Hurricanes with female names deadlier
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, June 3, 2014
In a follow-up set of experiments, Jung and his colleagues examined how the gender of names directly affected people's judgments about storms. They found that people who were asked to imagine being in the path of "Hurricane Alexandra" (or "Christina" or "Victoria") rated the storm as less risky and intense compared to those asked to imagine being in the path of "Hurricane Alexander" (or "Christopher" or "Victor").
"This is a tremendously important finding. Proof positive that our culturally grounded associations steer our steps," said Hazel Rose Markus, a professor in behavioral sciences at Stanford University, who was not involved in the research.
Hurricanes kill more than 200 people in the United States each year, and severe hurricanes are capable of producing casualties in the thousands, according to the researchers.
They were previously given only female names in the United States but an alternating male-female naming system was adopted in the late 1970s because of increased societal awareness of sexism, the researchers said.
The findings, however, indicated an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the gendered naming of hurricanes, which has important implications for policymakers, meteorologists, the news media and the public regarding hurricane communication and preparedness, they said.
The researchers said this research is the first to demonstrate that gender stereotypes can have deadly consequences, although the negative effect of gender stereotypes is well-known in hiring decisions and other evaluations of women and men.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)