The aim of the current thesis was to explore the possible link between System Justification Theory (SJT) and Terror Management Theory (TMT) in gender context and from the perspective of intergroup relations in a sample of Turkish university students. Having recently attracted research attention, the relation between the two theories is based on the effect of mortality salience (MS) on the tendency to justify the existing system. Accordingly, three research questions were investigated to see whether (1) ambivalent sexism toward women (hostile and benevolent sexism / HS and BS, respectively) and gender-group favoritism (on both explicit and implicit measures / expGF and impGF, respectively) were related to gender-specific system justification (GSJ), and whether (2) gender and (3) MS moderated the relation of GSJ to ambivalent sexism and gender-group favoritism. Based on the literature, it was hypothesized that (1) GSJ would predict HS, BS, expGF, and impGF, and that these predictions would be stronger (2) among women than among men and (3) when mortality is made salient as compared to when it is not. The hypotheses were tested with 185 participants (86 men, 99 women) who completed a questionnaire package including the demographic information form, GSJ Scale, MS manipulation, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, and a scale measuring expGF along with a computer-administered task for impGF. The results revealed that higher levels of GSJ predicted higher levels of benevolent and hostile attitudes toward women as well as higher levels of explicit ingroup favoritism and lower levels of favoritism toward women. Only GSJ &ndash / HS and GSJ &ndash / expGF relationships were moderated by gender. The moderating role of MS was not observed in any of the four relationships. However, GSJ scores were found to be unevenly distributed across MS conditions, thereby, casting doubt on the reliability of the results concerning the moderating role of MS. The findings, as well as the contributions and limitations of the study, were discussed.

This thesis investigated attitudes toward sexual harassment (SH) and relationship between these attitudes, ambivalent sexism and ambivalence toward men. 311 Middle East Technical University students with a mean age of 22 participated in this study. Attitudes toward SH was measured by Sexual Harassment Attitude Scale (SHAS), which has three subfactors / accepting SH as a result of provocative behaviors of women, accepting SH as normal flirtations between men and women, and endorsement of SH as a trivial matter, respectively. Ambivalent sexism was measured by Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) and ambivalence toward men was measured by Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI). Sequential regression analysis revealed that gender, Hostile Sexism (HS) and Benevolence toward Men (BM) predicted acceptance of SH as provocative behaviors of women. Additional analysis demonstrated that gender, BM, Benevolent Sexism (BS) and age predicted acceptance of SH as normal flirtations. Finally, BS, gender, economy class and department were significantly predicting endorsement of SH as a social problem. Main contributions of this thesis were investigating (1) attitudes toward sexual harassment and its relationship with ambivalent sexist attitudes toward not only to women but also to men and (2) effects of gender, and some other demographic variables such as age, department and economy class on predicting attitudes toward SH.

