About

Marianne LaFrance is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She earned her Ph.D. in 1974 from Boston University. Her research interests encompass two broad domains: the psychology of gender and the role of nonverbal communication, as well as their intersection. She regards gender as a central psychological dynamic that includes but is not reducible to the study of sex differences. Her questions focus on when gender influences perceptions of others, why males are often regarded as the standard, how sexual minorities are construed and evaluated, and the effects of gender stereotypes such as women being stereotyped as emotional. She is also interested in exploring the consequences of gender prejudice, including reactions to sexist jokes and subtle sexual harassment in contexts like job interviews. Additionally, her research investigates the processes involved when an individual's sexuality or gender is questioned. LaFrance has a particular interest in nonverbal behaviors, which operate largely out-of-awareness and off-the-record. These behaviors reveal information about a person's states and attitudes and serve to connect or disconnect social relationships. Her goal is to determine when and how facial expressions and body postures reinforce or undermine power differences between people.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Computer science
• Cognitive psychology

Selected publications

• Forms of Psychological Bias Against Transgender Women and Men and People With Nonbinary Gender Identities

  Personality and Social Psychology Review · 2025-09-15 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Academic AbstractThe present review examines bias against transgender women and men and bias against people with nonbinary gender identities. A central contention is that many people hold false beliefs about transgender men's and women's membership in the categories "male" and "female," and, separately, view nonbinary gender identities themselves as illegitimate. Both discounting transgender men's and women's membership in the categories "male" and "female" and discounting the validity of nonbinary gender identities are forms of bias, and studying them will be essential to build a more nuanced understanding of stereotyping and prejudice. The authors review the literature on bias against transgender people and bias against nonbinary people, discuss the methodological and theoretical challenges in studying these biases, propose an approach for interpreting results in light of common (mis)categorization processes, and consider avenues for future research.Public AbstractThis article reviews research about bias against transgender women and men and bias against people with nonbinary gender identities. Many people hold false beliefs about transgender men's and women's membership in the categories "male" and "female." Also, many people view nonbinary gender identities as illegitimate. Both discounting transgender men's and women's membership in the categories "male" and "female" and discounting the validity of nonbinary gender identities are forms of bias. Thoroughly investigating these forms of bias will help researchers build a more a nuanced understanding of the biases that target transgender and nonbinary people. This observation helps put much of the past research in context, and it could make future research stronger by distinguishing between kinds of bias and encouraging more precise measurement and experimentation.

  PublisherDOI

• Age Stereotypes and Stereotypes of Persons Living With Memory Loss With Health in Parent-Adult Child Dyads

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Negative stereotypes of aging have been associated with poor overall health for the people that hold them. However, research examining stereotypes of persons living with memory loss and how they relate to health remains limited. Little is known about interpersonal influence of these stereotypes within intergenerational caregiving dyads. This study examines the dyadic associations between self-perceptions of aging and persons living with memory loss, and health outcomes in parent-adult child caregiving dyads. This study is a secondary analysis of 126 dyads from the Families Coping Together with Alzheimer’s Disease study. Measures included self-reported depressive symptoms and physical and mental health. Positivity scores of age stereotypes and stereotype of persons living with memory loss were derived from participant self-reported words coded on a 5-point scale by independent raters. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models were used to examine intrapersonal and interpersonal associations between the dyads. Our dyadic analyses indicate that positive age stereotypes were significantly associated with better mental health and fewer depressive symptoms for both dyad members (actor effects). Positive stereotypes of people living with memory loss were associated with greater physical health in both dyad members (actor effects). No partner effect emerged. Parent and child stereotypes were not significantly associated. The study underscores the role of self-perceptions of aging and memory loss in shaping individual health outcomes within the context of caregiving dyads. While stereotypes may be more impactful for health intrapersonally than interpersonally, fostering positive perceptions on aging and memory loss may support well-being in caregiving dyads and broader society.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• All-Male Research Samples Can Discourage Accurate Science Communication

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Forms of Psychological Bias Against Transgender Women and Men and People with Nonbinary Gender Identities

  2025-09-08

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The present review examines bias against transgender women and men and bias against people with nonbinary gender identities. A central contention is that many people hold false beliefs about transgender men’s and women’s membership in the categories “male” and “female,” and, separately, view nonbinary gender identities themselves as illegitimate. Both discounting transgender men’s and women’s membership in the categories “male” and “female” and discounting the validity of nonbinary gender identities are forms of bias, and studying them will be essential to build a more nuanced understanding of stereotyping and prejudice. The authors review the literature on bias against transgender people and bias against nonbinary people, discuss the methodological and theoretical challenges in studying these biases, propose an approach for interpreting results in light of common (mis)categorization processes, and consider avenues for future research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• All-Male Research Samples Discourage Accurate Science Communication

