Subtle prejudice against women in The Netherlands

Subtle discrimination against women in the Netherlands was examined, using Dovidio and Gaertner's (1983) investigatory design and a sample of 56 male university sophomores. The following variables were manipulated: confederate's gender, confederate's role (supervisory vs. subordinate in relation to the participant), and confederate's cognitive ability (high vs. low). It was expected that a woman in a subordinate role would be offered help more often than a woman in a supervisory role would, and that a low-ability woman in a subordinate role would be offered help more often than a high-ability woman in the same role. The results supported these expectations even though there was no evidence of stereotyping in the written answers to the questionnaire.