Creencias de los Hombres y Mujeres Americanos sobre la Discriminación de Género: Para los Hombres, Esto No Es Precisamente un Juego de Suma Zero

We surveyed Americans regarding their beliefs about gender discrimination over the past several decades. Men and women agreed that women faced much more discrimination than men in the past, and they agreed that the discrimination gap between men and women has narrowed in recent years. However, men perceived the gap as narrower than women did at all time periods, and reported that there is little difference today in the amount of gender discrimination women and men face. Political ideology moderated these beliefs such that conservative men were most likely to report that anti-Man bias now equals or exceeds anti-Woman bias. Similar to recent research on beliefs about racism, these findings suggest that groups which differ historically in status and power exhibit perceptual differences regarding the changing nature of discrimination.Hemos realizado encuestas a personas americanas sobre sus creencias respecto a la discriminación de género durante las últimas décadas. Tanto hombres como mujeres estaban de acuerdo en que en el pasado las mujeres han sufrido mucha más discriminación que los hombres, y también en que esta diferencia se ha ido estrechando en los últimos años. Sin embargo, a los hombres esta diferencia siempre les ha parecido más estrecha que a las mujeres durante todos los periodos, y perciben que ahora hay pocas diferencias entre la discriminación que afrontan hombres y mujeres. Las ideologías políticas moderan estas creencias, de manera que los hombres conservadores son más propensos a afirmar que el sesgo anti masculino es igual o mayor al sesgo anti femenino. Al igual que algunas investigaciones recientes sobre las creencias respecto al racismo, nuestros hallazgos sugieren que grupos que difieren históricamente en estatus y poder perciben de forma diferente la naturaleza cambiante de la discriminación

Ironic Masculinity and Femininity: Do Contextual Factors Reverse Attributions Based on Gender Stereotyped Behaviors?

Emerging research highlights the social penalties for men and women who commit cross-gendered behaviors. Here, I examine how and when two contextual mechanisms (competence and credentials) alter people\u27s perceptions of cross-gendered behavior and render actors as less gender-atypical and more gender-typical. In Study 1, I tested the hypothesis that incompetence in cross-gendered behaviors would communicate same-gendered qualities by contrast. In Study 2, I tested the hypothesis that an actor who commits a cross-gendered behavior will receive less gender-inconsistent evaluations if they first demonstrate gender-typical traits. Moreover, Study 2 examines whether or not these credentialed actors change the perception of the behavior\u27s alignment with conventional gender stereotypes. Results were largely mixed but generally failed to support hypotheses. The Discussion focuses on how future research can address these questions

The examination of ordinary cruelty televised within a just world

Televised cruelty has become more severe in recent years likely in an attempt to pique the interest of viewers desensitized to its milder forms. Following the recent empirical interest in research dedicated to televised violence, which encompassed the typical, physical realm of cruelty, little research has focused on the psychological forms of cruelty demonstrated on television. Specifically, no research has examined the extent to which teasing, humiliation, gossip, ridicule, and verbal abuse, the five constituents of Caputo, Brodsky, and Kemp\u27s (2006) definition of ordinary cruelty, are perceived and enjoyed. A pilot study was conducted to narrow a pool of videos selected for their apparent content of ordinary cruelty. After the calculation of satisfactory estimates of reliability, summative scores were used to select the clips with the highest cruelty ratings: American Idol and Maury. Both videos were used in an experimental investigation of ordinary cruelty on television. Specifically, participants were divided into two groups: each group read a vignette, but the victim\u27s deservingness was high in one group and low in another. Afterwards, all participants watched the same video clips and answered questions related to sympathy, empathy, parasocial identification, and other just world correlates. Belief in a Just World for Others (BJW-0) has been shown to be an index of harsh social attitudes. II was hypothesized that participants who have a high BJW-0 should enjoy the suffering of a deserving victim while not enjoying the suffering an undeserving victim, as the latter would present a threat to their beliefs. This hypothesis was marginally supported when measures were combined across both clips used within the study, but not for each individual clip separately. Sympathy is defined as expression compassion for another\u27s suffering, while empathy is defined as experiencing one\u27s emotions as though they were one\u27s own. Both sympathy and empathy were hypothesized to be positively related to being victimized in the past, having no prior experience with the show, to perceiving oneself as similar to the victim, to not having committed victimization in the past, and to not perceiving oneself as similar to the perpetrator. The results partially supported these hypotheses, and the implications are discussed. Also hypothesized was that parasocial interaction, the feeling of closeness with the television character, with the victim would relate to less enjoyment, having a low BJW-O, and the victim\u27s deservingness. However, none of these hypotheses were supported. Parasocial interaction with the host, however, significantly predicted enjoyment of the show. Results and limitations of the study overall are discussed as well as implications for Just World Theory

