Sex-Role Stereotypes, Models' Race, and Imitation

Abstract

To determine how sex-role stereotypes mediate the influence of a model, 136 male and female shoppers heard a male or female, black or white model, who was identified as a nurse or television repairman, make unrealistically high estimates of the prices of objects, supposedly for a consumer survey. The objects, some of which were sex-stereotyped, were a bottle opener, pliers, thermometer, football magazine, and recipe holder. When subjects were asked to estimate prices, a larger modeling effect than in a no-model control group was found, and black models were imitated less than white models. Estimates of the nurse for the thermometer, of the female model for the recipe holder, and of the male model for the pliers tended to be imitated more, and female subjects imitated price estimates for the pliers more than did males. There was also a tendency for the price guesses of male models to be remembered better. The results suggested that imitation by adults in this situation was mediated not so much by gender per se as by the subject's expectations of the model's knowledge of the specific behaviors to be imitated.