Androcentric Preferences for Visuospatial Representations of Gender Differences

Research on explanations shows how category prototypicality can affect the the framing of comparative information about social groups. Spontaneous explanations of group differences focus on the attributes of atypical groups and treat the attributes of prototypical groups as the norm. Thus, gender differences are attributed to women more than men (Miller, Taylor, & Buck, 1991), and sexual orientation differences to lesbians/gay men more than straight women and men (Hegarty & Pratto, 2001). When group differences are explained within an overarching category for which the atypical group is more prototypical (e.g., sexual orientation differences among gay and straight men living with HIV/AIDS), these patterns are not observed (Miller et al., 1991, Experiment 3; Hegarty & Pratto, 2001, Experiment 2).