The aim of the present research was to investigate attitudes toward sexual harassment (SH) and the relationships of these attitudes with locus of control and ambivalent sexism. A total of 311 university students from Middle East Technical University participated to the study. In order to measure attitudes toward SH, a new scale, Sexual Harassment Attitude Scale (SHAS), was developed by the author of the thesis and another researcher (Salman &amp / Turgut, 2006). This scale consists of three subfactors which were accepting SH as a result of provocative behaviors, accepting SH as normal flirtations between men and women, and endorsement of SH as a trivial matter. Locus of control was measured with Locus of Control Scale (LCS, Dag, 2002) having five subfactors which were personal control, belief in chance, meaninglessness of the effortfulness, belief in fate, and belief in an unjust world. Lastly, sexist beliefs were measured with Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI, Glick &amp / Fiske, 1996) having two factors which were hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. The results revealed that some domains of locus of control were significantly associated with sexist beliefs and subfactors of attitudes toward SH. In particular, people having internal personal control were more likely to accept SH as provocative behaviors of women. In addition, people believing in external forces, such as belief in fate and powerful others were more likely to have sexist beliefs and tolerate SH by seeing provocative behaviors as causes of SH, by accepting SH as normal flirtations and by trivializing this problem. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature by investigating (1) attitudes toward sexual harassment and its relationship with locus of control and (2) the roles of ambivalent sexism and gender differences in this relationship.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between ambivalent sexism, gender related system justification and religious orientation with attitudes toward physical wife abuse (APWA). APWA are investigated in three facets, namely justifiability (JPWA), perceived functionality (PFPWA) and consequences (ACPWA). As measurement tools, Attitudes toward Physical Wife Abuse Scale, Content Domains for Justification of Physical Wife Abuse Scale, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI), Revised Muslim Religious Orientation Scale (MROS-R), Gender Related System Justification Scale (GSJ) and demographic information form were used. Although a total of 385 student and non-student participants responded the questionnaire, only 303 (119 males, 184 females) participants who stated their religion to be Islam were included in the study for accurate assessment of Muslim religious orientation. The age range of the participants was between 17 and 72 (M=27.30 / SD= 8.68). Since women and men significantly differed with respect to their APWA, separate hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to further observe the differences between them. Although there were slight differences in unique contributions of the variables for the three subscales of APWAS and for men and women, a general pattern was drawn in which results revealed that intrinsic religious orientation and quest religious orientation were not related to any of the three dimensions of APWA whereas fundamentalist religious orientation was found to be a significant predictor of APWA. Among the dimensions of ASI and AMI, Hostile Sexism (HS) and Benevolence toward Men (BM) predicted more favorable attitudes toward the three dimensions of physical wife abuse, whereas hostility toward men (HM) and benevolent sexism (BS) predicted less favorable attitudes. GSJ was not found to have a unique contribution in predicting any of the three dimensions of APWA. The major contributions of the present study are / 1) Investigation of religious orientation as an individual difference affecting APWA first in a Muslim culture, 2) Investigating GSJ first in Turkey and first with relation to APWA and 3) Providing a detailed measurement tool for specific assessment of attitudes toward physical wife abuse in three dimensions and 4) Providing a re-constructed Muslim Religious Orientation Scale which was extended and improved in content, reliability and validity after revision.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate perception of glass cliff in a Turkish sample. Glass cliff refers to a phenomenon whereby women are over-represented in risky leadership positions. Thus, the current study explored the effect of company performance and candidate gender on perceived suitability and on perceived leadership ability of the candidate for the leadership position. The thesis also examined moderating effects of ambivalent sexism (hostile and benevolent sexism) on the relationship between company performance and perceived suitability as well as on the relationship between company performance and perceived leadership ability of the female candidate. The data were collected from 167 MBA students through quantitative methods. The results of the analyses indicated that compared to an equally qualified male candidate, female candidate was perceived as more suitable and more able as a leader when the company performance was declining. Moreover, the female candidate was perceived as more able when the company performance was declining rather than improving. Participants evaluated the male candidate as more suitable when the company performance was improving rather than declining. The results of the moderation analyses revealed that declining company performance predicted an increase in perceived suitability and leadership ability of the female candidate for the participants who have low benevolent sexism scores. The major contributions of the present study are (1) examining the perception of glass cliff phenomenon for the first time in Turkey, and (2) showing the impact of benevolent sexism on glass cliff.

In the United States, women’s persistent gains in structural power may cause backlash among those motivated to preserve the status quo. The proposed study examines the conditions that prompt men and women to endorse sexism and promote gender stereotypes. System justification theory proposes that people are motivated to justify the socio-political system that governs them and threats to the stability of their system can increase individual’s motivated defenses. I expect men to show the strongest motivated defenses when the hierarchy is threatened or viewed as unstable, because to protect group-based interests men will reinforce the legitimacy of the system through stronger endorsement of system defenses. In contrast, women will show the strongest system defenses when the hierarchy is viewed as stable, to avoid feeling trapped in an unchanging system that oppresses them. To test these ideas, 430 men and women were exposed to a gender status hierarchy that was portrayed as stable or unstable and then they responded to several measures of sexism and gender stereotypes. Support for the hypothesis was only found on one measure of gender stereotypes. Men reported more system justifying stereotypes of traditional women in the unstable condition, while women showed the opposite pattern. Exploratory results demonstrate that men’s and women’s reports of agentic stereotypes for traditional and nontraditional women depended on whether they were exposed to a stable or unstable gender hierarchy. Future directions and limitations are discussed in consideration of these exploratory findings.

