Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Aug;101(2):271-90. doi: 10.1037/a0022727.
This study tested whether men's and women's hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS) were associated with resistance to influence in couples' conflict interactions. Ninety-one heterosexual couples were recorded while trying to produce desired changes in each other. Participants reviewed their discussions and rated how open they were to their partner's perspective. Objective coders also rated the extent to which each partner exhibited hostile communication. We tested key principles arising from ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996). First, BS is necessary because mutual interdependence reduces the power of HS to influence women within intimate relationships. We found that the more men endorsed HS, the less open and more hostile both partners were, and the less successful their discussions were in producing desired change. Second, BS reduces the threat of women's dyadic power by revering and respecting women's interpersonal roles while restricting women's influence outside the relationship domain. We found that men who expressed higher agreement with BS were more open to their partners' influence and behaved with less hostility, and their discussions were more successful. These relationship benefits illustrate why BS is effective at disarming women's resistance to wider inequalities. These benefits, however, were contingent on men adopting BS attitudes. When women strongly endorsed BS but their male partner did not, women were less open, behaved with greater hostility, and perceived their discussions as less successful. These results indicate that, because BS increases the stakes within the relationship domain, women who endorse BS will react more negatively when their expectations are not realized.
本研究旨在检验男性和女性的敌意性别歧视（HS）和善意性别歧视（BS）是否与夫妻冲突互动中的抵制影响力有关。91 对异性恋夫妇在试图互相产生期望的改变时被记录下来。参与者回顾了他们的讨论，并评价了他们对伴侣观点的开放程度。客观的编码员还评估了每个伴侣表现出敌意沟通的程度。我们检验了矛盾性别歧视理论（Glick & Fiske，1996）提出的一些关键原则。首先，BS 是必要的，因为相互依存关系降低了 HS 在亲密关系中影响女性的权力。我们发现，男性越支持 HS，双方就越不开放、越敌对，他们的讨论就越难产生期望的改变。其次，BS 通过尊重和尊重女性的人际关系角色，同时限制女性在关系领域之外的影响力，从而降低了女性二元权力的威胁。我们发现，那些对 BS 表示更高认同的男性对伴侣的影响更开放，表现出的敌意也更少，他们的讨论也更成功。这些关系上的好处说明了为什么 BS 能够有效地解除女性对更广泛不平等的抵制。然而，这些好处取决于男性是否采取 BS 态度。当女性强烈支持 BS，但她们的男性伴侣不支持时，女性会更加不开放，表现出更大的敌意，并且认为她们的讨论不太成功。这些结果表明，由于 BS 增加了关系领域的利害关系，因此当女性的期望没有实现时，支持 BS 的女性会做出更负面的反应。
