Are Women Perceived as Worse Magicians Than Men? Gender Bias When Evaluating Magic Tricks

Pascal Gygax (1) , Cyril Thomas (2) , André Didierjean (3, 4, 5) , Gustav Kuhn (6)

1 UNIFR - Université de Fribourg = University of Fribourg
2 LaPEA - UMR_T 7708 - Laboratoire de Psychologie et d’Ergonomie Appliquées
3 PSYCHO - Laboratoire de Psychologie - UFC (UR 3188)
4 MSHE - Maison des Sciences de l'Homme et de l'Environnement Claude Nicolas Ledoux (UAR 3124)
5 IUF - Institut universitaire de France
6 Goldsmiths College - Goldsmiths, University of London

We present two experiments investigating the effect of the perceived gender of a magician on the perception of the quality of magic tricks. In Experiment 1, tricks performed by an allegedly female magician were considered worse than those by an allegedly male magician. In Experiment 2, participants had to generate possible solutions to how the tricks were done. Under these conditions, male participants were better at explaining the tricks, but the gender effect found in Experiment 1 disappeared. We discuss the gender bias in Experiment 1 and the lack of bias in Experiment 2 in terms of specific social and cognitive mechanisms (e.g., cognitive dissonance).

Domaines: Sciences cognitives

Pascal Gygax, Cyril Thomas, André Didierjean, Gustav Kuhn. Are Women Perceived as Worse Magicians Than Men? Gender Bias When Evaluating Magic Tricks. Social Psychological Bulletin, 2019, 14 (3), ⟨10.32872/spb.v14i3.33574⟩. ⟨hal-03576032⟩