Aude Silvestre

Benevolent Ideology and Women’s Economic Decision-Making: When Sexism Is Hurting Men’s Wallet

Can ideology, as a widespread “expectation creator,” impact economic decisions? In two studies we investigated the influence of the Benevolent Sexism (BS) ideology (which dictates that men should provide for passive and nurtured women) on women’s economic decision-making. In Study 1, using a Dictator Game in which women decided how to share amounts of money with men, results of a Generalized Linear Mixed Model analysis show that higher endorsement of BS and contextual expectations of benevolence were associated with more very unequal offers. Similarly, in an Ultimatum Game in which women received monetary offers from men, Study 2’s Generalized Linear Mixed Model’s results revealed that BS led women to reject more very unequal offers. If women’s endorsement of BS ideology and expectations of benevolence prove contrary to reality, they may strike back at men. These findings show that BS ideology creates expectations that shape male-female relationships in a way that could be prejudicial to men.

Implicit Belittlements Call for Implicit Measures: Emotional Reactions to Youth Paternalistic Stereotypes

Age discrimination at work can potentially affect every worker. Indeed, like ‘old’ workers, young ones hired in their first job elicit the idea that they have quite interesting social abilities but lack of competence, which constitutes a case of paternalistic stereotypes (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). Generally, the negative (incompetence) facet of such stereotypes is not blatantly expressed, but is subtly conveyed behind an apparently positive discourse. Consequently, it is considered as being generally under-detected, while harmful. In this paper, we examine whether paternalistic stereotyping’s under-detection is real or if it is due to the use of inadequate measures. Based on a study showing that targets feel that something is wrong (Dardenne, Dumont, & Bollier 2007), we rely on affective measures to investigate whether the detection of the subtly conveyed negative facet of paternalistic stereotypes calls for subtle, implicit measures. In Study 1, explicit self-reports of targets’ affective states after a meeting with a paternalistic boss revealed mainly positive affect. In Study 2, an implicit emotional measure however revealed the presence of a negative affective state. The last Study, using a more ecological affective measure, demonstrates that paternalistic stereotypes trigger an ambivalent affective reaction. Altogether, the three studies suggest that the negative facet of paternalistic stereotypes is not as under-detected as we thought.