  2024-06-27

  preprintOpen access

  Research samples have historically overrepresented men, resulting in worse outcomes for women. Even when women are represented, inequity might persist due to underlying differences in how people reason about gender. Theories of androcentrism argue that, in general, people emphasize gender more about women than men. Based on this theory and building on prior archival work, we conducted three preregistered experiments (N = 1,315). Participants read scientific findings based either on all-male or all-female samples. For both, the gender homogeneity of the sample is a key limitation that should be noted when describing results. However, participants were more likely to pick women as a keyword to represent findings based on all-female samples (compared to leaving gender unlisted or listing both women and men) than to pick men to describe identical findings based on all-male samples. Grounded in androcentrism theory, this work has practical implications for accurate science communication and gender equity.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Corrigendum to “US cisgender women's psychological responses to physical femininity threats: Increased anxiety, reduced self-esteem” [Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 110(2024) 104547]

  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2024-05-11

  erratum
  PublisherDOI

• US cisgender women's psychological responses to physical femininity threats: Increased anxiety, reduced self-esteem

  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2023-10-20 · 8 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Forms of Psychological Bias Against Transgender Women and Men and People with Nonbinary Gender Identities

  2023-05-16 · 7 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  The present review examines bias against transgender women and men and bias against people with nonbinary gender identities. A central contention is that many people hold false beliefs about transgender men’s and women’s membership in the categories “male” and “female,” and, separately, view nonbinary gender identities themselves as illegitimate. Both discounting transgender men’s and women’s membership in the categories “male” and “female” and discounting the validity of nonbinary gender identities are forms of bias, and examining them is key to developing a nuanced understanding of the biases that target transgender and nonbinary people. The authors review the literature on bias against transgender people and bias against nonbinary people, discuss the methodological and theoretical challenges in studying these biases, propose an approach for interpreting results, and consider avenues for future research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Distinctive negative reactions to intermediate social groups

  Journal of Applied Social Psychology · 2022-11-22 · 8 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Although considerable research has examined how members of advantaged groups think and feel about disadvantaged groups, fewer studies have examined responses to “intermediate” social groups—groups that are perceived to fall between more commonly acknowledged groups on the same dimension of social identity. We measured judgments of intermediate groups, including novel groups designed to manipulate social group intermediacy (Studies 1–5), Black/White biracial people (Study 6), and bisexual people (Study 7). In each study, participants provided separate evaluations of an intermediate group and two comparison groups (e.g., Black/White biracial people, Black people, White people). Intermediate groups were consistently rated as less conceptually legitimate (e.g., less distinctive, not a “real” group) than other groups. The view that intermediate groups are not “real” groups helped explain negative evaluations of them, and participants who strongly identified with an advantaged ingroup were especially prone to this pattern of judgments. These results are consistent with the idea that an intermediate group can threaten the distinctiveness of a valued ingroup, leading people to dismiss and denigrate the intermediate group. Studying perceptions of intermediate groups facilitates a nuanced account of an increasingly heterogeneous social world.

  PublisherDOI

• Gendered Anti-Bisexual Bias: Heterosexual, Bisexual, and Gay/Lesbian People’s Willingness to Date Sexual Orientation Ingroup and Outgroup Members

  Journal of Homosexuality · 2022-02-03 · 14 citations

  articleSenior author

  Bisexual people may appear to have more potential romantic partners than people only attracted to one gender (e.g., heterosexual, gay, lesbian people). However, bisexual people’s dating choices are limited by non-bisexual people’s reluctance to date bisexual people. Studies have indicated that some heterosexual, gay, and lesbian people are reluctant to date bisexual people, particularly bisexual men. We extend current understandings of gendered anti-bisexual bias through investigating heterosexual, bisexual, gay, and lesbian people’s reported willingness to date within and outside of their sexual orientation groups. Participants (n = 1823) varying in sexual orientation completed measures regarding their willingness to engage in a romantic relationship with heterosexual, bisexual, gay, and lesbian individuals. Heterosexual and gay/lesbian people were less willing to date bisexual people than bisexual people were to date them, consistent with anti-bisexual bias rather than mere in-group preference. Preferences against dating bisexual men appeared particularly strong, even among bisexual women.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John F. Dovidio

  Yale University

  15 shared

• Agneta H. Fischer

  University of Amsterdam

  14 shared

• April H. Bailey

  University of New Hampshire

  12 shared

• Sara E. Burke

  Syracuse University

  10 shared

• Marvin A. Hecht

  Oracle (United States)

  6 shared

• Jacqueline S. Smith

  5 shared

• Julie A. Woodzicka

  Washington and Lee University

  5 shared

• Jennifer A. Richeson

  Yale University

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology

  Boston University

  1974