BRAIN POTENTIALS REFLECT VIOLATIONS OF GENDER STEREOTYPES

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while 14 males and 14 females read sentences containing a reflexive pronoun that referre d to a definitionally or stereotypically male or female antecedent nou n. Pronouns that disagreed with the gender definition or gender stereo type of the antecedent elicited a large-amplitude positive wave. Viola tions of gender definitions elicited a larger positive wave than did v iolations of gender stereotypes. Furthermore, the positive wave elicit ed by stereotype violations persisted even when subjects judged these sentences to be acceptable. Finally, female subjects exhibited larger positivities than did male subjects, regardless of whether the gender mismatch involved a definitional or stereotypical antecedent. These re sults are taken to indicate that ERPs are sensitive to violations of g ender-based occupational stereotypes and that the ERP response to ster eotype violations is similar to the P600 effect elicited by a variety of syntactic anomalies.