1. Religion's role in the illusion of gender equality: Religious priming increases benevolent sexism
- Author
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Haggard, Megan, Kaelen, Rob, Saroglou, Vassilis, Klein, Olivier, and Rowatt, Wade
- Subjects
Psychologie sociale expérimentale ,religion ,sexism ,priming ,gender equality - Abstract
Sexism has deep roots in human history, including most religious traditions. Many religiousorganizations and traditions, including Judeo-Christian beliefs, subtly approve of and espousesexism. Previous research has detailed how religiosity and sexism, particularly benevolentsexism, are positively correlated. Given these connections, we examined whether supraliminal orsubliminal religious priming influences reported benevolent and hostile sexism in Belgium(Experiments 1-2) and the U.S (Experiments 3-4). Across four experiments, priming JudeoChristianconcepts increased self-reported benevolent sexism. In addition, differentiating types ofreligious primes into sub-groups of religious agent, religious institution, and spiritual wordsrevealed that exposure to religious agent primes resulted in higher levels of benevolent sexismcompared to other groups (Experiment 4). These results provide empirical evidence that religioncan act to bolster benevolent sexist ideals, which reinforce an unequal relationship between menand women., info:eu-repo/semantics/published
- Published
- 2018