Applied Psychology in Hungary 2003-2004 [antikvár]

VALUES AND AMBIVALENCE TOWARDS MEN AND WOMEN: A STUDY IN HUNGARY AND THE UNITED STATES Abstract This study investigated the relation of ambivalent (benevolent and hostile attitudes) towards men and women as theorized by Peter Glick and Susan T. Fiske to the traditional sexist attitudes and value types as identified by Schalom H. Schwartz. Based on Feather's results, we presumed that ambivalent attitudes are related in predictable ways to underlying values. The value types belonging to the opposites of the two value dimensions (self-enhancement vs. transcendence and conservation vs. openness to change) are related to ambivalent attitudes towards gender relations in reverse directions. University students from Budapest and Pittsburgh responded to questions in the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and Ambivalence towards Men Inventory, as weil as the Attitudes towards Women of Spence and Helmreich and the Person Profiles designed by Schwartz to measure values. Our results showed that power value was positively related, while its opposite values, benevolence and universalism values were negatively correlated to ambivalent attitudes towards the sexes. Tradition and conformity was positively, while their opposite value: self-direction was negatively related to benevolence towards men and women. Ali the four types of ambivalent attitudes were positively correlated with traditional sexist views as measured by the Attitudes towards Women (ATW) scale, showing that they all compose a complementary set of traditional gender beliefs, although benevolent attitudes showed somewhat less strong relation to the ATW scores. The possibility of cultural differences in meaning of ambivalent attitudes is discussed. The ambivalent nature of sexism has been a significant topic of social psychological interest for the last few years (Glick, and Fiske, 1996; 1999; 2001; Glick et al., 2004; Feather, 2004; Glick, and Hilt, 2000). The most widely spread definition of prejudice as an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization" was given by Gordon Allport (1954) half a century ago. According to this defmition, sexism would mean hostile, negatíve attitudes towards women, the group that has a disadvantaged status in almost all societies. Out of the need to justify social systems (Jóst, and Banaji, 1994), people believe that the status of different groups in society is weil deserved, thus social inequalities will lead to a more negative evaluation of the disadvantaged.