Explicit Gender Stereotypes and Sexually Polymorphic Cognition by Gender Identity

Background Sexually polymorphic cognition (SPC) is influenced by sex differences and gender diversity. These differences have long been studied from a biological approach, but more and more studies are pointing to the importance of considering socio-cultural gender-related factors. Several studies have shown, for example, that explicit gender stereotypes can modulate performance on cognitive tasks that are sexually dimorphic. However, no study has examined the relationship between gender stereotypes and SPC in a population that includes gender diverse people (transgender and nonbinary people). Methods We recruited 488 adults who completed eight cognitive tasks measuring a range of cognitive functions during a 150-minute session. The three groups were cis women ( n =160), cis men ( n =172), and gender diverse people ( n =156). Participants were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: a control condition and two conditions in which participants were exposed to an explicit gender stereotype prior to each task. Psychosocial data were collected using self-report questionnaires. Results The cognitive performance of gender diverse people was similar to that of cis men in a judgment of line orientation task, similar to that of cis women in a fine motor skills task and superior to both cis men and cis women in a verbal learning task. Explicit gender stereotypes had no direct impact on cognitive performance. Interestingly, differences in performance between cis men, cis women and gender diverse individuals seem to vary from one experimental condition to another. Conclusion Our results show that the inclusion of gender diverse people allows further exploration of SPC beyond “sexual dimorphisms” and that differences in cognition cannot be explained by birth-assigned sex alone. Moreover, sex/gender variations in cognition across different stereotype induction conditions highlight the lack of consistency in the literature on SPC. Future research should ascertain whether protocol features between studies can explain the variability in results and/or whether experimenters' stereotyped beliefs inadvertnantly influence the conclusions drawn from their studies.