Personality and Social Psychology Factors Explaining Sexism

Abstract

Previous research has almost exclusively examined sexism (negative attitudes toward women) from either a personality or a social-psychology perspective. In two studies (N = 379 and 182, respectively), we combine these perspectives and examine whether sexism is best explained by personality (Big-Five factors, social dominance orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism) or by social-psychological (group membership and group identification) variables – or by a combination of both approaches. Causal modeling and multiple regression analyses showed that, with the present set of variables, sexism was best explained by considering the combined influence of both personality- and social-psychology constructs. The findings imply that it is necessary to integrate various approaches to explain prejudice.