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Conscientization of Social Cryptomnesia

Reduces Hostile Sexism and Rejection of
Feminists

ARTICLE in SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY · JANUARY 2009

Impact Factor: 1.46 · DOI: 10.1027/1864-9335.40.3.129

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 J.-P. Vernet et al.: Reducing Sexism
© 2009 and
Social Psychology Rejection
Hogrefe
2009; Vol. of Publishers
& Huber Feminists
40(3):129–132

Conscientization of Social
Cryptomnesia Reduces Hostile
Sexism and Rejection of Feminists
Jean-Pierre Vernet1, Jorge Vala2, Ligia Amâncio1, and Fabrizio Butera3
1
Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, Lisbon, Portugal, 2Instituto de Ciências
Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, 3University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Abstract. This paper develops a hypothesis concerning the conscientization of social cryptomnesia, claiming that
it is possible to reduce the rejection of minorities by reminding the population that a certain value has been promoted
by a certain minority. Participants (N = 93) first reported their attitudes toward women’s rights and feminist move-
ments. They were then confronted with their higher appreciation of women’s rights over feminists (social crypto-
mnesia) and blamed for it (conscientization) in a more versus less threatening manner. Results indicated that con-
scientization can be effective not only in inducing a more positive attitude toward feminists, but also in decreasing
hostile sexism when the threat is lower. Implications for minority influence research are discussed.

Keywords: social cryptomnesia, minority, discrimination, feminists, sexism

Introduction that active minorities are often victims of social cryptomne-

More than 30 years of research on minority influence have
shown that, despite their lack of formal power, minorities
can produce influence (Butera & Mugny, 2001; Martin &
Hewstone, 2008; Moscovici, 1976; Nemeth, 1986; Pérez &
Mugny, 1996; Turner, 1991). More importantly, as suggest-
ed by Moscovici (1976), they serve a fundamental social
function: to innovate and increase society’s chances of suc-
cess by avoiding dangerous and excessive conformity be-
haviors. Indeed, research has shown that, because they pro-
pose alternatives to the norm or to the status quo and there-
fore create conflict (Moscovici, 1985), minorities
effectively stimulate a wide range of cognitive benefits,
from improving cognitive performances (Butera, Mugny,
Legrenzi, & Pérez, 1996; Nemeth, 1986) to enhancing cre-
ativity (Nemeth, 1994); from orienting people to deep cog-
nitive processing (Martin & Hewstone, 2003) to reducing
biases in group decision-making (Schulz-Hardt, Frey,
Lüthgens, & Moscovici, 2000). Moreover, from ecology to
women’s rights, minorities are responsible for a number of
important innovations at the societal level (Simon & Klan-
dermans, 2001). Thus, it appears that minorities play an
important positive role both in groups and society at large.
This is an important idea because it suggests that minority
groups should receive a great deal of gratification for their
positive social function. However, history shows that this is
not the case; instead, research on social influence indicates
sia, a phenomenon in which people’s acceptance of values
promoted by minorities (e.g., women’s rights) is very often
accompanied by an oblivion to the role played by minority
groups (e.g., feminists), resulting in effect in the perpetuation
of a negative image of minority groups (Mugny & Pérez,
1989; Vernet & Butera, 2003). This article demonstrates that
the conscientization of social cryptomnesia (i.e., reminding
people of the close link between the minority group and the
accepted value) may not only reduce negative attitudes to-
ward minorities, but also contribute to reducing the social
problems (e.g., sexism) highlighted by these minorities.
The remainder of the theoretical introduction will first
show how social cryptomnesia – the occultation of the mi-
nority origin of a well-accepted value – (a) produces neg-
ative attitudes toward minority groups and (b) reduces their
social influence and then illustrate how conscientization –
reminding perceivers of that minority origin – may coun-
terbalance these effects.
