Women are underrepresented in careers where success is perceived to depend on high levels of intellectual ability (e.g., brilliance, genius), including those in science and technology. This phenomenon may be due in part to a gender-brilliance stereotype that portrays men as more brilliant than women. Here, we offer the first investigation of whether people implicitly associate brilliance with men more than women. Implicit measures are absent from prior research on the gender-brilliance stereotype, despite having the potential to contribute unique information about the prevalence of this stereotype. Across 5 studies (N = 3618) with 17 Implicit Association Tests using 6 distinct comparison traits (e.g., creative, funny), we found consistent evidence for an implicit gender-brilliance stereotype favoring men. Indeed, for 5 out of 6 comparison traits (even the male-typed trait funny), male was associated with brilliant and female with the comparison trait. Only a physical trait (strong) showed a stronger association with male than brilliant did; none of the psychological traits used as comparisons rivaled brilliant in their association to male. Evidence for the implicit gender-brilliance stereotype was consistently observed whether the male and female targets were represented with verbal labels or pictures, and whether the pictures depicted White or Black targets. Moreover, the results were robust in both men and women, children and adults, across different regions of the U.S. as well as internationally. This pervasive implicit association of brilliance with men is likely to hold women back in careers perceived to require brilliance.

妇女在职业中的代表性不足，在这些职业中，成功被认为取决于高水平的智力能力（例如，才华横溢，才华横溢），包括科学和技术领域。这种现象可能部分归因于对性别的乐观刻板印象，该刻板印象将男性描述为比女性更聪明。在这里，我们提供了第一个调查，即人们是否比男人暗含了与男人更多的才华。尽管有潜力提供有关此刻板印象患病率的独特信息，但先前关于性别光彩刻板印象的研究并未采取隐式措施。跨5个研究（N  = 3618），使用17个隐式联想测验，使用6个不同的比较特征（例如，创造性，有趣），我们发现了一致的证据表明，内在的性别光彩刻板印象有利于男性。事实上，5，满分6比较性状（连男类型的特征滑稽），男子与相关的辉煌和女性与比较特质。只有身体特征（强）显示出与男性的关联强于才华。没有用作比较的心理特质相媲美的辉煌在其协会男性。始终观察到内隐的性别光辉刻板印象的证据，无论男性和女性目标都用言语标签或图片表示，以及图片是否描绘了白色或黑色目标。此外，在美国不同地区乃至国际上，无论男女，儿童和成人，结果都是可靠的。光彩与男性的这种普遍的隐性联系可能会使女性退缩到被认为需要光彩的职业中。