Item Detail
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27853
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0
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0
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English
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Predictors of Ambivalent Sexist Attitudes Toward Women in a Latter-day Saint (LDS) Adult Sample : A Test of Glick and Fiske's Ambivalent Sexism Theory
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Salt Lake City, UT
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University of Utah
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199
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Ph.D. Dissertation
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The objective of this study was to investigate the contribution of multiple demographic and religiosity variables as predictors of ambivalent sexism toward women in a sample of LDS adults. A nationwide sample of 3563 active or former LDS participants were recruited through online social media sites and email. The research design was correlational and used survey instruments.
The main findings demonstrated that gender was significantly related to the endorsement of sexism. Overall, men had greater benevolent and hostilely sexist attitudes than women. Gender also moderated the relationship between religiosity and benevolent sexism when LDS activity and affiliation were predictors, such that men's endorsement of sexism increased at a greater rate than women's. Conversely, gender moderated the relationship between all religiosity measures and hostile sexism, such that as religiosity increased, women's endorsement of hostilely sexist attitudes increased more than men's did.
Education was also related negatively to both sexism subscales. Religion did not moderate the relationship between education and benevolent sexism. However, a few interactions were significant when looking at hostile sexism, suggesting as religiosity (i.e., LDS activity & affiliation, and intrinsic religiosity) increased, and as education decreased, endorsement of hostile sexism toward women increased.
All five religiosity variables had a significant and positive effect on both subscales, but stronger with benevolent sexism. Intrinsic religiosity was found to have a stronger relationship than extrinsic with both subscales, which was opposite of predicted relationships. When looking at subjective LDS activity, the very active identified group had the strongest endorsement of sexism; however, the group belief in the LDS faith but not currently active had the second highest endorsement of benevolent and the highest endorsement for hostile sexism.
Contrary results were also discovered, in that neither participants age, nor years lived in Utah were found to significantly relate and neither contributed any variance in predicting ambivalent sexism.
In summary, the variables contributing the most variance in predicting both benevolent and hostile sexism were high religious fundamentalism, male gender, and lower education levels. Also, other forms of religiosity (e.g., intrinsic and extrinsic orientations, LDS activity, and LDS affiliation) also contribute significantly to the variance in sexism.