Abstract
The study examined the effects of stereotyping gender and age on the perception of their driving speed. There were two approaches used for selecting participants. A Qualtrics survey was used to study fifty-nine participants who were recruited from Social Psychology Laboratory course at Nevada State College and others (N = 25) recruited from the online social network Facebook. The procedure involved presenting participants with a written description of the driver in a two (age of the target: middle-age vs. old) by two (gender of the target: woman vs. man) between-subjects experiment. Afterwards, the participants watched a ten-second video clip and were required to record the results in a text entry box. Contrary to the predictions, there was no significant main effect of age and gender. In addition, there was no significant interaction between the effect of gender stereotype and age. Together, these findings suggest that age and gender of the target did not effect on the perception of their driving speed.
Introduction
Gender stereotyping is experienced frequently as people interact and associate with each other. A stereotype is described as the collection of characteristics that are linked to a particular group. As such, activating a stereotype is the same as triggering a trait (Branaghan and Gray, 2010). Stereotypes can fall under different categories of age, gender, race, and sexuality. For instance, we appear to associate masculine gender to politicians, police officers, doctors, and sports while the feminine gender is attributed to secretaries, teachers, nannies, and nurses. Stereotyping causes instant judgment of an individual based on either race or gender, which determines our perception towards them.
According to Jussim (1995), applying labels toward a particular target usually affect how we criticize and assess that target. Jussim defined labeling effects as the situation in which perceivers’ understandings, assessments, or judgments of the different individuals they interact with is dependent on the group that the individual is associated with. For instance, most women are considered bad drivers while most young men are considered to drive dangerously. Likewise, older individuals are considered slow drivers when compared to young or middle aged individuals. Racial stereotypes portray most African Americans as being prone to violent behaviors as compared to whites. Studies from a cognitive perspective have established that the labelling effects depict perceivers to deducing unclear behavior of a specific individual in ways that are defined by their beliefs regarding the individual’s target group (Jussim, 1995).
A majority of the research done over the past two decades on stereotypes has highlighted and detailed the role that cognitive approach have in biases when it comes to evaluation of individuals from diverse groups. Even though the cognitive mechanisms have proven to be effective, prejudiced perceptions, concerning individuals of a specific group might not always be the effect of cognitive features. Mostly, individuals have strong sentimental biases toward specific social groups whereby they prejudice against or in favor of specific groups (Jussim, 1995).
Groeger and Brown (1989) document the differences in gender regarding dangerous and risky driving with the research clarifying the dissimilarities through gender stereotypes, specifically by linking risk-taking with the social prospects regarding the male gender and masculinity. For instance, it is often observed that young men are victims of more road accidents compared to women. A research on drivers’ connections to risky situations implies that young men tend to drive at a higher speed than that of other drivers. Furthermore, research on the evaluations of drivers regarding their own capability seems to show they believe they are better drivers than their peers. While young men associate their capability with that of aged male drivers, the older ones perceive themselves as more experienced than the young ones, but they place women as being bad drivers than young males (Groeger and Brown, 1989). Mostly, the male drivers who are much younger registered higher risk behaviors in driving that cause injury and increased traffic offences compared to the female drivers. More broadly, Groeger and Brown (1989) concluded that males often display higher risky behaviors while driving as compared to females.
Aged individuals are often faced with negative stereotypes of having loss of memory and the loss of physical capability as they age. Because of such stereotypes, this target group is susceptible to age bias and discrimination when it comes to driving skills, leading to stereotype threats. Stereotype threat is observed when a person experiences a situation where they are put at risk of confirming the negative stereotypes linked to the group associated with them. The person will automatically be placed in a predicament with their performance being the ultimate confirmation of the negative perception of their group (Branaghan and Gray, 2010). An example is that of a woman or older man driving at slow speeds. The threat leads to poor performance on the stereotype pertinent tasks.
Stereotypes are often manifested from childhood as the children watch the behavior of adults, notably while they are passengers in a vehicle with the adult. Therefore, it can be deduced that such driving behaviors observed function as the basis for the early development among children of perceptions on the driving skills of men and women. Therefore, this research proposes the hypothesis that older individuals will be perceived as slow drivers compared to middle-aged people. Likewise, it proposes that the women will be perceived as driving slower than men. In addition, the effects of gender stereotypes on the perceptions of driving speed are dependent on age. The aged individuals will be perceived as driving slower than middle-aged people, regardless of gender. Middle-aged people will be perceived as driving slower when the driver is a woman than when the driver is a man.
Method
Participants
Fifty-nine participants from the Nevada State College undergraduate social psychology laboratory course took part in the study. An additional twenty-five volunteers from Facebook were included in the study. There were 38 men and 46 women with an age range of 18 to 56. Five participants were suspicious of the purposes of the study and were dropped. Therefore, the study involved 79 participants.
