Dealing with a Crisis: Does Covid-19 Promote Traditional Gender Roles?

The Covid-19 crisis has many characteristics susceptible to emphasize gendered prescriptions. In the present research, we argue that the Covid-19 crisis should promote citizenship behaviors (CB) consistent with gender stereotypes. Two pre-registered experiments were conducted during lockdown in France (Study 1) and United Kingdom (Study 2). We manipulated the salience of the Covid-19 crisis using a fake newspaper article and showed that women were more likely than men to engage in CB of altruism and sacrifice. Meta-analysis results of the two studies confirmed that these gender differences were larger when the Covid-19 crisis was highly salient (vs. control condition). For women, more than for men, engaging in altruistic behaviors and making sacrifice for the greater good are perceived as the behaviors to endorse to cope with the Covid-19 crisis.

National Stereotypes and Robots' Perception: The "Made in" Effect.

In the near future, the human social environment worldwide might be populated by humanoid robots. The way we perceive these new social agents could depend on basic social psychological processes such as social categorization. Recent results indicate that humans can make use of social stereotypes when faced with robots based on their characterization as "male" or "female" and a perception of their group membership. However, the question of the application of nationality-based stereotypes to robots has not yet been studied. Given that humans attribute different levels of warmth and competence (the two universal dimensions of social perception) to individuals based in part on their nationality, we hypothesized that the way robots are perceived differs depending on their country of origin. In this study, participants had to evaluate four robots differing in their anthropomorphic shape. For each participant, these robots were presented as coming from one of four different countries selected for their level of perceived warmth and competence. Each robot was evaluated on their anthropomorphic and human traits. As expected, the country of origin's warmth and competence level biased the perception of robots in terms of the attribution of social and human traits. Our findings also indicated that these effects differed according to the extent to which the robots were anthropomorphically shaped. We discuss these results in relation to the way in which social constructs are applied to robots.

Being outperformed in an intergroup context: the relationship between group status and self-protective strategies.

The present study examines the effects of group status on self-esteem when individuals are outperformed by an in-group target (Experiments 1 and 2) or an out-group (Experiment 2). The main aim was to examine different self-protective mechanisms when the current standing of the in-group vis-à-vis another group is either unfavourable (low status) or favourable (high status). Experiment 1 showed that when outperformed by an in-group target, the members of a low status group reported higher self-esteem than members of a high status group. Moreover, this effect was mediated by group identification. Experiment 2 replicated the previous results and gave rise to similar effects on investment in the group. The perceived relevance of the comparison group appeared to protect the self-esteem of high status group members. This research demonstrates the mediating role of self-protection mechanisms such as group identification and the perceived relevance of a comparison group.

Social comparison, self-stereotyping, and gender differences in self-construals.

Four studies examined gender differences in self-construals and the role of social comparison in generating these differences. Consistent with previous research, Study 1 (N=461) showed that women define themselves as higher in relational interdependence than men, and men define themselves as higher in independence/agency than women. Study 2 (N=301) showed that within-gender social comparison decreases gender differences in self-construals relative to a control condition, whereas between-genders comparison increases gender differences on both relational interdependence and independence/agency. Studies 3 (N=169) and 4 (N=278) confirmed these findings and showed that changing self-construal changes gender differences in social dominance orientation. Across the 4 studies, strong evidence for the role of in-group stereotyping as mediator of the effect of gender on self-construal was observed on the relational dimension but not on the agentic dimension.

Perceivers' responses to in-group and out-group members who blame a negative outcome on discrimination.

The authors extend recent research concerning the social costs of claiming discrimination by examining men's and women's responses to in-group and out-group targets who either blamed a failing grade on discrimination or answer quality. Although participants generally responded more negatively to targets who blamed discrimination, rather than answer quality, dislike was greatest and gender group identification was lowest when participants evaluated an in-group target. Moreover, an in-group target who claimed discrimination was perceived as avoiding personal responsibility for outcomes to a greater extent than was a similar out-group target. Perceptions that the target avoided outcome responsibility by claiming discrimination were shown to mediate the relationship between attribution type and dislike of the in-group target. The authors discuss their results in terms of intragroup processes and suggest that social costs may especially accrue for in-group members when claiming discrimination has implications for the in-group's social identity.