The Two Faces of Adam: Ambivalent Sexism and Polarized Attitudes Toward Women
- 1 December 1997
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Vol. 23 (12) , 1323-1334
- https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672972312009
Abstract
Two studies using Peter Glick and Susan Fiske's Ambivalent Sexism Inventory examined sexist men's attitudes toward women. The authors hypothesized that ambivalent sexist (as compared with nonsexist) men would habitually classify women into polarized subgroups (those they put on a "pedestal" and those they place in the "gutter"). Study 1 revealed that ambivalent sexism predicted greater polarization in men's evaluations of spontaneously generated female subtypes. Study 2 demonstrated that the negative component of sexist ambivalence (hostile sexism) predicted less favorable evaluations of women in a nontraditional role (career women), whereas the subjectively positive component of sexist ambivalence (benevolent sexism) predicted favorable feelings toward women in a traditional role (homemakers). Implications for the nature of sexist ambivalence (and other forms of ambivalent prejudice) are discussed.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996
- The Naive Misuse of Power: Nonconscious Sources of Sexual HarassmentJournal of Social Issues, 1995
- Preferring “Housewives” To “Feminists”: Categorization and the Favorability of Attitudes Toward WomenPsychology of Women Quarterly, 1994
- Assessing the structure of prejudicial attitudes: The case of attitudes toward homosexuals.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1993
- Prejudice with and without compunction.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1991
- Gender Stereotypes and Attitudes Toward Women and MenPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1989
- Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989
- An experimental test of defensive processes in impression formation.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986
- Attribute relevance as a moderator of the effects of motivation on impression formation.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1981
- Stereotypes of woman: A single category?Sex Roles, 1976