Another factor that prompts people to behave this way is that we like to justify the social system we’re in. If everyone around us thinks that women are less rational or worse at parking, even the thinnest piece of information that reinforces that assumption will be pasted into our minds. Research that confirms what appears to be obvious seems right. Anything that contradicts it, meanwhile, is dismissed as aberrant. This is why, when theories come along that challenge gender stereotypes, we may also find them more difficult to accept.
