Gender and social cognition

The aim of this thesis was to present a comprehensive overview of current knowledge in the field of gender research and social cognition as well as to contribute with results of my own research. The biggest emphasis of the theoretical part lies on stereotypes and gender differences in personality characteristics, topics that are closely related to the research part of this paper. The empirical part answers the question whether information about the sex of a person has impact on how we assess this person's personality. After reading a short biography of a fictitious person, respondents described this person on 30 items of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974). Results showed that respondents rated some characteristics differently for the male figure than the woman figure. Respondents of both sexes perceived the described man as significantly less Forceful and less Defending his own believes than the described woman. Although not always significantly, all 10 items satiating the BSRI masculinity score showed the same tendency to evaluate the figure of the man as less masculine than the figure of the woman. Part of the Discussion is dedicated to possible interpretations of these results. To obtain a deeper understanding, further research is required