Social worldviews and gender essentialism as predictors of social attitudes legitimizing gender inequality

Abstract

Although Russia is considered a country with a very high level of human development, gender inequality and biases against women remain persistent. Research on prejudice is often based on J. Duckitt's dual-process model, which views social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism as mediators between social beliefs (belief in a competitive world and belief in a dangerous world) and prejudice. This model has received empirical support in various cultural contexts, but it does not account for other gender-specific beliefs, such as essentialism, in the context of gender relations. The present study aims to examine the contribution of social beliefs and gender essentialism to the intensity of prejudice against women, based on attitudes that legitimize inequality. An online study was conducted with 746 residents from different regions of Russia (48% female), aged 18 to 79 (M = 36.81, SD = 11.46). Participants completed measures assessing belief in a dangerous and competitive world, gender essentialism, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and ambivalent sexism. Structural equation modeling using partial least squares (PLS-SEM) demonstrated a satisfactory fit of the models to the data. Mediation analysis results showed that gender essentialism contributes to hostile sexism both directly and indirectly through social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism, and to benevolent sexism indirectly through right-wing authoritarianism. Belief in a competitive world contributes to hostile sexism both directly and indirectly through social dominance orientation. The findings expand Duckitt’s dual-process model and may inform strategies for addressing gender-based prejudice.