Why men rule the world: attitudes toward social dominance and gender

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Why men rule the world: attitudes toward social dominance and gender Batoul Hodroj1*, Desirée Kozlowski1 and James Donnelly1 1 Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Australia Aims: Gender perception is often associated with judgements of dominance, with males being perceived as more dominant than females in almost all circumstances. The aim of this study was to discover to what extent people conflate gender with dominance. In addition we assessed whether characteristics of the observer, such as Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), beliefs about the precariousness of gender, and sex, influenced these judgements. Method: 132 Adult participants (74% female) viewed feminine and masculine point-light walkers (PLWs) paired with masculine, neutral, and feminine narratives and rated each pairing on its level of dominance. Observer SDO, Precarious Gender Beliefs (PGB), and participant reported sex were also measured. Results: Factorial analysis of variance showed significant main effects for walker and narrative type (p < .001) but no walker by narrative interaction. Male walkers were rated as more dominant than female walkers. Masculine narratives were rated as most dominant, followed by neutral narratives, with feminine narratives rated least dominant. Dominance ratings were not significantly associated with SDO, PGB, or sex. Conclusions: Both visual and verbal masculine stimuli were again judged as more dominant than feminine stimuli. However, SDO, PGB and sex seemed to have no effect on judgements of dominance. Further research on participant characteristics that may influence judgements of dominance is recommended. Keywords: Femininity, Masculinity, Perception, Social Dominance, gender Conference: 12th Annual Psychology Research Conference, 2015, Coffs Harbour, Australia, 25 Sep - 26 Sep, 2015. Presentation Type: Research Topic: Psychology Citation: Hodroj B, Kozlowski D and Donnelly J (2015). Why men rule the world: attitudes toward social dominance and gender. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 12th Annual Psychology Research Conference, 2015. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.66.00009 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 23 Sep 2015; Published Online: 23 Sep 2015. * Correspondence: Ms. Batoul Hodroj, Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia, b.hodroj.10@student.scu.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Batoul Hodroj Desirée Kozlowski James Donnelly Google Batoul Hodroj Desirée Kozlowski James Donnelly Google Scholar Batoul Hodroj Desirée Kozlowski James Donnelly PubMed Batoul Hodroj Desirée Kozlowski James Donnelly Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.