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Maltby Et Al. (2010)
Maltby Et Al. (2010)
Maltby Et Al. (2010)
DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9754-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Introduction
The research to be described in this article investigated the
role of gender in the relationship between religiosity and
ambivalent sexism. We report the results of a questionnaire
study that included measures of religious belief (The
Christian Orthodoxy Scale; Fullerton and Hunsberger
1982; Hunsberger 1989), and a measure of ambivalent
sexism (The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory; Glick and
Fiske 1996). The study makes a new contribution by
Ambivalent Sexism
616
617
Method
Participants and Procedure
Data were collected from 337 undergraduate students at a
private, evangelical liberal arts university in the Southwestern United States. At the time of admission, all students
endorsed affiliation with the evangelical Christian faith
tradition. Evangelicalism is a conservative form of Christianity characterized by engagement with contemporary
culture while attempting to maintain a biblically based
identity, mission, and lifestyle (Gallagher and Smith 1999).
Evangelical Christianity maintains sub-cultural boundaries
while encouraging connection to the larger culture of which
it is a part. Participants were predominantly 1820 years old,
618
Results
Preliminary Analyses
Because previous research has found gender differences in
the ambivalent sexism variables, the means and standard
deviations of all study variables were calculated separately
for each gender (see Table 1). A one-way multivariate
analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine gender differences on ambivalent sexism variables.
MANOVA results revealed significant differences between
males and females on the dependent variables, Wilks
=.819, F(7, 256)=8.086, p<.001. Analysis of variance
(ANOVA) was conducted on each dependent variable as a
follow-up test to MANOVA. Gender differences were
significant for benevolent sexism, F(1, 335)=12.47, p<.001,
effect size (2)=.04, and protective paternalism, F(1, 335)=
39.10, p<.001, effect size (2)=.11. The Christian Orthodoxy Scale showed no significant gender differences. Means
and standard deviations for ambivalent sexism and Christian
orthodoxy are displayed by gender in Table 1.
Before testing the hypothesis, preliminary analyses were
conducted to ensure normality of the data. As mentioned in
the description of the sample, participants were recruited
from a Christian liberal arts university. As such, the
homogeneity of the sample posed a threat to the validity
of results using a religious measure in the form of potential
bias and restricted range. Although The Christian Orthodoxy Scale had an alpha reliability of .80, the distribution
was negatively skewed (skewness=5.57) and the kurtosis
indicated that there were too few cases in the tail of the
distribution. In fact, 52.6% of participants had a score of 73
(the maximum) on The Christian Orthodoxy Scale, indicating a ceiling effect. Despite this, participant scores did not
suffer from restricted range, with scores ranging from 13 to
73. In order for the data on this measure to approximate a
normal distribution, a transformation was necessary. The
data were negatively skewed, and therefore needed to first
be reflected by subtracting every score from the maximum
score attained plus one (i.e., every score was subtracted
from 74). This reflected the distribution so that it became
positively skewed, and amenable to log and square root
transformations. It should be noted, however, that reflecting
data in this way changed the meaning of scores, such that
low scores now represented higher levels of Christian
orthodoxy, and high scores now represented lower levels of
619
Variable
Male
ASI variables
Hostile sexism
Benevolent sexism*
Protective
Paternalism*
Christian orthodoxy (untransformed)
Female
SD
SD
2.69
2.93
3.77
.64
.59
.77
2.71
2.63
3.17
.72
.73
.78
69.20
8.67
70.81
4.58
Discussion
Previous research has found a relationship between ambivalent sexism and religiosity. The present research aimed to
address the conceptual shortcomings in defining religiosity
.04
.06
.14
.12
.14*
.067
.09
.55**
.13
.65**
.26*
.132*
.129*
.204
.12
.07
Intercorrelations for male participants (n=92) are presented below the diagonal, and intercorrelations for female participants (n=245) are
presented above the diagonal
*p<.05, **p<.01
620
Table 3 Interaction of gender
and christian orthodoxy in predicting protective paternalism.
SEB
Sig.
.60***
.10
.32***
5.86
.00
.60***
.07
.10
.11
.32***
.03
5.88
.59
.00
.56
.81***
1.04*
.59*
.13
.40
.24
.44***
.50*
.49*
6.19
2.59
2.52
.00
.01
.01
sexism, the question surfaces whether protective paternalism measures the same construct in this population as it
does in the population in which it was developed. Future
studies should assess whether Protective Paternalism is
correlated with other measures of sexism and gender
discrimination in a conservative, Christian sample, as it is
in more diverse populations.
As with any research, this study is limited in its
generalizability. The sample consisted of religious, primarily evangelical Christian adults at a private, liberal arts
university. The demographics of the sample, presented in
Table 1, reveal that the sample was primarily European
American and female. Additionally, because of the correlational design of the study, no causal conclusions can be
drawn. One cannot conclude from this study that Christian
orthodoxy causes ambivalent sexism in religious people.
However, one can conclude that religious beliefs interact
with gender with regards to protective paternalism.
The results of this study have several implications for
future research in this area. Studies looking at the relationship
between religious variables and ambivalent sexism should
include measures of orthodoxy in order to reach more nuanced
conclusions. And of course, this study should be replicated in
a more diverse group. Due to the limitations of sampling,
results are not generalizable to non-Christian adults, or to
adults of other Christian groups that may differ in significant
ways from evangelical Christians. Replication of this research
should also take into consideration other factors such as
SES, ethnicity, and education levels, as the current sample
was primarily middle- to upper-middle class, European
American, and highly educated.
It is unlikely that we will find a magic bean
responsible for ambivalent sexism. Rather, it is more likely
that this deeply rooted ideology is the result of complex
interactions between gender, personality, culture, religion,
SES, and many other factors. As we begin to understand
ambivalent sexism more deeply, however, perhaps some of
its causes can be targeted with the ultimate goal of reducing
ideology that serves to reinforce traditional gender roles and
limit womens equality.
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