A historical psychology approach to gendered racial stereotypes: An examination of a multi-million book sample of 20th century texts

Abstract

Studies on intersectional invisibility and gendered race theory suggest that individuals whose identities are mismatched with widespread gendered racial stereotypes (i.e., Black women and East Asian men) face unique forms of discrimination in the form of representational invisibility. While previous research on gendered racial stereotypes has used experimental and laboratory-based paradigms to study the ways in which race and gender stereotypes intersect, this study applies a historical psychology lens to examine social representations using a large dataset of strings of text (“ngrams”) occurring in millions of English-language books published over 120 years. Consistent with hypotheses, we find that terms representing Black women and Asian men are generally less frequent than those referencing Black men and Asian women. Importantly, the magnitude of the race and gender terms changes over time, and the patterns of change correspond to social movements in the United States, suggesting that historical events such as the Civil Rights and Black Feminist movements may have impacted culturally widespread gendered race stereotypes.