Political Ideology Outdoes Personal Experience in Predicting Support for Gender Equality
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Authors
Indices of gender equality provide an inconsistent picture of current gender inequality in countries with relatively high equality. We examined women's and men's subjectively perceived gender inequality and their support for gender equality in the general population and in politicians, respectively, in three countries with relatively high gender equality: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany (total N = 1,612). In both women's and men's perceptions, women were treated more unequally than men. However, the inequality that women perceived was larger than the inequality men perceived. Additionally, women reported they personally experience less inequality than women as a group (person-group discrepancy). Finally, women's and men's left/liberal (vs. right/conservative) political ideology turned out to be a relatively more powerful predictor of support for gender equality than perceived personal and societal inequality. We discuss reasons for why political ideology emerged as the strongest predictor of equality support and sketch out implications for policy efforts toward promoting gender equality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Political Psychology |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Pages (from-to) | 829-855 |
| Number of pages | 27 |
| ISSN | 0162-895X |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 09.2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
We thank Anna Kende and the motivation colloquium at the University of Hamburg for comments on earlier versions of this research. Thanks also go to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and to Narges Bakthyar, Matthia Kilian, and Christina Münch for their help with collecting the data. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to A. Timur Sevincer, Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: timur.sevincer@uni-hamburg.de. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology.
- gender equality, perceived inequality, person-group discrepancy, pluralistic ignorance, political ideology
- Psychology
Research areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Philosophy
- Clinical Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Sociology and Political Science
- Political Science and International Relations
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- SDG 5 - Gender Equality
- SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities