Gender Stereotypes, Cognitive Biases and Interpersonal Cognition Stefano Belli University of Lincoln
[email protected]
Marginalisation and Risk for Anxiety and Depression • Marginalised individuals have higher incidences of psychological disorders than the wider population (Aneshensel et al., 1981; Kessler, et al., 1999),
• And more negative outcomes more generally (Gutiérrez, 2008; Jacobs, 1996; Norman et al., 2001; Williams et al., 2003)
• Women have higher rates of anxiety and depression than men • Explanations of these effects have identified sociological pressures inherent in being a member of a marginalised group (Aneshensel et al., 1981; Krieger et al.,1993; Williams et al., 1997)
No Country for Young Women
Young Women’s Trust (2016)
• Is this related to marginalisation at the societal level? • What can we find out about the psychological process(es) of internalising societal messages? • What is the interplay between societal messages (of marginalisation), interpersonal cognition and emotional symptoms vs. wellbeing?
Interpersonal Cognitive Biases as Risk Factors for Anxious/Depressive Symptoms
Cognitive Biases, Anxiety and Depression • Anxiety, depression and related disorders have been associated with negative biases in attention, interpretation, and memory (Mathews & MacLeod, 2005)
• Not just true for clinically anxious/depressed people • Number of symptoms correlates with number of negative interpretations of ambiguous information (Belli, 2013)
Scrambled Sentences Task • Greater negativity associated with depression • And risk for depression (Wenzlaff & Bates,1998)
Example item: • • • • • •
Often Crying Like I Laughing Feel
Ambiguous Social Situations Interpretation Questionnaire • Social Phobia symptoms associated with greater negativity (Stopa & Clark, 2000) Example item: “You ask a friend to go out for a meal with you in a couple of days’ time and they refuse. Why?”
• They are trying to economise • They don’t want to spend the evening with you • They have already planned to do something else
Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM-I) • Negative Interpretive Biases thought to have maintaining or exacerbating effects on anxious symptoms (Cisler & Koster, 2010) • Have also been argued to have causative roles in the development of anxiety (Bögels & Mansell, 2004) • Therefore, if we can mitigate negative biases, we may be able to alleviate some anxious symptoms and behaviours (MacLeod, 2010) • Interpretative biases can be trained and changed (Mathews & Mackintosh, 2000)
Testing 24 Hours Later • Interpersonal cognitive biases can be trained experimentally • These changes persist over time
Belli & Lau (2014)
Stress Reactivity Measures Training positive interpersonal cognitive biases experimentally decreases anxiety in stressful situations
Lau, Belli & Chopra (2013)
Generalising to Other Findings • Biases are malleable and affect resilience/reactivity to stress • Some preliminary evidence that changes to one variety of cognitive bias may generalise across epistemological domains (Salemink et al., 2010) • But very little research in the other direction: i.e. what other cognitive processes foster these general cognitive biases for social information? • Might these be involved in the processes of that lead to higher anxiety/depression in women?
Gender Stereotyping and Cognitive Biases • Presenting stereotyped information to participants, gives rise to findings in line with that stereotype and/or decreases the self-efficacy of members of marginalised groups (Sinclair et al., 2005; Good et al., 2008; Roberts & Gettman, 2004; Steele & Ambady, 2006) • Davies et al., (2002; 2005): Stereotype threat using adverts
• So might thinking negatively about gendered events foster more general negative interpretive biases?
• Could this be one path to risk/resilience for anxiety and depression in marginalised groups such as young women?
n = 20
n = 40
Genderstereotyped advert
Post-Exposure Assessments
n = 20
Interpretation Bias • Scrambled Sentences Task • ASSIQ
n = 40
Females
Baseline Measures
n = 80
Gendersubversive advert
Genderstereotyped advert Males
n = 40
n = 20
Gendersubversive advert n = 20
• Implicit Association Test (for gender) Speculative Measures • Locus-of-control questionnaire • Self-efficacy questionnaire
Current Study • N = 78 (46 female, 32 male) • Stereotype-enforcing (n = 40): nMale = 17; nFemale = 23 • Stereotype-subverting (n = 38): nMale = 15; nFemale = 23
• No significant main effects of gender or stereotype condition or interactions on: • Locus of Control • Self-Efficacy Questionnaire • ASSIQ (Stopa & Clark, 2000)
F(1,74) = 4.17 p = .045 partial η² = .05
F(1,54) = 4.30 p = .043 partial η² = .074
What Next? • Working with Young Women’s Trust to design more ecologically valid stereotype material • Advisory group of young women • Incorporating research skills training and skill shares
• Expanding/adapting this methodology to other marginalised groups with elevated anxiety/depression • Pilot data shows another component of negative social predictions/cognitions in queer women (compared to straight women)
Any questions?