Social Cryptomnesia and Minority Influence
Cryptomnesia refers to the concealing of a memory. Cog-
nitive psychology has used this term to refer to the conceal-
ing of the origin of some ideas, what has also been called
“unintended plagiarism” (Bredart, Lampinen, & Defeldre,
2003). Similarly, in social psychology the term social cryp-

© 2009 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers Social Psychology 2009; Vol. 40(3):129–132
DOI 10.1027/1864-9335.40.3.129
126 J.-P. Vernet et al.: Reducing Sexism and Rejection of Feminists
tomnesia has been used to refer to the concealment of the
origin in minority groups of some of today’s well-accepted
norms and values. From the perspective of social crypto-
mnesia, the main interest is that it is a mechanism that fa-
vors dominant groups because it allows a certain degree of
social change without giving any credit to active minorities
(Butera, Levine, & Vernet, in press). For example, women’s
rights are well-accepted values nowadays, although their
feminist origin has been obscured, and feminist movements
are still viewed by some with disdain. Accepting the mi-
nority’s values allows dominant groups to reduce minori-
ties’ potential for inducing conflict, which in turn reduces
their impact (Moscovici & Pérez, 2007).
Historians have also described a similar mechanism. Co-
hen-Halimi and Boissière (2002, p. 9) point to a “curious
repression of feminism.” Also, Rochefort (1999) wrote
about the occultation and rejection of feminism:
“It is not enough [for antifeminists] to ignore feminism, it is
necessary to denigrate them, to dissociate them from the cause
of women” (p. 134).
Rochefort later concluded:
“This occultation almost immediately decelerates the progress
of egalitarian thinking and makes invisible the confrontations
between feminism and the antifeminism” (p. 144, authors’
translation for all quotations).
Thus, for historians, social cryptomnesia refers to the cre-
ation of a collective oblivion that has a clear function of
social control.
But what are the social-psychological mechanisms in-
volved in social cryptomnesia? In 1989 and 1990, Pérez
and Mugny argued that social cryptomnesia is a conse-
quence of minority influence that proceeds from a dissoci-
ation process. Considering that it is difficult to identify with
minorities because of the fear of endorsing the group’s neg-
ative attributes (Mugny, Kaiser, Papastamou, & Pérez,
1984), minority influence occurs when people dissociate
the content of the (accepted) message from the (rejected)
source of the message (Pérez & Mugny, 1990). It is inter-
esting to note that Moscovici, Mugny, and Papastamou
(1981) drew a parallel between minority influence and a
phenomenon known in persuasion research as the “sleeper
effect.” According to Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield
(1949), a persuasive message accompanied by an element
questioning the credibility of the message leads to an atti-
tude change that does not appear immediately, but rather
after some time. Hovland and Weiss (1951) described the
sleeper effect as stemming from a dissociation process: If
the questioning element (discounting cue) inhibits imme-
diate attitude change, over time the cue and the message
lose their association in memory, which allows delayed at-
titude change.
For dissociation theory, social cryptomnesia can be
characterized by two aspects: validation and stigmatiza-
tion (Pérez & Mugny, 1990). Indeed, on the one hand, if
source and content are dissociated, it is possible to accept
Social Psychology 2009; Vol. 40(3):129–132
and validate the (minority) message without the fear of
being confounded with the minority group. The minority
position is thus validated. However, on the other hand,
since the majority has dissociated the minority origin
from the content of the message, the majority continues
to stigmatize minorities without feeling ungrateful. A
good example that will be used for the present experi-
ment is the situation of feminists. The message tradition-
ally promoted by feminists has been widely validated by
most Western societies; indeed, a large consensus favors
women’s rights. However, feminists are not perceived as
a positive movement defending democratic values
against sexist discrimination, but are rather highly dero-
gated (Twenge & Zucker, 1999).
