ABSTRACT
Ambivalent gender stereotypes are in fact more prevalent in countries with higher gender inequality at a societal level. The inequality hypotheses investigated first overall correlations between warmth and competence, and whether these co-varied with Gini inequality coefficients. The inequality focus also compared how stereotypic traits and their respective socio-structural predictors vary across societies. Inequality emphasizes more than one dimension of intergroup perception to compensate. The stereotype content model (SCM) hypothesizes that many societal stereotypes are ambivalent. The stereotype content model suggests that depicting societal groups in ambivalent ways—such as fortunate in one sphere while unfortunate in another—may mask socio-economic disparities, facilitating, as a consequence, the rationalization and maintenance of the status quo. According to the SCM, competence and warmth judgments, respectively, stem from perceived socio-economic status and perceived interdependence. SCM provides a pan cultural tool for predicting group stereotypes from structural relations with other groups in society, and for comparing across societies.
