Sensitivity to sexism and perceptions of reports about sexist events 1This research was supported in part by grant #9729739 from the National Science Foundation.
Abstract
We tested the hypothesis that women would vary in their sensitivity to the occurrence of sexism directed at themselves and others, and that this sensitivity would influence their estimations of the frequency of occurrence of sexism-related behaviors that they were exposed to. Results showed that women who indicated that they and others frequently experienced sexism estimated that they had seen more newspaper headlines relating to sexism than had actually been shown during an experimental session. Furthermore, high-sensitive women overestimated the occurrence of sexist behaviors, whereas low and medium-sensitive women underestimated their occurrence, in comparison to their estimates of the frequency of non-sexist headlines. These results provide information both about differences among women in their sensitivity to sexism, and also suggest that women may either over- or underestimate the extent to which sexism is directed at the self and others.
References
(1998). Stress and oppressed category membership. In J. Swim & C. Stangor (Eds.), Prejudice: The target's perspective ( 145-170). San Diego: Academic Press.
(1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
(1995). Toward understanding the association of socioeconomic status and health: A new challenge for the biopsychosocial approach. Psychosomatic Medicine, 57, 213– 225.
(1991). Women's studies: A study of feminist identity development in women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 15, 181– 201.
(1991). Detecting and labeling prejudice: Do female perpetrators go undetected?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 115– 123.
(1998). Coping with groupbased discrimination: Individualistic versus group-level strategies. In J. Swim & C. Stangor (Eds.), Prejudice: The target's perspective ( 243-266). San Diego: Academic Press.
(1967). Genesis of popular but erroneous psychodiagnostic observations. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 73, 193– 204.
(1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96, 608– 630.
(1998). Social Stigma. In D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4 ed., Vol. 2, g). Boston: McGraw Hill.
(1982). Relative deprivation and working women. New York: Oxford University Press.
(1984a). The denial of personal discrimination. American Behavioral Scientist, 27, 371– 386.
(1984b). Relative deprivation in organizational settings. In B. Staw & L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior: An annual series of analytic essays and critical reviews (51-93). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
(1991). Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
(1998). Appraisals of prejudice and discrimination. In J. K. Swim & C. Stangor (Eds.), Prejudice: The target's perspective ( 11-36). Santa Barbara, CA: Academic Press.
(1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491– 512.
(1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
(1980). Stratum identification and consciousness. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43, 30– 47.
(1980). Illusory correlation and the maintenance of stereotypic beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 832– 845.
(1980). Perceptions of the impact of negatively-valued physical characteristics on social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 861– 873.
(1998). Coping with negative stereotypes about intellectual performance: The role of psychological disengagement. Personality and Psychology Bulletin, 24, 34– 50.
(1999). Stigma-consciousness: The psychological legacy of social stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 114– 128.
(1990). Asymmetry in prejudice attribution. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 26, 481– 504.
(1995). Coping with discrimination: How disadvantaged group members perceive the discrimination that confronts them. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 826– 838.
(1997). Gender and Coping with Attributional Ambiguity. Manuscript submitted for publication.
(1998). Group status and attributions to discrimination: Are low- or high-status group members more likely to blame their failure on discrimination?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 821– 838.
(1999). Gender Prejudice Accessibility and its Effects on Perceiving Sexism, Manuscript under editorial review, University of Maryland.
(1995). Sexism and racism: Old-fashioned and modern prejudices. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 199– 214.
(1990). The personal/group discrimination discrepancy: Perceiving my group, but not myself, to be a target of discrimination. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 254– 262.
(1994). Dimensions of perceived discrimination: The personal/group discrimination discrepancy. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Olson (Eds.), The Psychology of Prejudice: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 7, 233-256). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