Considering this paradox, two consequences of social
cryptomnesia must be pointed out. First, successful mi-
nority groups do not receive any credit, recognition, or
gratification for their success, and it is possible to adopt
simultaneously a minority point of view (e.g., to be fa-
vorably disposed toward women’s rights) without asso-
ciating this point of view with active minority groups
(e.g., feminist groups). Such an outcome demonstrates
that it is possible to continue discriminating against the
minority group. Thus, to capture variations in discrimi-
nations against the minority, the first dependent measure
in this research will be attitude change toward feminist
movements. Second, as a direct consequence of valida-
tion, a consensus exists on the original minority position.
For example, if everybody agrees with women’s rights,
this consensus ends the conflict; since a clash of opinions
no longer exists, people no longer need to focus on the
problem highlighted by the minority (in the present case
sexism, see Glick & Fiske, 1996) nor need to change.
Thus, the second consequence of social cryptomnesia is
the reduction of the salience of the social problems high-
lighted by active minorities (e.g., sexism). For this rea-
son, the second dependent measure herein will be change
in the endorsement of sexism. Indeed, if social crypto-
mnesia prevents attitude change on sexism, then expos-
ing social cryptomnesia should allow change. Glick and
Fiske’s (1996) Ambivalent Sexism Inventory was chosen
as a measure of sexism because it is linked to ambivalent
attitudes toward women – an important feature of modern
sexism. Indeed, in 1996 Glick and Fiske demonstrated
that sexism has two components: hostile sexism (the ex-
plicit subordination of women) and benevolent sexism
(the valorization of women’s traditional role).
In sum, dissociation between minority sources and mes-
sage terminates the perception of a social conflict. One of
the major contributions of minority influence literature is
to point out that minority influence comes from conflict
(Moscovici, 1976, 1985). Thus, in order to (again) generate
a conflict and reduce the two consequences of social cryp-
tomnesia, people must be led to remember the origin of
their rights and values (i.e., made aware of social crypto-
mnesia). The active production of awareness of social
problems is called conscientization.
© 2009 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers
 J.-P. Vernet et al.: Reducing Sexism and Rejection of Feminists
Conscientization of Social Cryptomnesia
Conscientization is a teaching technique focused on per-
ceiving social and political contradictions in order to pro-
duce some attitude change. This term was used for the first
time by Freire (1970), who believed that dominated groups
can remediate their condition only by achieving an aware-
ness of oppression via the identification of unfair inter-
group relations and the negative images of themselves
propagated by dominant groups. In other words, according
to Freire, conscientization consists of both dissipating the
oblivion created by dominant groups in order to justify the
status quo (see also Jost & Hunyady, 2005) and developing
awareness of power relations.
Vernet and Butera (2003), in their study of social cryp-
tomnesia, devised a technique intended to reduce negative
attitudes toward feminists, which can be termed – based on
the previous discussion herein – a conscientization tech-
nique. If social cryptomnesia is produced by dissociation
between the message and the source, then conscientization
can be induced by “reassociation.” Indeed, Vernet and Bu-
tera’s research led participants to reflect upon the injustice
of dissociating feminist movements from the emergence of
women’s rights. The results indicated that this procedure
elicited a positive attitude change toward feminist move-
ments. However, the authors did not show the impact of
conscientization on both consequences of social crypto-
mnesia; rather, they only showed a positive attitude change
toward the minority (i.e., feminists) – not an enhanced
awareness of the social problem highlighted by the minor-
ity (i.e., sexism).
The aim of the present research is twofold:
1) To replicate the finding that conscientization of social
cryptomnesia promotes better attitudes toward feminist
movements.
2) To extend the conscientization effect to the enhancement
of awareness for the social problem highlighted by the
minority (i.e., reduced acceptance of sexism).
