Gender Differences in Social Dominance Orientation: Gender Invariance May Be Situation Invariance

Abstract

Most studies of gender differences in social dominance orientation (SDO) have investigated settings more or less hierarchy-enhancing. The aim of this study was to explore gender differences in SDO (1) within social structures varying in equality-enhancement, i.e., communities differing in political equality between men and women, and (2) settings where equality was maximized and held constant, i.e., democratic, voluntary associations, but varying in gender composition, using survey data from a random sample of 831 Swedish adults (median age= 47 years). There was a significant interaction effect between gender and membership in voluntary associations dominated by women, with men and women displaying equally low levels of SDO. In all other instances the main effect of gender remained statistically significant.

Gender Differences in Social Dominance Orientation: The Role of Cognitive Complexity

“…Further, characteristics associated with masculinity and femininity such as power and benevolence also mediate the link between gender and SDO (Caricati 2007). Finally, there is a relationship between social context and SDO (Zakrisson 2008), and the predicted gender difference in SDO is stronger when the context involves a between-gender group comparison (Guimond et al 2006;Huang and Liu 2005).…”

“…Several studies have now called into question whether the gender difference in SDO is invariant (e.g., Caricati 2007; Dambrun et al 2004;Foels and Pappas 2004;Guimond et al 2006;Schmitt et al 2003;Snellman et al 2009;Wilson and Liu 2003;Zakrisson 2008). Unlike the gender related mediators examined in previous research, cognitive complexity is not specifically related to gender.…”

Male and Female Emirati Medical Clerks’ Perceptions of the Impact of Gender and Mobility on Their Professional Careers

“…While such groupings are most commonly structured along sex, class, ethnic, racial or religious lines, with dominance of one group over another often along these same structures (Sidianus et al 2000Levin 2004;Zakrisson 2008), 'gender' is the focus of this study. The social dominance orientation that arises from groupings is a key element of social dominance theory, reflecting a preference for hierarchical group relations in which one group has dominance over another (Pratto et al 1994;Sidianus and Pratto 1999;Echabe 2010).…”

“…The social dominance orientation that arises from groupings is a key element of social dominance theory, reflecting a preference for hierarchical group relations in which one group has dominance over another (Pratto et al 1994;Sidianus and Pratto 1999;Echabe 2010). Social dominance of males over females along gender lines appears to be relatively invariant across cultural, situational and contextual boundaries, including the Middle East (Levin 2004;Sidianus et al 2000;Pratto et al 2006;Zakrisson 2008), with exceptions perhaps in situations where women outnumber men (Zakrisson 2008). From Jackman (1994) perspective, however, male dominance is characterized by attempts to control women without rousing hostility because men desire relationships with women, unlike ethnic dominance, which usually involves hostility.…”

Fixed Roles and Situated Actions

“…In the older approach, which traces to ideas of the sociologists Talcott Parsons and Robert Freed Bales (Parsons 1942;Parsons and Bales 1955), women and men act and feel differently because they were taught to be different sorts of people. In the newer situational approach, represented by scholars including Meeker and Weitzel-O'Neill (1977), Ridgeway (2006), Risman (2004), and Zakrisson (2008), women and men act similarly when they are in similar social situations, and what might appear to be characteristic gender differences are better understood as consequences of the fact that women and men very often find themselves in different social circumstances. From one perspective, women and men seem different because they are enacting well-learned roles; from the other, women and men seem different because they are often in different social situations.…”