Ambivalent sexism in Romanian students: Examining gender, sex roles and social dominance
The prejudice against women is an important topic in Romania and the study of it comes as a normal concern to psychologists. We chose to differentiate between hostile and benevolent sexism, thus using the Ambivalent Sexism Theory. We were interested in the differences in the level of ambivalent sexism based on variables like gender, sex roles (masculine, feminine, androgynous and undifferentiated) and social dominance. Our sample consisted in 222 participants from the student population. From them, 102 were males and 120 were females. We predicted that males would be more hostile and women more benevolent in their attitudes. Socially dominant individuals would be more sexist (both hostile and benevolent). Finally, masculine individuals would show the highest level of hostile sexism, while feminine and androgynous one the highest level of benevolent sexism. Results supported some hypothesis and rejected the others. Our suppositions about the gender differences were correct. We found no variation in regards to social dominance. The androgynous individuals were more benevolent compared with masculine, feminine and undifferentiated individuals. There were no interaction effects between the independent variable. We discussed possible causes and effects of our results.
ambivalent sexism, social dominance, sex roles, gender
Andrei Holman – Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi, Romania, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, E-mail: andrei.holman@uaic.ro