Before presenting the experiment, one last question has to
be answered: Why is the conscientization of social crypto-
mnesia – from an operational point of view, the reminded
association of accepted values and their original source –
supposed to induce attitude change? As previously men-
tioned, active minorities who have produced some social
change find themselves in the paradoxical situation of be-
ing unable to create further conflict, which impairs their
ability to produce further change. Recently, Moscovici and
Pérez (2007) argued that minorities can use another strate-
gy besides social action and conflict: presenting themselves
as victims. Their research indicates that, as far as manifest
attitudes are concerned, minorities presented as victims can
achieve social influence. However, this process should not
be too threatening, as threat has been found to obstruct both
© 2009 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers
127
constructive conflict (Falomir, Butera, & Mugny, 2002)
and change (Harvey & Osvald, 2000).
To sum up, the present experiment tests the hypothesis
that the conscientization of social cryptomnesia promotes
better attitudes toward feminist movements and reduces the
acceptance of sexism, to the extent that it is not too threat-
ening. Participants are confronted with the reassociation of
women’s rights and their original source, the feminist
movements (conscientization of social cryptomnesia). The
reassociation is framed either in a more threatening manner
(discrimination, see below) or a less threatening (forget-
ting) manner, plus a control condition without reassocia-
tion. Attitude changes toward feminist groups and sexism
were then measured.
Reassociation is expected to elicit a more positive atti-
tude change toward feminists and a stronger decrease in
sexism than the control, but only if it is framed in a less
threatening manner. In other words, this research tests two
operational hypotheses:
1) A less threatening reassociation should induce a more
positive attitude change toward feminists than both a
more threatening association and the control (H1).
2) a less threatening reassociation should induce a greater
reduction in sexism than both a more threatening asso-
ciation and the control (H2).
Method
Participants and Design
A total of 99 women living in Lisbon, Portugal, volun-
teered to participate in the experiment. Only women were
invited to participate, as the reassociation procedure (see
below) is particularly relevant for them. As previously dis-
cussed, the reassociation procedure confronts participants
with the differential evaluation of women’s rights and fem-
inist movements and blames them for this gap. For women,
it is clear that women’s rights reflect a fundamental pro-
gress in their own interest; therefore, not crediting the
movements responsible for this progress may elicit some
conflict. For men, the reasoning is not so clear. Although
it is possible to argue that women’s rights represent a pro-
gress for society at large, it is not clear that a majority of
men would fully endorse such an argument, even if they
express agreement with the rights. More importantly, der-
ogating feminist movements may simply be related to the
fact that these groups are seen as hindering men’s interests,
but does not constitute social cryptomnesia. Having gender
as an independent variable may thus require an experimen-
tal design more elaborate than the current one, which is
beyond the scope of the present research.
Four participants were dropped from the analyses be-
cause, in the postexperimental discussion, they appeared to
have guessed the function of the conscientization proce-
dure; another two were dropped because of uncommon stu-
Social Psychology 2009; Vol. 40(3):129–132
128 J.-P. Vernet et al.: Reducing Sexism and Rejection of Feminists

dentized deleted residual (Judd & McClelland, 1989) on
the two main dependent variables. The final sample thus
comprised 93 women with a mean age of 29.14 (SD =
12.17) who were randomly assigned to one of the three
experimental conditions: reassociation by discrimination
versus reassociation by forgetting versus control. Eight par-
ticipants had completed only primary education, 44
achieved a secondary level, 39 had a university degree, and
2 did not report their educational level. The participants’
political position was rather left-wing (M = 6.38; SD =
2.37) on a scale ranging from 1 (extreme right) to 9 (ex-
treme left). Most were single (N = 55), while 33 were mar-
ried (5 did not report their marital status).
Procedure
In the university area of Lisbon, in a public square, the
experimenter stopped all the women who passed by, pre-
sented himself as a researcher from Lisbon University, and
asked if they had a few minutes to answer a questionnaire.
Those who agreed were asked to fill in a set of three paper
questionnaires, presented as a study on people’s attitudes
toward some currently relevant social issues. The presen-
tation of the questionnaire was purposefully imprecise in
order to avoid suspicion that the experimenter was in fact
interested in the link between the questions about women’s
rights and feminism. When the participants completed the
three questionnaires, they were thoroughly debriefed, fo-
cusing on ensuring that they understood that the conscien-
tization procedure was an experimental manipulation and
that they were not troubled by guilty feelings.
