Age and gender differences in college students' attitudes toward women: A replication and extension

Abstract

This study replicates and extends earlier research on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (J. T. Spence and R. L. Helmreich, “The Attitudes Towards Women Scale: An Objective Instrument to Measure Attitudes Towards the Rights and Roles of Women in Contemporary Society,” JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 1972, 2, 66). The scale was administered to 382 college students to assess the reliability of the scale, gender and age differences in responses to the scale, and to make comparisons to past research with different samples. Age was positively associated with more liberal attitudes toward women. Females were more liberal overall than males; however, this depended on the particular item.