Procedure
Participants were asked to complete an online survey on the Qualtrics Survey Platform, which randomly assigned participants to conditions. First, the participants read information on what to expect from the study. We withheld the true purpose by telling the participants that the study was simply on attention and memory for driving speed. Every participant in our study gave his or her informed consent. Then, the participants had to answer demographic questions that included questions about race, gender, age, and major. The participants were only exposed to one of four conditions because the study had a fully-between subjects design. In each of these conditions, the participants read a written description of the driver. 18 participants read that the driver was a middle-aged man, 20 participants read that the driver was a middle-aged woman, 20 participants read that the driver was an old man, and 21 participants read that the driver was an old woman.
Results
As revealed by independent samples t-test, the manipulation check shows that our manipulation of perception of driving speed was effective. People perceived the middle-aged man as being marginally faster (M = 43.33, SD = 18.71) compared to the old man (M = 41.4, SD = 15.16). Additionally, people perceived the middle-aged woman as being marginally faster ( M = 45.24, SD = 9.81) compared to the old woman (M = 38.05, SD = 15.69). To test the apparent effects, the data were analyze using a 2x2 between-subjects ANOVA, inconsistent with our hypothesis, which revealed no significant main effect of age on perceptions of driving speed. As such, the older people were not perceived as driving slower (M = 43.37, SD = 12.69) than middle-aged people (M = 40.55, SD = 17.15), F(1,79) = .603, p = .440. In line with our second hypothesis, the main effect of gender was also not significant, F(1,79) = .046, p = .832, such that women were not perceived as driving slower (M = 41.64, SD = 13.3) than men (M = 42.3, SD = 16.7). Moreover, contrary to our third hypothesis, the proposed interaction between the effect of gender stereotype and age was not found to be significant, F(1,79) = 1.816, p = .240.
Discussion
The study was conducted to investigate the stereotype that men drive faster than women and older individuals. Furthermore, it investigated the level of exposures to stimuli that were needed before an important performance disparity between the stereotype on the elderly and the control conditions were identified. Driving was selected since it a complex and essential part of our daily life. Even though researchers proposed that the unconscious processes like priming have numerous effects on our everyday tasks, a majority of the previous studies have emphasized on simpler tasks like lexical decisions. Therefore, the study was conducted to investigate the non-conscious priming in the daily task of driving specifically focusing on how gender and age affect one’s driving ability. The results, which were founded on the traits linked to the target group that were inquired from the participants, depict that the gender or age associated with a driver did not affect the driving skill.
Based on the stereotype that driving is different when it comes to men, women and older individuals, it was anticipated that priming the participants would record that a car with a slower speed was being driven by an older individual or a woman. This awareness was investigated by the use of a survey that involved watching of a video of a car at different speeds. Previous studies on the same have shown results deducing that women and older individuals drive slower than males (Branaghan and Gray, 2010).
Our hypotheses, which anticipated that people had beliefs regarding the behavior of drivers differentiated based the gender of the driver was false. Regarding the stereotype of male drivers driving at higher speeds than females was false. Concerning the elderly drivers, the outcomes deduced that they are not regarded as being slow drivers as compared to the middle-aged drivers. As such, the principal traits are not consistent with the stereotypes that the driving skill of an individual is affected by their age or gender. Mostly, stereotypes are often vague in the real sense. For instance, women are considered as bad drivers yet they are the ones who are involved in less risky behavior and cause fewer accidents. On the other hand, older individuals are regarded as being more experienced than their younger counterparts (Branaghan and Gray, 2010).
Limitations
The experiment had some limitations. For example, it was not a real world setting that involved using actual drivers as participants or bystanders observing as people drive. As such, the results might have been different confirming the stereotype that age and gender have an effect on driving speed. If the participants were bystanders and were able to physically see the person driving the car, the results would have been different. In addition, the questions were too vague, which might have affected honest responses from the participants.
Future Research
The study suggests numerous avenues for research. Future directions may include pairing gender or age with diverse racial groups (such as Asians, Whites or African Americans) to observe if there is a difference in the perception of the driving speed or driving ability. Another line of study might investigate the “driving while black” effect that shows that African Americans have a high possibility of being pulled over at a traffic stop. The study can be used to confirm the negative stereotype of black people in our society.
References
Branaghan, r. J., & Gray, r. (2010). Nonconscious activation of an elderly stereotype and speed of driving1,2. Perceptual and motor Skills, 110(2), 580-592. doi:10.2466/pms.110.2.580-592
Groeger, J., & Brown, I. (1989). Assessing one's own and others' driving ability: Influences of sex, age, and experience. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 21(2), 155-168. doi:10.1016/0001-4575(89)90083-3
Jussim, L., Nelson, T. E., Manis, M., & Soffin, S. (1995). Prejudice, stereotypes, and labeling effects: Sources of bias in person perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(2), 228-246. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.2.228