Materials
The first questionnaire contained the Ambivalent Sexism
Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), to be answered on a 9-
point Likert scale (1 = totally disagree; 9 = totally agree).
Reliability was good for both the 11-item hostile sexism
scale (α = .74, M = 5.35, SD = 1.34; e.g., “Women are too
easily offended”) and for the 11-item benevolent sexism
scale (α = .79, M = 6.75, SD = 1.18; e.g., “Women, com-
pared to men, tend to have a superior moral sensibility”).
Participants were subsequently asked to indicate their atti-
tude toward feminist movements, using a 13-point Likert
scale (1 = not at all; 13 = completely). The attitude was
assessed through four questions: (1) “Do you think you
have a liking for feminist movements?”; (2) “Do you think
you agree with feminist movements?”; (3) “Do you think
you identify with feminist movements?”; and (4) “Do you
think you are in favor of feminist movements?” (α = .91,
M = 5.17, SD = 2.82). Participants were then asked to in-
dicate their attitude toward women’s rights, again on a 13-
point Likert scale. The attitude was assessed by four ques-
tions: (1) “Do you think you are in favor of women’s right
to vote?”; (2) “Do you think you are in favor of equal wages
for men and women?”; (3) “Do you think you are in favor
of a woman’s right to be elected?”; and (4) “Do you think
you are in favor of women’s right to access higher educa-
tion?” (α = .69, M = 12.91, SD = .33)1.
The second questionnaire was presented to induce and
manipulate reassociation by discrimination versus forget-
ting. Participants were asked to go back to their answers in
questionnaire 1 and compute a score for each of the two
attitudes about feminism and women’s rights. They had to
write down their answers in an adhoc column and then add
them up to obtain an attitude score. For instance, a partic-
ipant had to write down that her answers to the four ques-
tions on women’s rights were 10, 12, 12, and 13, respec-
tively, add up the four numbers, and write down that her
attitude score toward women’s rights was 47. Participants
were asked to carry out this task for both sets of questions,
namely, those on their attitude toward feminist movements
and those on their attitude toward women’s rights. Thus,
they had to come up with two scores. Participants were then
asked to compare the two scores and determine if a differ-
ence existed. For all participants of the experimental con-
ditions, this difference appeared in the expected direction
– that is, higher scores for women’s rights than for feminist
movements (see the Results section below).
Next, participants were given an explanatory note in
which they were accused of either forgetting or discriminat-
ing. It was explained that the feminists fought so as to obtain
rights from which all women benefit today, and that the dif-
ference observed in their scores is a sort of injustice based on
forgetting (versus discrimination). The full text of the note is
included in the Appendix. This manipulation was based on
the fact that in Western societies discrimination is against the
law (hence, the reference to justice – it is possible to be
charged with discrimination), making it a more threatening
accusation than just forgetting. To test this assumption, a pilot
study (N = 25) presented a vignette relating the cryptomnesia
situation previously described and asked participants to indi-
cate on a 13-point Likert scale (1 = not at all; 13 = completely)
to what extent they found it threatening for someone to be
accused of discrimination and forgetting (counterbalanced).

1 It could be objected that these rights were defended by early waves of feminists (see Vernet & Butera, 2005), while the measure of attitude
toward feminist movements may activate the reference to current feminists. Thus, the current research included a pilot study (N = 85) in
which participants were asked to what extent they thought that the four rights contained in the present scale (voting, equal wages, eligibility,
higher education) were the ideas promoted by (a) last century’s feminist movements and (b) current feminist movements. Based on the
results, the four rights were perceived as being promoted by both past feminists (M = 8.02, SD = 3.64, on a scale ranging from 1 = not at
all to 13 = completely), t-test against the mid point of the scale t(84) = 2.19, p < .04, and by current feminists (M = 7.74, SD = 3.12), t(84)
= 2.54, p < .02. The two means did not differ from one another, t(84) < 1. Thus, participants did not seem to perceive a discontinuity in
feminist history.

