Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Female Authority

Abstract

Attitudes toward female authority and their relationship to gender beliefs were examined using implicit and explicit measures of each. Implicit attitudes covaried with implicit gender authority beliefs (i.e., linking men to high-authority and women to low-authority roles). Explicit attitudes covaried with explicit gender authority beliefs, feminist identification, and hostile sexism. Thus, gender authority beliefs may influence both conscious and unconscious prejudice against female authorities. Although women showed less explicit prejudice than did men, their implicit attitudes were similarly negative. Finally, the relationship found between two different response latency methods (a priming task for attitudes, a categorization task for beliefs) supports the assumption that implicit measures assess similar constructs (i.e., automatic associations in long-term memory).