How Inequalities Affect Attitudes and Behaviours Concerning Sex and Gender

Background

Inequalities in income among households (i.e. income inequality) and between women and men (i.e. gender (in)equality) exert potent effects on individual well-being, social norms, and societal productivity and peace. What is less often appreciated, or at least acknowledged, is that inequalities affect the environment within which people find romantic/sexual partners (i.e. the mating market), and that these effects contribute to the over-arching effects of inequality (i.e. on well-being, social norms, societal productivity and peace). Some behaviours known to be affected by local inequalities (both overall income inequality and gender inequality) include rates of gendered crime and conflict (e.g., intimate partner violence, sexism), beliefs about gender roles (e.g., attitudes toward equal pay, child-rearing), and social control/reducing autonomy (e.g., reproductive freedom, abortion). The effects of inequalities on these important behaviours are largely inferred from studies that have compared individuals who live in areas that differ in degree of inequality. There exists an urgent need to understand how inequality causally shapes individuals’ behaviours and attitudes. In this experiment, we manipulated participants’ perceptions of economic gender inequality and income by introducing them to a fictional society called “Stamola” and randomly assigning them to different versions of Stamola that varied in the degree to which men outearned women (and vice versa). We also randomly assigned participants to different income conditions to examine whether/how income and gender inequality interact to affect participants’ desire to present specific qualities (agency and communality) to potential romantic partners, and their desire for a romantic partner that possesses these qualities. Agency and communality are two traits that are often gender-stereotyped such that women are often assumed to be more communal, and men are often thought to be more agentic. We were interested in whether the degree of economic gender inequality in Stamola, participants’ assigned income, and participants’ sex/gender would interact to predict their desire to present gender-stereotypic traits to potential romantic partners (e.g., communal traits for women, and agentic traits for men), as well as their desire for a partner that conforms to gender norms.

Research Questions / Hypotheses

In this experiment, we were interested in testing the effect of gender equality/inequality, income, and their interaction on individuals’ desire to be communal and agentic (two traits that are often gender-stereotyped; with women often thought to be more communal and men often thought to be more agentic), as well as their desire for communality and agency in a partner. While some data suggests that economic gender equality decreases gender stereotyping, other streams of research suggest that people may place more importance on trying to conform to gender norms when the economy is more gender equal. In this experiment, we examine income and sex/gender as two potential moderators of the effects of gender inequality on individuals’ preference for gender-stereotypic traits in the context of dating and romantic relationships. If people strengthen their endorsement of gender-stereotypic traits when women out-earn men, we would expect that any such effects of gender equality would be strongest for women who out-earn a large percentage of men, and for men who earn less than a large percentage of women. That is, while overall gender equality may reduce gender-stereotyping on average, people at the tails of the distribution may actually increase their endorsement of gender-stereotypic traits.

Participants

150 REP participants completed the study. We asked participants to report the the size of the gender gap in Stamola, what percentage of women they outearned, and what percentage of men they outearned as attention checks. Participants will be excluded for responding incorrectly to at least 1 of these 3 attention checks.

Methods

Participants answered questions about their demographics (e.g., age, sex identified at birth, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, perceived socioeconomic status). They were then told that in this experiment they would engage in a roleplaying exercise where they would join a fictional society called “Stamola”. Participants were then shown a video that told them about the average earnings of men compared to women in Stamola (i.e., the degree of gender equality/inequality in Stamola), their own income in Stamola, as well as what percentage of women and what percentage of men they outearned in Stamola. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 5 gender gaps, and 1 of 5 income tiers. After the video, participants were asked to report the size of the gender gap in Stamola, what percentage of women they outearned, and what percentage of men they outearned as attention checks. Following the attention checks, participants were asked to imagine what they think life in Stamola would be like and how the Stamolean economy might affect their interactions with men and women. Participants were then asked to rate how important they believe it would be for them to display qualities that related to agency and communality when meeting new, potential romantic partners in Stamola. In addition, they were asked to rate how important it would be that their ideal romantic partner possessed each of the same qualities.

Results

We plan to use linear regressions to examine the effect of gender inequality (5 levels), income inequality (5 levels), sex (male, female), and the interaction between these 3 variables on participants’ desire to display traits related to agency and communality to potential romantic partners, as well as the effects of these variables and their interactions on participants’ desire for agency and communality in their ideal partner.

Implications

The data from this study will help us better understand how economic gender inequality and income affect individuals’ desire to display gender-stereotypic traits to potential romantic partners, as well as their desire for gender-stereotypic traits in a romantic partner. By examining sex/gender and income as potential moderators of the effects of gender inequality, the results of this experiment may help disentangle some conflicting findings regarding the effects of economic gender equality on gender norm adherence in the literature. We plan to communicate the results of this experiment in journal articles and conference presentations once data collection is completed.