Social Psychology 2009; Vol. 40(3):129–132 © 2009 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers
 J.-P. Vernet et al.: Reducing Sexism and Rejection of Feminists
Results confirmed that discrimination is perceived as more
threatening (M = 9.72, SD = 3.17) than forgetting (M = 5.76,
SD = 3.56): t (24) = 4.40, p < .001.
The third and last part was a posttest presented immedi-
ately after the previous part. Participants were again asked
to express their attitude toward feminist movements (α =
.94, M = 6.24, SD = 3.03) and women’s rights (α = .92, M
= 12.96, SD = .23) using exactly the same questions as in
the first part. Moreover, the ambivalent sexism inventory
(Glick & Fiske, 1996) was presented again (α = .73, M =
5.19, SD = 1.34 for hostile sexism and α = .79, M = 5.56,
SD = 1.21 for benevolent sexism). Finally, the participants
answered a series of socio-demographic questions.
Results
Social Cryptomnesia
As in Vernet and Butera (2003), the procedure that aimed
at inducing reassociation revealed a profound discrepancy
between attitudes toward women’s rights and attitudes to-
ward the feminist minorities who defended them. First, all
the participants differentially evaluated women’s rights and
feminists in the expected way: Attitudes were much more
favorable for women’s rights than feminist movements.
The minimum observed difference was 4 points (the possi-
ble minimum was –52), and the maximum observed differ-
ence was 48 points (the possible maximum was 52). Par-
ticipants were clearly in favor of women’s rights (M =
12.91, SD = .033). This mean results from a large majority
(89 out of 93) of participants having given the maximum
possible score. This ceiling effect was expected, given that
agreement with women’s rights is a truism, and was used
as a tool to reveal social cryptomnesia. In this respect, this
score is not used as a dependent variable. At the same time,
participants displayed a rather unfavorable attitude toward
feminist movements (M = 5.17, SD = 2.82; t-test against
the midpoint of the scale, t(92) = 6.24; p < .001). Thus, the
difference was clearly made by all participants, which
makes the reassociation procedure – reminding them that
feminist movements are at the origin of the emergence of
women’s rights – relevant for all of them.
Change in Attitudes Toward Feminists
The four items assessing the attitude toward feminist move-
ments were aggregated in a single score for the pretest and
the posttest. An attitude change score was subsequently
computed by subtracting the pretest score from the posttest
score: A positive score indicates a change in the direction
of a more positive attitude toward feminists in the posttest.
With regard to Hypothesis 1, a greater change was expected
in the forgetting condition than in both the discrimination
condition (too threatening) and the control group (not suf-
© 2009 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers
129
Table 1. Means and standard deviations of attitude change
toward feminist movements and change in hostile
sexism
Reasons for reassociation
Discrimination Forgetting Control
Attitude change toward feminist movements
M .76 1.63 .41
SD 1.51 1.96 1.28
Change in hostile sexism
M .04 –.20 –.02
SD .43 .50 .55
ficiently threatening to induce conflict). In order to test this
hypothesis, a contrast analysis was performed (following
Judd & MacClelland, 1989). The first contrast was com-
puted in order to pit the forgetting condition (coded –2)
against the discrimination condition (coded 1) and the con-
trol condition (coded 1). As shown in Table 1, participants
confronted with reassociation by forgetting shifted toward
a more positive attitude than participants confronted with
reassociation by discrimination and participants in the con-
trol group. This contrast yielded a significant, large effect,
F(1, 90) = 8.22, p < .01, η² = .084. The residual was tested
by the orthogonal contrast (respectively, coefficients were
0, –1, 1), which was not significant, F(1, 90) = .51, p = .48.
