Stimuli creation: a total of approximately 400 unique statements were created. Half of the statements pertained to gender stereotypes, half to ethnic stereotypes (stereotypes about Jews and Arabs).
Stimuli pilots: a total of 530 participants (mean age = 31.06 50% women, a Jewish sample) rated the gender statements, and 290 participants (mean age = 30.6 47% women, a Jewish sample) rated the ethnic statements. Participants were recruited in several rounds. Participants rated each statement on how compatible the statement was for a specific social category (men or women for gender statements, Jews or Arabs for ethnic statements). Each participant rated each statement on compatibility with a specific group. The final set of stimuli included 240 statements. Forty masculine-stereotype statements, 40 feminine-stereotypes statements, 40 gender-neutral statements, 40 Jew-stereotype statements, 40 Arab-stereotype statements, and 40 ethnicity-neutral statements. Stereotype-relevant statements were chosen based on a minimal difference of 20 points (on a 0-100 scale) between the two relevant social categories and a minimum score of 50 for the stereotypical statements. Stereotype-neutral statements were defined as statements with a difference of no more than 11 points (on the same 0-100 scale).
Paradigm pilots and execution: Two complementary paradigms were tested. First, a behavioral paradigm aiming to examine how much money people are willing to forego to see stereotypical information (for a related paradigm, see Reggev et al., 2021). Including all pilots, 220 participants completed the paradigm. Results are currently being analyzed. Initial results show that participants are willing to forgo money to see stereotypical information instead of counter-stereotypical information; however, when faced with an alternative (solving easy trivia questions), participants preferred the trivia question over both stereotypical and counter-stereotypical information (the preference was stronger for trivia comparted to counter-stereotypical information). Given this surprising results, our lab is currently conducting two additional studies to explore and rule out alternative explanations.
The second paradigm was planned as an fMRI-compatible paradigm. Approximately 45 participants completed various versions of the paradigm in the lab to fine-tune the display and timing parameters. As COVID-19 severely disrupted behavioral and neuroimaging experiments, we are currently collecting neuroimaging from this paradigm and do not have results yet. The decision not to analyze the data prior to data collection completion is necessary to ensure an unbiased interpretation of the data and unbiased collection termination decision.
Unfortunately, the setbacks described above have prevented the conclusion of the studies included in the action and, therefore, the action did not directly result in publications.
In parallel, working on this action indirectly contributed to thinking, writing, and publishing related results (Reggev et al., 2021; Mokady & Reggev, 2022). I have presented these results at conferences (the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience annual meeting, 2021; the Israeli Cognitive Psychology annual meeting, 2020) and at departmental colloquia in Israel (at the Hebrew University, Tel-Aviv University, Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience) and abroad (at Harvard University). Furthermore, the stimuli developed a part of the action serve several additional lines of work in my laboratory.
