The effects of sex typing, on the perception of gender in projected animal content

Effects of Sex Typing 2 The present study replicates and extends Lash and Polyson's (1986) findings that a majority of mental images of commonly projected animals are gender associated. In the present study 91 subjects created mental images of the same animals and rated them on degree of masculinity-femininity and clarity on seven point Likert scales. The two studies were very consistent for feminine animals, but many of the masculine associated animals in the original study were found to be non-gender associated. With few exceptions the gender associations generalized across sex type as measured by the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, visualizing ability, and sex of subject. As predicted by gender schema theory sex typed subjects perceived non-gender associated animals more in terms of gender than did non-sex typed subjects, E< .05. However, no differences were found between the groups for masculine or feminine animals. Additionally, sex typed and non-sex typed subjects did not differ in their ratings of masculine, feminine, or neutral animals as rated on the Bern Sex Role Inventory.