performance to these incongruent pairings were found to significantly improve from pre-training levels to post-training levels through the use of stereotype reduction strategies such as providing participants with performance-related feedback (Experiment 1, Experiment 3), social consensus feedback (Experiment 4), combined social and accuracy feedback (Experiment 6) and counter-stereotype pictures (Experiment 8). A number of individual difference measures were also administered with the behavioural tasks. These explored whether individual differences in levels of ambivalent sexism, attitudes towards sexist language, sex role perception, and, among others, sexist pronoun use could moderate performance on the judgement task. The results from these additional tasks are described in Chapter 5. This thesis provides further evidence for the malleability of stereotype biases and delineates specific strategies through which stereotype biases can be overcome, to ultimately result in lower levels of stereotype endorsement

Social-consensus feedback as a strategy to overcome spontaneous gender stereotypes

Across two experiments the present research examined the use of social-consensus feedback as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous gender stereotyping when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Participants were presented with word pairs comprising a role noun (e.g. surgeon) and a kinship term (e.g. mother), and asked to decide whether both terms could refer to the same person. In the absence of training, participants responded more slowly and less accurately to stereotype incongruent pairings (e.g. surgeon/mother) than stereotype congruent pairings (e.g. surgeon/father). When participants were provided with (fictitious) social consensus feedback, constructed so as to suggest that past participants did not succumb to stereotypes, performance to incongruent pairings improved significantly (Experiment 1). The mechanism(s) through which the social feedback operated were then investigated (Experiment 2), with results suggesting that success was owing to social compliance processes. Implications of findings for the field of discourse processing are discussed

Performance-related feedback as a strategy to overcome spontaneous occupational stereotypes

This article investigates the use of performance-related feedback as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous occupational stereotyping when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two studies participants were presented with two terms; a role noun (e.g., surgeon) and a kinship term (e.g., mother) and asked to quickly decide whether both terms could refer to the same person. The feedback training involved telling participants whether their responses were correct or incorrect and providing them with their cumulative percentage correct score. In the absence of feedback, responding to stereotype incongruent pairings was typically slower and less accurate than in stereotype congruent and neutral conditions. However, the results demonstrated that performance significantly improved to stimuli on which participants received the feedback training (Experiment 1), and to a novel set of stimuli (Experiment 2). In addition, the effects were still evident one week later (Experiment 2). It is concluded that performance-related feedback is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous activation of occupational stereotypes and can result in lower levels of stereotype use

Implicit rather than explicit threat predicts attentional bias towards Black but not Asian faces in a White undergraduate population

Attentional biases are driven by type of stimulus in our environment (faces capture our attention in preference to non face items, e.g. Ro, Russel & Lavie, 2001), and motivation to seek out specific stimuli (e.g. spider images will capture attention more readily in those with arachnophobia, e.g. Ohman, Flykt & Esteves, 2001). Hence, attentional biases have been used as a behavioural measure of positive or negative attitudes to stimuli in the environment. The finding that the faces of Black people capture attention in a sample of White U.S. participants (Trawalter, Todd, Baird & Richeson, 2008) has been interpreted as Black faces being a threat stimulus, which is an interpretation in accord with other experimental evidence on the stigmatized representation of Black people as threatening (e.g. in a simulated first person shooter task, White participants shoot both armed and unarmed Black targets more frequently and more quickly than White targets, e.g. Correll, Urland and Ito, 2006). Al-Janabi, MacLeod and Rhodes (2012) suggest that attentional bias to Black faces may not represent threat but rather novelty of the stimulus, supported by the finding that an attentional bias was found towards faces of Asian females, where these faces had not been rated as more threatening than White faces. However, as noted as a possibility by these authors and as demonstrated by Donders, Correll and Wittenbrink (2008), implicit measures of danger can predict attentional bias towards Black faces. Implicit attitudes are often poorly correlated with conscious attitudes and are thought to stem from simple exposure to stereotyped information in the environment without being necessarily consciously endorsed. Hence, there is still uncertainty as to whether implicit bias as opposed to explicit bias better underpins attentional bias to other race faces

Measuring implicit bi-dimensional attitudes and predicting speeding behaviour

Attitudes are bi-dimensional predictors of behaviour, meaning that attitudes comprise separate positive and negative dimensions, which both predict behaviour independently (Elliott et al., 2015). Furthermore, the positive dimension of attitude is the stronger predictor for risky behaviours (e.g., speeding). This implies that evaluative beliefs about positive behavioural consequences strongly influence subsequent behavioural performance. Beliefs about negative behavioural consequences do not. In previous research, bi-dimensional attitudes have been measured using questionnaires, which tap explicit cognitive judgements. However, implicit cognitive processes are likely to dictate the performance of habitual behaviours such as speeding. We therefore measured bi-dimensional attitudes using an implicit association test (IAT). The presentation will cover the development of the IAT and the results from regression modelling, in which test performance was used to predict speeding behaviour. The implications for better understanding the cognitive processes that dictate behavioural performance and how to change behaviour will be discussed

Performance-related feedback as a strategy to overcome spontaneous occupational stereotypes

This article investigates the use of performance-related feedback as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous occupational stereotyping when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two studies participants were presented with two terms; a role noun (e.g., surgeon) and a kinship term (e.g., mother) and asked to quickly decide whether both terms could refer to the same person. The feedback training involved telling participants whether their responses were correct or incorrect and providing them with their cumulative percentage correct score. In the absence of feedback, responding to stereotype incongruent pairings was typically slower and less accurate than in stereotype congruent and neutral conditions. However, the results demonstrated that performance significantly improved to stimuli on which participants received the feedback training (Experiment 1), and to a novel set of stimuli (Experiment 2). In addition, the effects were still evident one week later (Experiment 2). It is concluded that performance-related feedback is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous activation of occupational stereotypes and can result in lower levels of stereotype use.</p

An Irish outbreak of New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM)-1 carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae: increasing but unrecognised prevalence

Background Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) can cause healthcare–associated infections with high mortality rates. New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) is amongst the most recently discovered carbapenemases. Aim To report the first outbreak of NDM-1 CPE in Ireland, including microbiological and epidemiological characteristics, and assessing the impact of infection prevention and control measures. Methods Retrospective microbiological and epidemiological review. Cases were defined as patients with a CPE positive culture. Contacts were designated as roommates or ward mates. Findings This outbreak involved ten patients, with a median age of 71 years (range 45-90 years), located in three separate but affiliated healthcare facilities. One patient was infected (the index case); the nine others were colonised. Nine NDM-1-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae, a NDM-1-producing Escherichia coli and a K. pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-producing Enterobacter cloacae were detected between week 24 2014 and week 37 2014. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis demonstrated similarity. NDM-1 positive isolates were meropenem resistant with MICs ranging from 12 to 32 μg/ml. All were tigecycline susceptible (MICs ≤1 μg/ml). One isolate was colistin resistant (MIC 4.0 μg/ml; mcr-1 gene not detected). In 2015, four further NDM-1 isolates were detected. Conclusions The successful management of this outbreak was achieved via the prompt implementation of enhanced infection prevention and control practices to prevent transmission. These patients did not have a history of travel outside of Ireland, but a number had frequent hospitalisations in Ireland, raising concerns regarding the possibility of increasing but unrecognised prevalence of NDM-1 and potential decline in value of travel history a marker of colonisation risk