Theresa K Vescio
Biographic Data
| ID | 1253099 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Theresa K Vescio |
| GIVEN NAMES | Theresa K |
| FAMILY NAME | Vescio |
| SIGNATURE | VESCIO T K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5334-1640 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 458 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Masculinity Threats Sequentially Arouse Public Discomfort, Anger, and Positive Attitudes Toward Sexual Violence
Three experiments ( N = 943) tested whether men (but not women) responded to gender threats with increased concern about how one looks in the eyes of others (i.e., public discomfort) and subsequent anger that, in turn, predicted attitudes about sexual violence. Consistent with predictions, for men, learning that one is like a woman was associated with threat-related emotions (public discomfort and anger) that, in turn, predicted the increased lik…
Hegemonic Masculinity Predicts Support for U.S. Political Figures Accused of Sexual Assault
In three studies ( N = 886), we hypothesized and found that women’s and men’s endorsement of the culturally idealized form of masculinity, hegemonic masculinity (HM), predicted more positive evaluations of a political figure accused of sexual violence (Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh) and more negative evaluations of the women who made accusations of sexual assault. HM predicted these evaluations over and above political party, gender, race, educ…
Perceptions of a sexual advance from gay men leads to negative affect and compensatory acts of masculinity
Prior research highlights the relationship between anti‐gay prejudice and masculinity: straight men (1) avoid being misclassified as gay and (2) experience increased anti‐gay attitudes when their masculinity is threatened. We hypothesized that a sexual advance from a gay man would constitute a threat to straight man's masculinity. Four experiments and a cross‐cultural replication ( N = 1407) manipulated perceptions of a same‐sex sexual advance an…
The effect of gender identity and gender threat on self-image
Men’s and women’s endorsement of hegemonic masculinity and responses to Covid-19
Using a gendered psychology of health approach, we examine the effects of the culturally idealized form of masculinity—hegemonic masculinity—for both men and women’s health attitudes and behaviors. Using data collected across four studies ( N = 805) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that stronger endorsement of hegemonic masculinity related to health attitudes antithetical to mitigation strategies (e.g. more engagement in risky behaviors, le…
The affective consequences of threats to masculinity
Perceived morality determines the acceptability of stereotypic feminine emotional displays in men
Gendered discourse about climate change policies
The effects of leader illegitimacy on leaders' and subordinates' responses to relinquishing power decisions
This research examined how leader illegitimacy affects leaders' and subordinates' responses to relinquishing power decisions. The processes underlying responses to leader illegitimacy and relinquishing power were also examined. Across four studies, participants were placed in leader roles (Studies 1a/1b) or subordinate roles (Studies 2a/2b) in an online competition. In Studies 1a/1b, participants assigned a leadership role learned, via a leadersh…
Gender Stereotypes Influence How People Explain Gender Disparities in the Workplace
The Justification of Social Inequality in Response to Masculinity Threats
How Threats to Masculinity Sequentially Cause Public Discomfort, Anger, and Ideological Dominance Over Women
This research examined whether threats to masculinity both inspired men's efforts to reestablish their power over women via the promotion of ideologies that implicitly subordinate women and occurred when men were outperformed by women in masculine domains. Masculinity was threatened by telling men they scored like women on a gender knowledge test ( Rudman & Fairchild, 2004 ), which sequentially led to more concern about how they were perceived by…
Male Role Norm Endorsement and Sexism Predict Heterosexual College Men’s Attitudes Toward Casual Sex, Intoxicated Sexual Contact, and Casual Sex
(Still) waiting in the wings
Do gender–science stereotypes predict science identification and science career aspirations among undergraduate science majors
Benevolently bowing out
The Effect of Patronizing Behavior and Control on Men and Women’s Performance in Stereotypically Masculine Domains
Seeing women as objects
Objectification theory suggests that the bodies of women are sometimes reduced to their sexual body parts. As well, an extensive literature in cognitive psychology suggests that global processing underlies person recognition, whereas local processing underlies object recognition. Integrating these literatures, we introduced and tested the sexual body part recognition bias hypothesis that women's (versus men's) bodies would be reduced to their sex…
Seeing wrath from the top (through stratified lenses)
