"But it doesn't mean anything, it's just a cartoon": Cartoons as primes for stereotypes of women in the workplace

This study looked at the influence of cartoons as primes for stereotypes about women in the workplace. Three sets of cartoons (neutral animal, non-agentic women, and feminists) were used and subjects were exposed to just one set based on their assigned condition. After rating the funniness of the cartoons, subjects read about ambiguous behaviors recorded by a supervisor about a social worker. Subjects evaluated the social worker on both performance issues and personal traits. Subjects then read additional information and rated the supervisor. The gender of the social worker and supervisor were manipulated. Three general performance measures and five traits, identified in a pilot study, were analyzed. Priming did occur but inconsistently across the measures. Some interesting patterns representing contrast effects for males in the feminist cartoon condition and females in the non-agentic condition surfaced. The gender composition of the subordinate-supervisor dyad contributed to the priming effect for some measure