The Structure of Gender Type Perception: Testing the Elaboration, Encapsulation, and Evaluation Framework

This article introduces the elaboration, encapsulation, and evaluation (E3) model, which posits that the structure of gender type perception is guided by these three mechanisms, and describes an initial test of this framework. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering analyses were conducted based on a free sorting of 89 commonly used gender targets. Participants also rated the targets on a number of psychological properties. Analyses produced a multidimensional space with a male–female dimension along which, and across which, distinct clusters were located. Property ratings indicated that the composition of the clusters supported the elaboration and encapsulation mechanisms. That the respectability and good–bad properties were important in interpreting the multidimensional space and were relatively orthogonal to the gender dimension supported the evaluation mechanism.