When What You See Is What You Get
This research examined the effects of the objectifying gaze on math performance, interaction motivation, body surveillance, body shame, and body dissatisfaction. In an experiment, undergraduate participants (67 women and 83 men) received an objectifying gaze during an interaction with a trained confederate of the other sex. As hypothesized, the objectifying gaze caused decrements in women’s math performance but not men’s. Interestingly, the objec…
Core American Values and the Structure of Antigay Prejudice
This work presents a new scale to measure conflicting attitudes toward sexual minorities. This scale parallels existing measures of conflicting racial attitudes (anti-Black and pro-Black attitudes; Katz & Hass, 1988). After constructing and validating measures of antigay and progay attitudes, we tested relationships among core American values with racial and sexual minority attitudes. We examined relations among the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE), T…
Confronting Sexism
The effects of prejudice level and social influence strategy on powerful people's responding to racial out‐group members
This research tested the hypothesis that the responding of high, but not low, prejudice White Americans would vary as a function of manipulations of powerful people's attention to subordinate strengths that facilitate goal strivings versus weaknesses that block goals. To examine this possibility, White participants were assigned to leader roles and an interaction with a low power Black ‘employee’ was staged. Consistent with predictions, findings …
Power and the Creation of Patronizing Environments
This work tested the following hypothesis: When powerful men stereotype their female subordinates in masculine domains, they behave in patronizing ways that affect the performance of their subordinates. Experiment 1 examined the stereotyping tendencies and patronizing behaviors of the powerful. Findings revealed that powerful men who stereotyped their female subordinates (i.e., those who were weakness focused) gave female subordinates few valued …
Perspective taking and prejudice reduction
This research was designed to examine whether perspective taking promotes improved intergroup attitudes regardless of the extent that stereotypic perceptions of outgroups are endorsed, as well as examining the mechanisms (attributional or empathy related) by which perspective taking motivates improved intergroup attitudes. Participants were presented with an interview segment where an African American interviewee discussed the difficulties experi…
Perspective taking and prejudice reduction
This research was designed to examine whether perspective taking promotes improved intergroup attitudes regardless of the extent that stereotypic perceptions of outgroups are endorsed, as well as examining the mechanisms (attributional or empathy related) by which perspective taking motivates improved intergroup attitudes. Participants were presented with an interview segment where an African American interviewee discussed the difficulties experi…
Violating American Values
Power and the Creation of Patronizing Environments
This work tested the following hypothesis: When powerful men stereotype their female subordinates in masculine domains, they behave in patronizing ways that affect the performance of their subordinates. Experiment 1 examined the stereotyping tendencies and patronizing behaviors of the powerful. Findings revealed that powerful men who stereotyped their female subordinates (i.e., those who were weakness focused) gave female subordinates few valued …
How Threats to Masculinity Sequentially Cause Public Discomfort, Anger, and Ideological Dominance Over Women
This research examined whether threats to masculinity both inspired men's efforts to reestablish their power over women via the promotion of ideologies that implicitly subordinate women and occurred when men were outperformed by women in masculine domains. Masculinity was threatened by telling men they scored like women on a gender knowledge test ( Rudman & Fairchild, 2004 ), which sequentially led to more concern about how they were perceived by…
When What You See Is What You Get
This research examined the effects of the objectifying gaze on math performance, interaction motivation, body surveillance, body shame, and body dissatisfaction. In an experiment, undergraduate participants (67 women and 83 men) received an objectifying gaze during an interaction with a trained confederate of the other sex. As hypothesized, the objectifying gaze caused decrements in women’s math performance but not men’s. Interestingly, the objec…
The Justification of Social Inequality in Response to Masculinity Threats
Categorization and Stereotyping
Power in Stereotypically Masculine Domains
This work examines the hypothesis that stereotypes of groups to which low-power people belong should influence the perceptions and behavior of powerful people only when those stereotypes are both contextually relevant (e.g., women in masculine domains) and provide information of relevance given powerful people's beliefs about the relation between subordinates and goal attainment. Findings across two studies supported predictions. In a masculine d…
