At Your Own Risk: Gender Identity Salience and Perceived Vulnerability to Breast Cancer

In a series of experiments we manipulated women’s gender identity salience and assessed the effect on perceived vulnerability to gender-specific versus gender-neutral risks. In four experiments, using different priming procedures, we show that increasing the salience of women’s gender identity reduces their perceived vulnerability to breast cancer and negatively affects precautionary behavior. We discovered that defensive mechanisms only occur when femininity is primed, not when gender in general is primed and we document the importance of individual differences in endorsing positive versus negative female stereotypes. These results have important implications for breast cancer awareness campaigns.

Citation:

Steven Sweldens, Stefano Puntoni, and Nader Tavassoli (2007) ,"At Your Own Risk: Gender Identity Salience and Perceived Vulnerability to Breast Cancer", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 477-478.