Gender and Group versus Individual Target as Moderators of the Models of Crossed Categorisation Effects

It was hypothesised that men perceive women at the interpersonal level, but women perceive men at the intergroup level, and that the gender of the participants moderates the models of evaluating people categorised by race and gender. In Study 1 (N = 261) men and women differed along the hypothesised dimensions of comparison, competition, and social interaction in the perception of gender group. Men and women (Ns = 28) in Study 2 reported their attraction toward work groups formed by two persons, each categorised by race and gender, and preferences for one over another member of those groups as a colleague. As hypothesised, responses of women conformed to the model of category dominance by race, and those of men followed the additive model in group attraction and the hierarchical ordering model in member preference. Men were more attracted toward outgroup women than ingroup men. Implications of these findings are discussed.