Gender-based emotional stereotyping.

Abstract

Previous research documents that mental health professionals' attitudes reflect the general public's stereotype of women as hyperemotional. This article reports the results of 6 studies exploring the existence of a complementary stereotype of men as hypoemotional. As predicted, counselors and college students consistently stereotyped men as hypoemotional (all ps <.01). Data from these studies also suggest that this stereotype of men as hypoemotional is associated with biased counseling-relevant judgments. For example, people holding hypoemotional stereotypes of men were most likely to blame the husband, as opposed to the wife, for a heterosexual married couple's difficulties (p <.01). The implications of this stereotype for counseling, as well as areas for future research, are discussed.