Selective self-stereotyping
The affective consequences of threats to masculinity
Gender Stereotypes Influence How People Explain Gender Disparities in the Workplace
Confronting Sexism
Gendered discourse about climate change policies
Seeing women as objects
Objectification theory suggests that the bodies of women are sometimes reduced to their sexual body parts. As well, an extensive literature in cognitive psychology suggests that global processing underlies person recognition, whereas local processing underlies object recognition. Integrating these literatures, we introduced and tested the sexual body part recognition bias hypothesis that women's (versus men's) bodies would be reduced to their sex…
Do gender–science stereotypes predict science identification and science career aspirations among undergraduate science majors
Core American Values and the Structure of Antigay Prejudice
This work presents a new scale to measure conflicting attitudes toward sexual minorities. This scale parallels existing measures of conflicting racial attitudes (anti-Black and pro-Black attitudes; Katz & Hass, 1988). After constructing and validating measures of antigay and progay attitudes, we tested relationships among core American values with racial and sexual minority attitudes. We examined relations among the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE), T…
The crossed-categorization hypothesis
Perceptions of a sexual advance from gay men leads to negative affect and compensatory acts of masculinity
Prior research highlights the relationship between anti‐gay prejudice and masculinity: straight men (1) avoid being misclassified as gay and (2) experience increased anti‐gay attitudes when their masculinity is threatened. We hypothesized that a sexual advance from a gay man would constitute a threat to straight man's masculinity. Four experiments and a cross‐cultural replication ( N = 1407) manipulated perceptions of a same‐sex sexual advance an…
The Effect of Patronizing Behavior and Control on Men and Women’s Performance in Stereotypically Masculine Domains
Still Another Look at the Effects of Fit and Novelty on the Salience of Social Categories
The effect of gender identity and gender threat on self-image
Men’s and women’s endorsement of hegemonic masculinity and responses to Covid-19
Using a gendered psychology of health approach, we examine the effects of the culturally idealized form of masculinity—hegemonic masculinity—for both men and women’s health attitudes and behaviors. Using data collected across four studies ( N = 805) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that stronger endorsement of hegemonic masculinity related to health attitudes antithetical to mitigation strategies (e.g. more engagement in risky behaviors, le…
Male Role Norm Endorsement and Sexism Predict Heterosexual College Men’s Attitudes Toward Casual Sex, Intoxicated Sexual Contact, and Casual Sex
Seeing wrath from the top (through stratified lenses)
The effects of prejudice level and social influence strategy on powerful people's responding to racial out‐group members
This research tested the hypothesis that the responding of high, but not low, prejudice White Americans would vary as a function of manipulations of powerful people's attention to subordinate strengths that facilitate goal strivings versus weaknesses that block goals. To examine this possibility, White participants were assigned to leader roles and an interaction with a low power Black ‘employee’ was staged. Consistent with predictions, findings …
Categorization and Stereotyping
Still Another Look at the Effects of Fit and Novelty on the Salience of Social Categories
Violating American Values
Selective self-stereotyping
Black sheep and expectancy violation
A study of race-based ingroup and outgroup judgment demonstrates the links between two models of social judgment—the ‘black sheep’ effect (Marques, Yzerbyt & Leyens, 1988) and expectancy-violation theory (Jussim, Coleman & Lerch, 1987). White participants had a live interaction with a Black or White partner who contributed to a team success or failure at a game. Partner judgments, perceived expectancy violation, and mood changes indicated a patte…
When stereotype-based expectancies impair performance
High- and low-prejudiced participants were presented with a lecture segment in which the race of the professor (White or Black) and lecture quality (high or low) were manipulated. Consistent with predictions, low-prejudiced participants were more extreme in their evaluations (more negative) and performed more poorly on test items when presented with an expectancy-violating low-quality Black lecturer. High-prejudiced participants were more extreme…
When stereotype‐based expectancies impair performance
Perspective taking and prejudice reduction
