Implicit gender-based food stereotypes. Semantic priming experiments on young Japanese.

We explored the feasibility of introducing implicit attitude measures for the study of food-related stereotypes by assessing gender-based food stereotypes among young Japanese using a semantic priming paradigm. Thirty-seven Japanese university students were asked to judge if a given forename was male or female immediately after the presentation of a food-name prime stimulus. The participants required significantly less time to verify the gender of forenames when the stereotyped gender of the food and the gender of forename were congruent than when they were incongruent. We demonstrate that a semantic priming paradigm is capable of uncovering implicit gender-based food stereotypes.