Department of Philosophy, Social and Human Sciences and Education, University of Perugia, Piazza G. Ermini 1, 06123, Perugia, Italy.
Myèsis, Research and Development Company, Rome, Italy.
Arch Sex Behav. 2022 May;51(4):1865-1879. doi: 10.1007/s10508-021-02152-z. Epub 2021 Nov 15.
The present study aimed to replicate Kessler and McKenna's (1978) ethnomethodological study that investigated how an individual attributes gender to a person. By administering figures depicted on overlays (Overlay Study), Kessler and McKenna found that the penis more than the vulva and the male sexual characteristics more than the female ones were significantly more salient in the gender attribution process. From all this, their adage is: "See someone as female only when you cannot see them as male." Taking as a model Kessler and McKenna's Overlay Study, we administered to 592 adults 120 new digital stimuli elaborated on realistic frontal images of human nudes to verify if the previously obtained results would be confirmed by using more realistic images. We found that the participants attributed male gender 86% of the time when the penis was shown, but only attributed female gender 67% of the time when the vulva was shown. All findings had strong statistical significance, confirming the findings of the Overlay Study that the penis makes the difference in gender recognition. Beyond an ethnomethodological approach, we have interpreted and discussed our results from the outlook of evolutionary and cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, concluding that the cultural stereotypes and prejudices that affect gender attribution might not just be a mere cultural product, but rather the consequence of evolved cognitive biases.
本研究旨在复制 Kessler 和 McKenna（1978）的民族方法论研究，该研究调查了个体如何将性别归因于一个人。通过对覆盖物上的图像进行管理（Overlay 研究），Kessler 和 McKenna 发现，在性别归因过程中，阴茎比外阴和男性性特征比女性性特征更为突出。根据所有这些，他们的格言是：“只有当你看不到他们是男性时，才会将他们视为女性。”我们以 Kessler 和 McKenna 的 Overlay 研究为模型，向 592 名成年人管理了 120 个新的数字刺激，这些刺激是基于真人裸体的逼真正面图像精心制作的，以验证使用更逼真的图像是否会确认先前获得的结果。我们发现，当显示阴茎时，参与者有 86%的时间将其归因于男性性别，但当显示外阴时，只有 67%的时间将其归因于女性性别。所有发现都具有很强的统计学意义，证实了 Overlay 研究的发现，即阴茎在性别识别中起着决定性作用。除了民族方法论方法之外，我们还从进化和认知心理学以及认知神经科学的角度对我们的结果进行了解释和讨论，得出结论认为，影响性别归因的文化刻板印象和偏见可能不仅仅是一种纯粹的文化产物，而是进化认知偏见的结果。
