The costs and benefits of sexism: Resistance to influence during relationship conflict.

Abstract

This study tested whether men's and women's hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS) were associated with resistance to influence in couples' conflict interactions. Ninety-one heterosexual couples were recorded while trying to produce desired changes in each other. Participants reviewed their discussions and rated how open they were to their partner's perspective. Objective coders also rated the extent to which each partner exhibited hostile communication. We tested key principles arising from ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996). First, BS is necessary because mutual interdependence reduces the power of HS to influence women within intimate relationships. We found that the more men endorsed HS, the less open and more hostile both partners were, and the less successful their discussions were in producing desired change. Second, BS reduces the threat of women's dyadic power by revering and respecting women's interpersonal roles while restricting women's influence outside the relationship domain. We found that men who expressed higher agreement with BS were more open to their partners' influence and behaved with less hostility, and their discussions were more successful. These relationship benefits illustrate why BS is effective at disarming women's resistance to wider inequalities. These benefits, however, were contingent on men adopting BS attitudes. When women strongly endorsed BS but their male partner did not, women were less open, behaved with greater hostility, and perceived their discussions as less successful. These results indicate that, because BS increases the stakes within the relationship domain, women who endorse BS will react more negatively when their expectations are not realized.

She Loves Him, She Loves Him Not

“…Attachment style likely influences relationship outcomes directly, but our research suggests that it may also predict outcomes via ideologies such as sexism, which has recently been found to predict romantic relationship dynamics (Overall, Sibley, & Tan, 2011).…”

The Relationship Between Heteronormative Beliefs and Verbal Sexual Coercion in College Students

“…2 The effect of heteronormative beliefs on the three endogenous variables is shown for both men and women (women are after the slash). Standardized regression weights are shown sexism (e.g., Glick et al, 2000;Overall et al, 2011), and acceptance of sexual coercion (e.g., Haworth-Hoeppner, 1998;Rosenthal, 1997).…”

“…The Hostile and Benevolent Subscales of the ASI tend to be positively correlated (e.g., Glick & Fiske, 1996) though women typically report less hostile sexism than men across various cultures and socioeconomic groups (Glick et al, 2000;Kilianski & Rudman, 1998;Overall, Sibley, & Tan, 2011). In the current study, the benevolent and hostile subscales were computed separately for independent analyses (a = .75 and a = .78).…”

The Real Versus the Ideal

“…Although marriage myths and benevolent sexism were positively correlated, the main effects of benevolent sexism showed that endorsing such beliefs has a negative association with relationship satisfaction. This finding may be due to women's partners not living up to the expectations created by benevolent sexism, namely placing women on a pedestal, acting chivalrous, and putting women's safety before men's (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001Overall et al, 2011; Figure 2. Two-way interactions between endorsement of marriage myths and benevolent sexism on (A) anxiety-indicating that higher endorsement of marriage myths and benevolent sexism predicted less anxiety-and (b) depression-indicating that among those with lower marriage myths, those higher in benevolent sexism had more depression.…”