Women were much more likely to report long-term mate attraction to the benevolent, vs to the hostile, sexist; the hostile sexist one generated greater distrust and dislike in both men & women, compared to the benevolent one

Grab 'em by the...: Hostile and benevolent sexism as signals of mating strategies. Adair, L. & Ferenczi, N. European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, 15th Conference, Mar 2021. https://ehbea2021.com/

Abstract

Objective: Men’s hostile sexism is associated with many negative interpersonal consequences (e.g., lower relationship quality). Men’s benevolent sexism does not seem to similarly promote negative behaviours and interpersonal interactions but is still associated with harmful attitudes and stereotypes (e.g., endorsement of rape myths). Recent work finds that disclosures of benevolent sexism are associated with perceived attractiveness and provisioning qualities, even though they are perceived as patronising. Our work is designed to apply evolutionary and feminist perspectives to investigate this further – is sexism used to infer mating-relevant qualities, mate attractiveness, and mating strategy?

Methods: Using a nationally representative sample (N = 317; Female = 50%), participants were randomly assigned to evaluate descriptions of men varying along two criteria, sexism (hostile vs. benevolent) and social prestige (with vs. without prestige criteria).

Results: 2x2 Between-subjects ANOVAs highlighted several main effects: benevolent sexists were rated higher on long-term mate qualities, hostile sexists were rated higher on short-term mate qualities, and hostile sexists were rated as “more sexist” overall. Interaction effects indicated that having prestige decreased how “sexist” hostile sexists were perceived, the same was not true for benevolent sexists.

Conclusions: As predicted, disclosures of benevolent sexism were used to infer long-term mating qualities, while disclosures of hostile sexism were used to infer short-term mating qualities. We found that women were much more likely to report long-term mate attraction to the benevolent, compared to the hostile, sexist. The hostile sexist generated greater distrust and dislike in both men and women, compared to the benevolent sexist.