Sex Perspective Rigidity and Sex Discrimination

Overview

I created the "Family Relationship Questionnaire"(FRQ) to categorize participants as sex perspective (SP) "rigid" or SP "flexible". Rigid participants were those who could not see themselves as being the opposite sex. Flexible participants could. I then looked to see whether rigid people showed more discrimination toward the opposite sex compared to flexible people. To do this, 147 participants took two questionnaires online using Qualtrics. The "Classroom Seat Selection Questionnaire" asked participants to look at a classroom seating plan and choose a seat to sit in. There was equal opportunity to sit beside a man or a woman. The majority of participants chose to sit beside a woman. It did not matter if they were rigid or flexible. The second questionnaire was the "Faculty Candidate Evaluation Questionnaire". Participants read the credentials of a hypothetical person applying for a job at a university. Half the participants were told the candidate was female, the other half were told the candidate was male. I found that compared to flexible male participants, rigid male participants were significantly more biased against the male candidate in terms of how they thought he would perform in research. I believe my FRQ is a valid test of sex perspective taking (flexible vs. rigid) and can be used to predict sex discrimination behaviors. My next step is to find more evidence of concurrent and predictive validity for the FRQ. If the FRQ can identify who is most likely to discriminate, interventions can then be focused on this group.

Competition history

• ISEF 2018 Behavioral and Social Sciences · Entry BEHA032

Resources

• ISEF abstract page ↗

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