When Does Men’s Hostile Sexism Predict Relationship Aggression? The Moderating Role of Partner Commitment

Abstract

Hostile sexism encompasses aggressive attitudes toward women who contest men’s power and suspicions that women will manipulate men by exploiting their relational dependence. Prior research has shown that these attitudes predict greater aggression toward female relationship partners, but has overlooked the contexts in which such aggression should occur. The present research identified an important contextual factor that determines when men’s hostile sexism is (and when it is not) associated with relationship aggression. Men who more strongly endorsed hostile sexism were more aggressive toward their female partners during couples’ daily life (Study 1) and conflict discussions (Study 2), but only when their female partners were perceived to be, or reported being, low in relationship commitment. These findings show that men who endorse hostile sexism do not always enact aggression toward female partners, but do so in contexts relevant to their fears that women will exploit men’s relational dependence and undermine men’s power.