Homogeneity of Gender Groups in Memory

In an experiment examining memory for information about members of gender groups, female and male Ss participated in an impression formation task in which they read trait descriptions of four target persons identified by gender or, in a control condition, by an abstract quality (the colours yellow and green). In addition, these targets had a superordinate group membership in an in-group (students) or an out-group (employees) or had no superordinate membership. Ss′ errors in a cued recall task in which they matched the targets with their traits showed that only for the male Ss was the gender out-group more homogenous than the gender in-group. In contrast, female Ss showed a tendency toward homogenization of their gender in-group that became significant when the male and female targets belonged to the superordinate student in-group. The resulting tendency for Ss of both sexes to homogenize female targets was interpreted in terms of men′s greater status and power.