Exploring the gender-portion association in stereotypes, cognition, and treatment

Abstract

Gender stereotypes take many forms. One relatively under-studied stereotype concerns gender and food. While prior work finds certain foods are viewed as more masculine or feminine, there is limited research on how the same food becomes gendered depending on portion size. Four studies (N = 2178) found that 1) participants held implicit and explicit associations between men with large portions and women with small portions, and 2) participants had better memory for counter-stereotypical pairings (e.g., women with large portions) than stereotype-consistent pairings. However, a field experiment (N = 182) failed to produce strong evidence that this association impacted behavior, as men did not receive reliably larger portions than women when being prepared identical orders during face-to-face interactions with servers at fast casual restaurants. These findings highlight the strength of the gender-portion association in cognition but suggest other factors (e.g., standardization) may constrain its influence on behavior.