Change in Sexism
Next, two subscales were computed, following Glick and
Fiske (1996): the hostile and the benevolent sexism scales for
both pretest and posttest. Attitude change scores were then
computed for each subscale by subtracting the pretest scores
from the posttest scores: A negative score indicates a change
in the direction of lesser sexism. Hypothesis 2 suggested that
a greater change would occur in the forgetting condition than
in both the discrimination condition (too threatening) and the
control group (not sufficiently threatening in order to focus
the attention). In order to test this hypothesis, the same con-
trast coding as for the previous dependent variable was used,
and the same contrast analysis was performed. Regarding
change in hostile sexism (see Table 1), participants confront-
ed with reassociation by forgetting reduced their hostile sex-
ism more than participants confronted with reassociation by
discrimination and participants in the control group. Indeed,
the first contrast was significant, F(1, 89) = 4.01, p < .05, η²
= .043, whereas the residual was not, F(1, 89) = .18, p = .67.
The same analysis was performed on change in benevolent
sexism, but no difference emerged between participants con-
fronted with reassociation by forgetting (M = –.11, SD = .62)
and participants confronted with reassociation by discrimina-
tion (M = –.21, SD = .53) or participants in the control group
(M = –.06, SD = .54). Indeed, both contrasts were nonsignif-
icant: F(1, 86) = .03, p = .85 for the first contrast and F(1, 86)
= .75, p = .39 for the second.
Social Psychology 2009; Vol. 40(3):129–132
130 J.-P. Vernet et al.: Reducing Sexism and Rejection of Feminists
Discussion
The first aim of this study was to replicate the results ob-
tained by Vernet and Butera (2003) and to support the rel-
evance of the hypothesis that conscientization of social
cryptomnesia can enhance attitudes toward active minori-
ties, as long as it is not too threatening. In this study, par-
ticipants – although all women – clearly displayed a rather
unfavorable attitude toward the minority (i.e., feminist
movements), yet they also all exhibited a truism-like atti-
tude toward women’s rights, that is, toward the rights that
had been acquired thanks to the feminist social movements.
The conditions were therefore met for using the conscien-
tization of social cryptomnesia by reminding participants
of the original association between women’s rights and
feminist movements. As expected, attitude change toward
feminists was more favorable when the reassociation was
less threatening (forgetting condition – guilty by mindless-
ness) than in a more threatening condition (discrimination
condition – guilty by violation of the nondiscrimination
norm) and than in the control condition (no guilt – no con-
flict). This result suggests that conscientization of social
cryptomnesia can be used toward the improvement of atti-
tudes toward minorities, to the extent that the threat in-
volved in the reassociation is not too significant.
It could be argued this effect proceeds from an experimen-
tal demand. By pinpointing the wrong behavior, the experi-
menter also points to the right thing to do. However, if this
interpretation in terms of compliance to the experimenter’s
normative pressures held true, a greater change should have
emerged in the more threatening condition (reassociation by
discrimination) than in the less threatening (reassociation by
forgetting), because of the greater normative pressure implied
by the former condition. Instead, greater attitude change oc-
curred in the latter condition, when reassociation is based on
forgetting. In addition, Vernet and Butera (2003) obtained
convergent results in an experiment in which the posttest was
delayed (1 week), thereby allowing the experimenter’s pos-
sible normative pressure to become less salient.