Moral Judgments of the Powerless and Powerful in Violent Intergroup Conflicts

The present research examined observers\u27 moral judgments of groups in conflict. Study 1 found support for the prediction that actions are interpreted as more moral in the context of low power. People judged the violent actions of a fictitious group as more moral and justifiable when done by a smaller, less powerful country compared to a larger one. However, a second study found that violence may undermine the moral advantage accorded underdog groups. People reading about Israeli construction of settlements in Palestinian territories judged the Israeli actions to be more moral when Palestinians resisted violently compared to when they used non-violent resistance tactics. Together, these studies demonstrate how moral judgments of the actions of groups in conflict are influenced by contextual factors independent of the actions themselves

American Men’s and Women’s Beliefs about Gender Discrimination: For Men, It’s Not Quite a ZeroSum Game

We surveyed Americans regarding their beliefs about gender discrimination over the past several decades. Men and women agreed that women faced much more discrimination than men in the past, and they agreed that the discrimination gap between men and women has narrowed in recent years. However, men perceived the gap as narrower than women did at all time periods, and reported that there is little difference today in the amount of gender discrimination women and men face. Political ideology moderated these beliefs such that conservative men were most likely to report that anti-Man bias now equals or exceeds anti-Woman bias. Similar to recent research on beliefs about racism, these findings suggest that groups which differ historically in status and power exhibit perceptual differences regarding the changing nature of discrimination

Creencias de los Hombres y Mujeres Americanos sobre la Discriminación de Género: Para los Hombres, Esto No Es Precisamente un Juego de Suma Zero

We surveyed Americans regarding their beliefs about gender discrimination over the past several decades. Men and women agreed that women faced much more discrimination than men in the past, and they agreed that the discrimination gap between men and women has narrowed in recent years. However, men perceived the gap as narrower than women did at all time periods, and reported that there is little difference today in the amount of gender discrimination women and men face. Political ideology moderated these beliefs such that conservative men were most likely to report that anti-Man bias now equals or exceeds anti-Woman bias. Similar to recent research on beliefs about racism, these findings suggest that groups which differ historically in status and power exhibit perceptual differences regarding the changing nature of discrimination.Hemos realizado encuestas a personas americanas sobre sus creencias respecto a la discriminación de género durante las últimas décadas. Tanto hombres como mujeres estaban de acuerdo en que en el pasado las mujeres han sufrido mucha más discriminación que los hombres, y también en que esta diferencia se ha ido estrechando en los últimos años. Sin embargo, a los hombres esta diferencia siempre les ha parecido más estrecha que a las mujeres durante todos los periodos, y perciben que ahora hay pocas diferencias entre la discriminación que afrontan hombres y mujeres. Las ideologías políticas moderan estas creencias, de manera que los hombres conservadores son más propensos a afirmar que el sesgo anti masculino es igual o mayor al sesgo anti femenino. Al igual que algunas investigaciones recientes sobre las creencias respecto al racismo, nuestros hallazgos sugieren que grupos que difieren históricamente en estatus y poder perciben de forma diferente la naturaleza cambiante de la discriminación