Over the past forty years, polls have clearly indicated a decrease in expressions of racism and sexism. However, while people appear more tolerant, many social scientists claim that prejudice is still prevalent, although in a more disguised form. Indeed, it may be difficult to distinguish a person who is genuinely nonprejudiced from someone simply conforming to external nonprejudiced norms. This thesis presents three experiments that focus on amen and women in the workplace in order to investigate the extent to which the dilemma of genuine nonsexism exists. Experiment I investigated men's hiring preferences. Men whose nonsexist self-conceptions were threatened with sexist feedback were more likely to choose a less competent female over more competent male worker, than nonthreatened men, especially if they had a well-internalized nonsexist self-conception. Are these men genuinely nonprejudiced? Experiment II investigated the alternative explanation that better-internalized nonsexist men who preferred the less competent woman, may simply have been conforming to nonsexist norms rather than being genuinely nonsexist. Male participants read a scenario wherein sexism was deemed inappropriate and were also required to respond to a romantic attraction between a male manager and female employee that conflicted with the nonsexist workplace norms. Unlike less well-internalized nonsexist men, better-internalized nonsexist men were predicted to avoid potentially sexist expressions of attraction towards a female employee, despite endorsing the workplace romance. Results unexpectedly reveal that better-internalized men, even when threatened, were as likely to express attraction towards the female employee as threatened, less well-internalized men. Better-internalized men therefore responded inconsistently with their nonsexist self-conceptions and instead conformed to a potentially sexist norm of romance in the workplace. Experiment III further explored the influence of romantic norms on men's responses to a female employee. Results reveal that threatened, better-internalized men tended to comply with romantic norms as did threatened, less well-internalized men. Norms appear to encourage compliance with both attraction and nonsexism, even in men apparently motivated by genuinely internalized nonsexism. Thus, apparently "genuine" nonsexist men may instead be viewed conforming to nonsexist norms rather than having authentically internalized a nonsexist self-conception.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.102152 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Poore, Abigail G. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | © Abigail G. Poore, 2005 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002335803, proquestno: AAINR25230, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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