This research was designed to examine whether perspective taking promotes improved intergroup attitudes regardless of the extent that stereotypic perceptions of outgroups are endorsed, as well as examining the mechanisms (attributional or empathy related) by which perspective taking motivates improved intergroup attitudes. Participants were presented with an interview segment where an African American interviewee discussed the difficulties experi…
Power in Stereotypically Masculine Domains
This work examines the hypothesis that stereotypes of groups to which low-power people belong should influence the perceptions and behavior of powerful people only when those stereotypes are both contextually relevant (e.g., women in masculine domains) and provide information of relevance given powerful people's beliefs about the relation between subordinates and goal attainment. Findings across two studies supported predictions. In a masculine d…
The crossed-categorization hypothesis
Power and the Creation of Patronizing Environments
This work tested the following hypothesis: When powerful men stereotype their female subordinates in masculine domains, they behave in patronizing ways that affect the performance of their subordinates. Experiment 1 examined the stereotyping tendencies and patronizing behaviors of the powerful. Findings revealed that powerful men who stereotyped their female subordinates (i.e., those who were weakness focused) gave female subordinates few valued …
The effects of prejudice level and social influence strategy on powerful people's responding to racial out‐group members
This research tested the hypothesis that the responding of high, but not low, prejudice White Americans would vary as a function of manipulations of powerful people's attention to subordinate strengths that facilitate goal strivings versus weaknesses that block goals. To examine this possibility, White participants were assigned to leader roles and an interaction with a low power Black ‘employee’ was staged. Consistent with predictions, findings …
Confronting Sexism
When What You See Is What You Get
This research examined the effects of the objectifying gaze on math performance, interaction motivation, body surveillance, body shame, and body dissatisfaction. In an experiment, undergraduate participants (67 women and 83 men) received an objectifying gaze during an interaction with a trained confederate of the other sex. As hypothesized, the objectifying gaze caused decrements in women’s math performance but not men’s. Interestingly, the objec…
Core American Values and the Structure of Antigay Prejudice
This work presents a new scale to measure conflicting attitudes toward sexual minorities. This scale parallels existing measures of conflicting racial attitudes (anti-Black and pro-Black attitudes; Katz & Hass, 1988). After constructing and validating measures of antigay and progay attitudes, we tested relationships among core American values with racial and sexual minority attitudes. We examined relations among the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE), T…
The Effect of Patronizing Behavior and Control on Men and Women’s Performance in Stereotypically Masculine Domains
Seeing women as objects
Objectification theory suggests that the bodies of women are sometimes reduced to their sexual body parts. As well, an extensive literature in cognitive psychology suggests that global processing underlies person recognition, whereas local processing underlies object recognition. Integrating these literatures, we introduced and tested the sexual body part recognition bias hypothesis that women's (versus men's) bodies would be reduced to their sex…
Seeing wrath from the top (through stratified lenses)
Do gender–science stereotypes predict science identification and science career aspirations among undergraduate science majors
Benevolently bowing out
Male Role Norm Endorsement and Sexism Predict Heterosexual College Men’s Attitudes Toward Casual Sex, Intoxicated Sexual Contact, and Casual Sex
(Still) waiting in the wings
The Justification of Social Inequality in Response to Masculinity Threats
How Threats to Masculinity Sequentially Cause Public Discomfort, Anger, and Ideological Dominance Over Women
This research examined whether threats to masculinity both inspired men's efforts to reestablish their power over women via the promotion of ideologies that implicitly subordinate women and occurred when men were outperformed by women in masculine domains. Masculinity was threatened by telling men they scored like women on a gender knowledge test ( Rudman & Fairchild, 2004 ), which sequentially led to more concern about how they were perceived by…
Gender Stereotypes Influence How People Explain Gender Disparities in the Workplace
Psychology (34 works) · Social Psychology (33 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (27 works) · Social Psychology (22 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (12 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (11 works) · Developmental psychology (11 works) · Masculinity (11 works) · Gender Diversity and Inequality (10 works) · Anger (9 works)