More importantly, the second aim of this research was to
point to a further, theoretically relevant consequence of social
cryptomnesia, namely, the fact that the presence of consensus
ends social conflict, and without conflict people underesti-
mate the importance of the problems highlighted by the mi-
nority. Indeed, this consequence had been overlooked by pre-
vious research. The present experiment considered an impor-
tant aspect of the struggle of many feminist movements: the
fight against sexism. Results indicate that the less threatening
reassociation (forgetting) reduced hostile sexism more than
reassociation by discrimination or control. In other words,
when participants were reminded of the relationship between
feminism and women’s rights, they not only showed a more
favorable attitude toward feminists, but they were also less
sexist on the hostile sexism subscale. It should be noted that
this effect was not observed on the benevolent sexism sub-
scale. One possible interpretation is suggested in the work by
Social Psychology 2009; Vol. 40(3):129–132
Barreto and Ellemers (2005), who argued that the benevolent
sexism subscale is not perceived by participants as actually
measuring sexism. Thus, it may be that the conscientization
generated by the reassociation paradigm does not affect sex-
ism that is not perceived as such, as it is less likely to elicit
any guilty feeling. This question should be inspected in future
research.
Two limitations should be noted. First, the theoretical
rationale for the difference between reassociation by dis-
crimination and reassociation by forgetting is that one is
more threatening than the other. Although this rationale
makes sense with regard to the severe repression of dis-
criminatory acts and words in most Western countries, and
a pilot study demonstrated that discrimination is indeed
perceived as more threatening than forgetting, it is true that
this threat has not been measured in this experiment or op-
erationalized through other manipulations. Future research
could manipulate various forms of threat (e.g., legal, polit-
ical, social, economic) to assess the generality of the inter-
pretation in terms of threat. Second, one may ask to what
extent the observed attitude change is deep and long-last-
ing. Indeed, as previously mentioned, research by Mosco-
vici and Pérez (2007) demonstrated that minorities present-
ed as victims do achieve social influence, but only on man-
ifest measures. Deeper influence requires active –
conflictual – minorities, as argued long ago by conversion
theory (Moscovici, 1980). Future research should address
the problem of the stability of change induced by conscien-
tization, for instance, by using immediate and delayed mea-
sures of change.
Notwithstanding these limitations, we believe that the
present results represent both a theoretical and practical
contribution. From a theoretical point of view, the present
research enables addressing the problem of successful mi-
norities; successful minorities have been neglected in the
minority influence literature because the typical experi-
ment measured to what extent a minority that has not yet
achieved influence can change attitudes, behaviors, infor-
mation processes, and so on (see Butera et al., in press).
The current study has argued that the problem for success-
ful minorities, such as feminists, is that they are victims of
social cryptomnesia, and their impact is reduced because
they cannot produce any more conflict, as everybody al-
ready agrees with their claims (but not with them). The
experiment presented here shows that they can still produce
some social change – even if only on manifest attitudes –
using “soft” conscientization. This is an important point
that shows how the more subtle memory-based interven-
tion exerts more influence than the more blatant, norm-in-
voking intervention.
From a practical point of view, this research suggests
that organizations devoted to spreading culture and infor-
mation, such as school and the media, could play an impor-
tant role in transmitting collective memories and the histo-
ry of our societies as well as using them as a powerful tool
to avoid the fading of social conflict and the consequent
increased tolerance of ongoing social inequalities.
© 2009 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers
 J.-P. Vernet et al.: Reducing Sexism and Rejection of Feminists
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Submitted
Final revision received
Accepted
Jean-Pierre Vernet
ISCTE, Cacito 104 Edif. Central
Departamento de Psicologia Social e das Organizações
Av. Forças Armadas
1649-026 Lisboa
Portugal
E-mail jpvet@iscte.pt
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Appendix
Conscientization of Social Cryptomnesia
“This difference represents an unfair behavior, a behavior based on forgetting (vs. discrimination). Although feminists
fought in order to obtain the right to vote for women and other rights, your acceptance of the feminist movements is lower
than your agreement with women’s rights. Women were put to jail because they stood up for the right to vote, for the right
to access higher education, and for other rights too. They fought so as to obtain rights from which all women benefit today.
In short, this difference is an unfair behavior based on forgetting (vs. discrimination) and should receive a great deal of
attention.”

Social Psychology 2009; Vol. 40(3):129–132 © 2009 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers