people tend to view females more positively than males and respond more positively to pro-female findings
- Stewart-Williams et al. 2020
- A paper recently published in the British Journal of Psychology led by Steve Stewart-Williams found that people respond to research on sex differences in ways that favor females
- In two studies, participants were asked to read a popular science article that was experimentally manipulated to suggest that either men or women have a more desirable quality (for example, men/women are better at drawing or men/women lie less often)
- Participants evaluated the female-favoring research more favorably than the male-favoring research. Specifically, participants found the female-favoring research more important, more plausible, and more well-conducted and found the male-favoring research more offensive, more harmful, more upsetting, and more inherently sexist
- This pro-female bias was observed among both male and female participants, and in study two, the researchers replicated the results in a south-east Asian sample
- Winegard et al. 2019
- Study found that people have a stronger desire to censor science that disfavors women
- The results showed that people wanted to censor the book more when it argued that men make better leaders than women than when it argued the opposite
- Browne 2013
- People tend to be much more concerned about statistical sex disparities when they disadvanatage women as opposed to when they disadvantage men
- “There are many statistical disparities between the sexes in our world, but only some become the subject of widespread concern. Ones that are perceived as favoring men are labeled “gaps,” while those that favor women are simply facts. Outside the workplace, men are arguably disadvantaged in a variety of arenas, whether in terms of health and longevity, crime and violence, domestic relations, or education. In the workplace, men are far more likely than women to be killed and to work long hours. None of these disparities is generally viewed as a “gap” deserving of intervention, however. Men earn a disproportionate number of Ph.Ds in some fields, while women earn a disproportionate number in others. Only the former set of disparities, however, is typically viewed as a “gap.”
- Dunham et al. 2016
- A study done by Developmental Science, on the development of implicit and explicit gender attitudes, found that both sexes are significantly biased towards females over males
- “Findings demonstrate that implicit and explicit own-gender preferences emerge early in both boys and girls, but implicit own-gender preferences are stronger in young girls than boys. In addition, female participants’ attitudes remain largely stable over development, whereas male participants’ implicit and explicit attitudes show an age-related shift towards increasing female positivity. Gender attitudes are an anomaly in that social evaluations dissociate from social status, with both male and female participants tending to evaluate female more positively than male.”
- Fiebert et al. 1997
- People tend to produce much more negative gender stereotypes on men than women according to a study done on 38 undergraduates
- “In a class on the psychology of male roles, 38 undergraduates (18 men, 20 women) participated in an activity designed to assess gender stereotypes. A chi-square analysis revealed that participants produced significantly more negative stereotypes for men than for women. These results, consistent with cross cultural findings, are discussed in terms of methodological issues and the differential socialization of men and women.”
- Eagly et al. 1989
- A study done by Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that attitudes and stereotypes towards women tended to be much more positive than attitudes and stereotypes about men.
- “The more favorable evaluations of women than of men that we obtained on all three of our measures are quite striking in view of textbook discussions of gender stereotypes, which almost always maintain that stereotypes about women are negative.”
- Eagly et al. 1991
- “This research...provides strong evidence that women are evaluated quite favorably—in fact, more favorably than men...”
- “This research indicated that respondents’ evaluations of women were more positive than their evaluations of men. The attitudinal findings strongly supported this conclusion, as did the measures of the evaluative content of respondents’ beliefs (or stereotypes) about the sexes... Moreover, in contrast to the earlier study, the more favorable evaluation of women on the attitude and belief measures was fully intact for male as well as female respondents.”
- Nosek et al. 2001
- A study done on implicit association and bias in 2001 found that women showed ‘strong’ preferences for their own gender, whereas men only had a ‘slight’ preference for their own gender
- When they conducted another experiment by using a go/no association task, it found that women had positive attitudes about women and negative attitudes about men, whereas men had indifferent/neutral attitudes about women and negative attitudes about men.
- Rudman et al. 2004
- A study done in 2004 on automatic in-group bias found that women are nearly five times more likely to show an automatic preference for their own gender than men are to show favoritism for their own gender
- Both male and female participants associated the positive words--such as good, happy and sunshine--more often with women, and the negative words--bad, awful, disease, and trouble with men
- Eagly et al. 2019
- Meta-analysis of U.S. public opinion polls from 1946 to 2018 finds that more people believe women are superior to men than people who believe men are superior to women
