Underestimating Sexism: Generality, Analysis, Scale Validations, and Intersections

• Applicants: Dr. Franziska Ehrke; Professorin Dr. Melanie Caroline Steffens
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 561159396

Laws such as the AGG forbid discrimination. In line with this law, many people are motivated to respond without prejudice. Still, inequality is pervasive. Shedding further light on the roots of discrimination could help diminish it. Gender, age, and race/ethnicity are theorized to play major roles as social categories giving rise to discrimination (i.e., sexism, ageism, and racism). A defining feature of modern -isms is people’s belief that discrimination is a thing of the past. Conversely, we posit that awareness of continuing discrimination is critical for combatting discrimination, and that, in addition to general evaluations (“modern -isms”), recognizing concrete instances of discrimination is a crucial ability for the ultimate aim of reducing discrimination. The research proposed here targets the underestimation of sexism, compared to other forms of discrimination (as reference categories). In preliminary work preparing this project (5 experiments, 3 of them preregistered, plus 3 pre-registered validations of the scale’s racism version), we developed a scenario scale that uses the same situations (e.g., excluding co-workers of one social category from an informal meeting) in a sexism versus racism version (counterbalanced across participants; e.g., excluding female vs. Black co-workers). We consistently found that on average, sexism scenarios were judged as less discriminatory than racism scenarios. The racism-sexism difference was related more to other sexism than racism-related constructs. Building on these findings, the present research tests against each other several theoretical explanations, aiming to shed light on the question why sexism (or -isms in general) might be underestimated. We test the generality and analyze the underestimation of sexism; validate the sexism as well as a cissexism scenario scale; and investigate identity intersections. Concretely, we investigate the research questions: (1) How consistent is the underestimation of sexism (a) across different cultures, (b) across the different scenarios the scale consists of, and (c) compared with other reference categories (e.g., ageism)? In addition, (2) we validate the scenario scale for assessing awareness of gender-related discrimination (i.e., sexism and cissexism), which will also lead to a deeper understanding of the underestimation of (cis)sexism by yielding which scenarios are considered subtle manifestations of (cis)sexism. Additionally, (3) we will thoroughly investigate the racism-sexism intersection (i.e., regarding Black women’s discrimination). Taken together, this research will extend theoretical models of discrimination bases and provide a modern, valid scenario-based measurement instrument allowing to measure awareness of (cis)sexist discrimination.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland, Turkey
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Ece Akca; Dr. Karolina Hansen