He thinks, she feels: how gendered lay beliefs shape interpersonal judgment and behavior

Human decision-making involves deliberation and intuition, yet laypersons often view rationality and emotion as conflicting forces. Building on prior work documenting the stereotype that associates men with rationality and women with emotion, this research provides a systematic, multi-method examination of its manifestations and downstream consequences for interpersonal judgment and behavior. Across five studies ( N = 969), we replicate the implicit and explicit associations underlying this stereotype, using both an Implicit Association Test with explicit measures and natural language analysis. Building on this foundation, we demonstrate that these beliefs manifest in judgments of advertising preferences, with men assumed to be more responsive to rational appeals and women to emotional ones, and that stronger beliefs intensify this prediction. Moreover, we show that the stereotype carries over into gift selection, where people give more rationally framed gifts to men. Beyond these judgment and choice paradigms, a preregistered intervention study reveals that altering these beliefs directly affects gender-differentiated task allocation, such that perceived rationality influences the assignment of men and women to rational versus emotional tasks. This work enhances the understanding of how gender stereotypes operate in interpersonal decision-making. Clinical trial number: Not applicable.