Data of "When a silhouette appears male: Observer

Categorization bias in social cognition is widely observed, as it is more beneficial to commit low-risk biases in order to reduce high-risk biases. In this context, a short age of the capacity to protect oneself when at high risk of approaching potentially harmful others, and hence, physical load and low physical fitness, are considered to be disadvantageous in self-protection. Thus, we hypothesized that a low capacity to self-protect leads to a biased social categorization of others as harmful. To examine this hypothesis, silhouettes of the human body, which had a sexually dimorphic cue (waist-to-hip ratio), were presented, and participants categorized the stimuli as female or male. Participants’ basic physical fitness was measured, and we manipulated physical load by a heavy or light backpack. Physical load did not significantly influence categorization. In contrast, only female participants tended to categorize the stimuli as male as basic physical fitness increased, suggesting that basic physical fitness, not physical load, affects sex categorization for females. Our findings shed new light on the effect of fitness factors on social cognition.

社会认知中的分类偏差现象已被广泛证实，其逻辑在于：为降低高风险偏差，采取引发低风险偏差的策略往往更为有利。在此语境下，当个体面临接近潜在伤害性他人的高风险时，自我保护能力不足，加之身体负荷过重与身体素质较差，均被视为不利于自我保护的因素。据此，我们提出研究假设：自我保护能力不足会导致个体将他人偏向性归类为具有伤害性。为验证该假设，本研究向被试呈现带有性别二态性线索（sexually dimorphic cue）的人体剪影，该线索以腰臀比（waist-to-hip ratio）体现，并要求被试将刺激物归类为女性或男性。研究测量了被试的基础身体素质，并通过背负重量不同的背包操控身体负荷变量。结果显示，身体负荷未对分类任务产生显著影响。与之相反，仅女性被试会随着基础身体素质提升，更倾向于将刺激物归类为男性，这表明影响女性性别分类的因素是基础身体素质而非身体负荷。本研究结果为身体素质因素对社会认知的影响提供了全新的研究视角。