Discrimination against job applicants on the basis of their sexual orientation: an experimental research approach

Research Proposal: During the first funding period, the overarching goal of the project was to understand whether discrimination in employment can be explained on the basis of sexual orientation by looking at the fit between the perceived masculinity/femininity of occupations and job applicants. Here, the "lack of fit model" should be applied to the social category of sexual orientation. Based on the stereotype that gays and lesbians transgress traditional gender roles, they should be viewed differently than heterosexuals on the two key dimensions of the stereotype content model. Specifically, gays should be viewed as having more Communion (community orientation, warmth) than heterosexual men. Conversely, lesbians should be attributed more Agency (task orientation, including expertise) than heterosexual women. A total of 19 experiments were conducted in pursuit of this goal. A large proportion of the findings were consistent with the hypotheses and replicated multiple times (e.g., attributing community orientation to gay men). In contrast, other findings were unexpected and cannot be explained using existing models; this was especially the case for findings on intersections of identities (also referred to as non-prototypical identities, e.g., Turkish-born lesbians in Germany). These were found to be particularly positive in many of our experiments, deviating from existing stereotypes. The overarching goal of the second funding period is to investigate the processes underlying (positive and negative) discrimination based on intersections of different identity categories in working life. Findings on identity intersections will be used to revise and extend existing models. Specifically, we will examine the conditions under which the assumption that applicants with non-prototypical identities have experienced discrimination leads to positive judgments about them (Aim 1). This work will also help explain previous findings. Aim 2 is to develop extended research paradigms to test more generally the conditions under which non-prototypical applicants are protected from discrimination and how this relates to characteristics of those making the judgments. The final goal is to integrate the findings into an extended theoretical model (Goal 3).

Project sponsor: DFG

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens

Project Collaborators: Claudia Niedlich, Sven Kachel

Project duration: since 2014

Voice stereotypes toward women and men of different sexual orientations: A combination of production-based and perceptual approaches.

Research project: Voice stereotypes regarding sexual orientations are widespread and perpetuated, for example, by representations in the media (e.g., gays nasally). Studies within the framework of production-related approaches investigate the correctness of voice stereotypes by focusing on acoustic differences between speakers. They investigate whether and in which vocal characteristics gay men and heterosexual men differ - less often they refer to women. The evidence from such studies to date is inconsistent. Our own preliminary work provides evidence for the importance of contextual factors. Aim 1 of the present research project is to clarify the inconsistent findings by systematically investigating language-related (e.g., text topic) and situational contextual factors (e.g., gender of interlocutors) and relating them to characteristics of both male and female speakers (e.g., self-attributed masculinity/femininity). Studies within perceptual approaches investigate the content of voice stereotypes by correlating listeners' assessments of sexual orientation with voice characteristics of the speakers. In order to shed light on their equally inconsistent findings, an experimental approach to auditory perception of sexual orientation will be used under Aim 2. Voice morphing will be introduced as a new method in this field of research and it will be investigated which voice parameters contribute to the classification of sexual orientations. For example, selected acoustic parameters (e.g., fundamental frequency) of heterosexual voices are morphed into those of lesbian/gay voices in various gradations, holding the other acoustic parameters constant. Subsequently, a sample of listeners estimates the sexual orientation and masculinity/femininity of the produced stimuli. By combining production-based and perceptual approaches, possible discrepancies between expression (speakers) and perception (listeners) of sexual orientation can be identified. Furthermore, the auditory perception of sexual orientation is conceptualized realistically as a communicative act. On this basis, under Objective 3, a meta-analysis of all available, thematically relevant findings will be conducted and the Expression and Perception of Sexual Orientation Model, which the first applicant developed in his dissertation, will be extended. The overall goal of the present research proposal is to explain under which conditions stereotypical speech patterns are used to mark sexual orientations and which voice parameters cause the impression of a certain sexual orientation. In this way, starting points for evidence-based anti-discrimination work as well as for speech therapy interventions can be established in practice.

Project sponsor: DFG

Project management: Sven Kachel

Project Collaborator: Melanie C. Steffens

Project duration: 2019-2021

"We promise full employment by 2025" - On the effect of election promises on voter turnout and voting decisions

Project sponsor: Fritz Thyssen Foundation

Project participants: Evelyn Bytzek, Melanie C. Steffens

Project duration: 7/2018 to 6/2020
Interactions of visual and auditory information in the perception of gender and ethnicity.

(within the framework of the DFG research group "Person Perception").

Research project: General postulations regarding the perception of gender and ethnicity are often made on the basis of very simplified stimuli, static faces or merely group labels. It is often postulated that gender, ethnicity, and age are fundamental social categories that are automatically processed. The goal of the proposed project is to test whether typical findings on the automaticity of gender and ethnicity perception can be generalized to more complex, ecologically valid multimodal stimuli. According to our hypotheses, certain modalities are privileged for processing certain social categories. Furthermore, we test whether social categorization depends on participants' egalitarian attitudes. First, we compare categorization by gender and ethnicity under different presentation conditions (e.g., visual versus visual+auditory) and test correlations with participants' attitudes. Second, using the more complex visual-auditory stimuli, we test whether typical own-group and other-group differentiations (e.g., Germans versus foreigners) can be replicated when regional dialects allow for finer social categorization. Third, we additionally use event-related potentials to examine the neural correlates of gender and ethnicity categorization. Finally, we test the role of olfactory stimuli alongside visual and auditory ones. We expect as a yield that models of person perception need to be specified with respect to the early integration of social information from different modalities.

