Insidious dangers of benevolent sexism: Consequences for women's performance

[en] Four experiments found benevolent sexism to be worse than hostile sexism for women's cognitive performance. Experiments 1-2 showed effects of paternalist benevolent sexism and ruled out explanations of perceived sexism, context pleasantness, and performance motivation. Experiment 3 showed effects of both paternalist and complementary gender differentiation components of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism per se (rather than the provision of unsolicited help involved in paternalism) worsened performance. Experiment 4 showed that impaired performance due to benevolent sexism was fully mediated by the mental intrusions women experienced about their sense of competence. Additionally, Experiment 4 showed that gender identification protected against hostile but not benevolent sexism. Despite the apparently positive and inoffensive tone of benevolent sexism, our research emphasizes its insidious dangers.

Research center :

Centre de Neurosciences Cognitives et Comportementales - ULiège

Disciplines :

Social, industrial & organizational psychology

Author, co-author :

Dardenne, Benoît ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychologie sociale

Dumont, Muriel; Université de Liège - ULiège

Bollier, Thierry; Université de Liège - ULiège

Language :

English

Title :

Insidious dangers of benevolent sexism: Consequences for women's performance

Publication date :

November 2007

Journal title :

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

ISSN :

0022-3514

eISSN :

1939-1315

Publisher :

Amer Psychological Assoc/Educational Publishing Foundation, Washington, United States - Washington

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

764-779

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Available on ORBi :

since 18 February 2009

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836 (30 by ULiège)

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13150 (39 by ULiège)

More statistics

Scopus citations^®

304

Scopus citations^®
without self-citations

294

OpenCitations

240

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