From Agents to Objects: Sexist Attitudes and Neural Responses to Sexualized Targets

■ Agency attribution is a hallmark of mind perception; thus, diminished attributions of agency may disrupt social–cognition processes typically elicited by human targets. The current studies examine the effect of perceiversʼ sexist attitudes on associations of agency with, and neural responses to, images of sexualized and clothed men and women. In Study 1, male (but not female) participants with higher hostile sexism scores more quickly associated sexualized women with first-person action verbs (“handle”) and clothed women with third-person action verbs (“handles”) than the inverse, as compared to their less sexist peers. In Study 2, hostile sexism correlated negatively with activation of regions associated with mental state attribution—medial prefrontal cortex, posteriorcingulate, temporal poles—but only when viewingsexualized women. Heterosexual men best recognized images of sexualized female bodies (but not faces), as compared with other targetsʼ bodies; however, ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: JOCN
• Authors: Mina Cikara, Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Susan T. Fiske
• Keywords: Current Studies, Hostile Sexism, JOCN 2011, Mental State