This study explores how warmth and competence perceptions affect hireability of a female job candidate. The mixed model of stereotype content identifies warmth and competence as the two basic dimensions of person-perception, and research has shown a compensatory relationship between these two dimensions, especially for women. This study explores this compensatory effect for women in a hiring situation. Two samples, one of college students (n = 301) and another of MTurk participants (n = 256), read a description of a female job candidate of either high or low competence and either high, low, or no mention of warmth, and then rated her hireability. Candidates had the greatest hireability when high in competence, and competence had a greater effect on hireability than warmth. Warmth and competence perceptions were positively related, reflecting a halo effect, such that higher warmth was inferred from higher competence. Implications for hiring decisions of female professionals are discussed.

The increasing presence of women in the public sphere has provoked cultural changes that affect social cognition. These changes implicate social organizations such as the Military. Focusing the interest in approaching modern forms of prejudice in terms of gender inequalities, we studied ambivalent sexism attitudes, values and social dominance orientation in a sample of 238 males and females from the National Military School training to become officials. Results show the presence of sexist attitudes. In sex roles and gender typing, female participants show an androgynous stereotype probably related to the need to present themselves closer to men in order to assume leadership. / El incremento de la presencia femenina en la esfera pública ha provocado cambios culturales que repercuten en la cognición social en términos de expectativas en función del género. Estos cambios interpelan a las organizaciones sociales entre las que se encuentran las Fuerzas Armadas. Desde las formas modernas del prejuicio, se desarrolló un estudio orientado a indagar actitudes de sexismo ambivalente, valores y dominancia social en un grupo de 238 cadetes de ambos sexos del Colegio Militar de la Nación. Los resultados muestran la presencia de actitudes sexistas. En roles sexuales y tipicidad de género las participantes mujeres muestran un estereotipo andrógino, asociado probablemente a la necesidad de presentarse de manera contra estereotípica para funcionar como líderes.

Research over the last few decades has consistently found that fathers are not routinely included in the provision of child welfare services. The current study examined whether ambivalent sexism on the part of child welfare workers was related to their beliefs about involving fathers. Ambivalent sexism theory posits that gender stereotypes include subjectively positive beliefs in addition to hostile beliefs that both serve to perpetuate patriarchal systems. Participants (N = 490) were currently front-line child welfare workers in the United States who completed an online survey assessing ambivalent sexism and beliefs about father involvement in child welfare cases. Ambivalent sexism was assessed using the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory. The Dakota Father Friendly Assessment was modified to assess beliefs about father involvement in child welfare. Latent class analysis was used to empirically derive four sexism profiles. Results indicated that participants with profiles suggesting less sexist beliefs had more positive attitudes about father involvement and had a lower preference for working solely with mothers. Sexism profile was not related to participants’ stated father involvement behaviors such as conducting home visits when fathers are present, including fathers in case planning discussions, and recruiting fathers or paternal relatives as placement options. Implications for social work and child welfare practice include developing training that increases knowledge of fathers’ importance and increases workers’ comfort in providing services to men.

There is a lack of female representation in video games, and women are often ignored as characters, as players, and as developers. This thesis investigates how the University of Skövde works with gender diversity in the second game project within those categories. A content analysis was carried out, and a total of 102 documents collected from the course site were coded. It was complemented with additional information from instructor interviews and a student survey. It was found that while there is an emotional commitment to diversity from the students as well as the instructors, there is a lack of clear guidelines and resources to create more nuanced portrayals of diversity. There is significant potential for improvements and a need for a continuous effort to follow up on the content produced.