Project sponsor: German Research Foundation

Project Management: Melanie C. Steffens

Project Collaborators: Tamara Rakic (Lancaster University), Adrian P. Simpson (Friedrich Schiller University Jena), Sven Kachel

Project duration: 2009-2017 (two funding periods)

Social diversity and trust

Project sponsor: Ministry of Education, Science, Further Education and Culture of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens, Susanne Bruckmüller

Project collaboration: Franziska Ehrke

Project duration: 2014-2016

Effects of election promises on trust in politicians and citizens' voting decisions

Project sponsor: Ministry of Education, Science, Further Education and Culture of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens, Evelyn Bytzek

Project collaboration: Julia Dupont, Frank M. Schneider (University of Mannheim)

Project duration: 2014-2016

Discrimination against women in the assessment of suitability for leadership positions: Can social competence hurt?

Research project: As glaring as the underrepresentation of women at the highest levels of management is, it is difficult to prove concrete causes for this. We focus on gender stereotypes and institutional frameworks. Research on selection decisions when qualifications are paralleled has shown that women's competence is generally valued at the same level as men's; in contrast, a social competence stereotype of women persists. The shift in gender stereotypes in the direction that women are generally viewed as equally skilled but more socially competent than men has threatening implications for the social position of men as the socially dominant group. According to social dominance theory, subtle mechanisms for maintaining social hierarchies should prevent women from advancing to leadership positions. The mechanism we postulate is that higher social competence may be detrimental to success in job application situations. We test under which circumstances women perform worse than men in fake job interviews and whether this gender difference can be attributed to differences in social competence.

Project sponsor: xxxx

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens, Irena Ebert

Project duration: xxxx-xxxx

Memory for actions: Are action sequences better remembered after execution than after observation or learning?

Research project: The object of the project is the systematic comparison of the learning conditions action performance, observation, and verbal learning for the memory of action sequences. Actions that were self-performed are particularly well remembered. To obtain strict experimental control over potentially confounding boundary conditions, the numerous works on action advantage (Tu effect, enactment effect, SPT effect) have almost exclusively used lists of very simplified "actions" (verb-object phrases such as "break the match"). So far, there is no evidence that enactment results in better learning performance even for more complex action sequences. The memory processes underlying the action advantage also cast doubt on whether it can be generalized to action sequences. We postulate that action execution increases item-specific processing of individual sub-actions, at the expense of relations between them and at the expense of inferences about the target structure of sequences. The representation of the target structure is supposed to be crucial for the reproduction of an action sequence. Memory performance and underlying processes are tested for different action sequences under different learning conditions. The desired outcome is to clarify to what extent the execution of structured, goal-directed action sequences changes their mental representation.

A summary of the results of the project can be found here.

Project sponsor: German Research Foundation

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens

Project Collaborators: Janette Schult, Rul von Stülpnagel

Project duration: 2007-2015 (two funding periods)

How heterosexual family members deal with a late coming out in the family

A report on the results of the project can be found here.

Project sponsor: Lesbian and Gay Association of Germany

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens, Janine Dieckmann

Project duration: 2013-2014

Social discrimination based on relatively chronic categorization: the role of self-group projection.

(within the framework of the DFG research group "Discrimination and Tolerance in Intergroup Relations").

Research Project: The aim of the project is to investigate evaluations in intergroup contexts and how discrimination and tolerance arise from them. To this end, the Intrinsic Group Projection Model (IPM) will be tested in a structurally new intergroup context in order to obtain critical evidence that is informative regarding the scope of the model. The context targeted here is the intergroup relationship between the heterosexual majority and the homosexual minority. Peculiarities of these intergroup relations are (i) highly relevant relatively chronic and salient eigengroups (biological sex) crossed with majority and minority; (ii) both tolerance and discrimination is observed between the groups. From this, we can derive previously untested predictions about projection processes, which should be moderated by activating different superordinate categories. This intergroup situation conditions our planned work to go beyond existing research on IPM in two further respects. The processes postulated in the model are automatic processes whose outcome is not necessarily conscious and directly voiced. Therefore, implicit measures will be used in addition to the explicit ones previously used in model testing. Furthermore, projection from self to self-group will be considered as a moderating factor of the relationship between self-group projection and out-group discrimination. In the course of the targeted model tests, open questions from the research field of attitudes towards lesbians and gays can be clarified as a desired additional benefit: The theoretical embedding of many findings on this is deficient and the intergroup perspective is completely missing. The IPM perspective should therefore be very fruitful.

A summary of the findings of the research group "Discrimination and Tolerance in Intergroup Relations" can be found here.

Project sponsor: German Research Foundation

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens, Kai J. Jonas

Project collaboration: Gerhard Reese

Project duration: 2005-2008 (first funding period), 2008-2010 (second funding period)

Doubly discriminated or well integrated? On the life situation of lesbians and gays with a migration background

Research project: Lesbians and gays with a migration background represent a stigmatized minority in a double sense, which as a result is confronted with special problems and has to find solutions for these difficulties. For Germany, no comprehensive empirical studies on the living situation, problems and their effects on the mental health of lesbians and gay men with a migration background are available to date. In the project presented here, a quantitative questionnaire study was conducted following a qualitative study (i.e., interviews) in which lesbians and gay men with a migration background and, as a comparison group, lesbians and gay men without a migration background participated.

A report of the results can be found here.

Project sponsor: Lesbian and Gay Association of Germany

Project management: Melanie C. Steffens

Project collaboration: Michael Bergert

Project duration: 2009-2010