Sexist attitudes predict family-based aggression during a COVID-19 lockdown.

Abstract

The current research examined whether men's hostile sexism was a risk factor for family-based aggression during a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in which families were confined to the home for 5 weeks. Parents who had reported on their sexist attitudes and aggressive behavior toward intimate partners and children prior to the COVID-19 pandemic completed assessments of aggressive behavior toward their partners and children during the lockdown (N = 362 parents of which 310 were drawn from the same family). Accounting for prelockdown levels of aggression, men who more strongly endorsed hostile sexism reported greater aggressive behavior toward their intimate partners and their children during the lockdown. The contextual factors that help explain these longitudinal associations differed across targets of family-based aggression. Men's hostile sexism predicted greater aggression toward intimate partners when men experienced low power during couples' interactions, whereas men's hostile sexism predicted greater aggressive parenting when men reported lower partner-child relationship quality. Novel effects also emerged for benevolent sexism. Men's higher benevolent sexism predicted lower aggressive parenting, and women's higher benevolent sexism predicted greater aggressive behavior toward partners, irrespective of power and relationship quality. The current study provides the first longitudinal demonstration that men's hostile sexism predicts residual changes in aggression toward both intimate partners and children. Such aggressive behavior will intensify the health, well-being, and developmental costs of the pandemic, highlighting the importance of targeting power-related gender role beliefs when screening for aggression risk and delivering therapeutic and education interventions as families face the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19.

Gender Prejudice Within the Family: The Relation Between Parents' Sexism and Their Socialization Values

“…All in all, our results highlighted the "pervasive" role of fathers' sexism in children's value socialization. These results align with previous research showing the stronger influence of fathers' hostile and benevolent sexism on family relationships and dynamics (e.g., aggressive parenting, Overall et al, 2021). In the socialization of sexism, this seems especially true for the father-son dyad as suggested by our and previous studies (e.g., Garaigordobil and Aliri, 2011).…”

Implications of social isolation, separation, and loss during the COVID-19 pandemic for couples' relationships

“…Difficulty equitably managing the increased housework and parenting demands of quarantine also predicted greater relationship problems and dissatisfaction [ 6 ]. Finally, parents (N = 365) who experienced greater stress in mandatory quarantine also reported increases in verbal aggression toward their intimate partners [ 18 ].…”

“…For example, couples with children have faced additional demands, including equitably balancing increased work and childcare demands, and thus likely experienced greater stress [ 21 ], more depleted resources required to be responsive, and less time to foster relationship connection. These differences may be why studies examining married couples with children illustrated more detrimental outcomes [ 7 , 16 , 18 ]. Similarly, the number and severity of stressors will likely be greater for couples entering the pandemic with greater economic or social challenges, and the impact of such ongoing stress and isolation likely grew after the early pandemic months assessed in the studies mentioned above.…”

“…Men's hostile sexism represents a risk for aggression in couples' relationships, particularly when men feel they lack control or power [ 35 ], which is likely during quarantines when couples are confined at home, and must rely on each other isolated from other means to alleviate pandemic-related uncertainty and loss. A recent investigation revealed that men higher in pre-pandemic hostile sexism were more aggressive toward their partners during a mandated quarantine, particularly when they felt less power when interacting with their partner [ 18 ].…”

Personality disorders (PD) and interpersonal violence (IV) during COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review

“…Furthermore, lower income, the presence of adverse childhood experiences and hostile sexism seemed to correlate with the risk of DV in the containment measure period [ 71 , 72 ].…”