title: Insidious dangers of benevolent sexism: consequences for women's performance.
abstract: Four experiments found benevolent sexism to be worse than hostile sexism for women's cognitive performance. Experiments 1-2 showed effects of paternalist benevolent sexism and ruled out explanations of perceived sexism, context pleasantness, and performance motivation. Experiment 3 showed effects of both paternalist and complementary gender differentiation components of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism per se (rather than the provision of unsolicited help involved in paternalism) worsened performance. Experiment 4 showed that impaired performance due to benevolent sexism was fully mediated by the mental intrusions women experienced about their sense of competence. Additionally, Experiment 4 showed that gender identification protected against hostile but not benevolent sexism. Despite the apparently positive and inoffensive tone of benevolent sexism, our research emphasizes its insidious dangers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium. b.dardenne@ulg.ac.be
authors.forename: Benoit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dardenne
authors.forename: Muriel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dumont
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bollier
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001530:Belgium; D026686:Beneficence; D004651:Employment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D026706:Paternalism; D011287:Prejudice; D012107:Research Design