(Medical Xpress) -- Individual beliefs don’t stay confined to the person who has them; they can affect how a society functions. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, looks at 57 countries and finds that an individual’s sexism leads to gender inequality in the society as a whole—not surprising, but it is the largest study to find this relationship.
“I’m interested in the consequences people’s beliefs about how the world should work and how the world does work,” says Mark Brandt of DePaul University, the author of the new study. For this study on sexism, he used data from an international survey conducted between 2005 and 2007. The survey included two statements to measure sexism: “On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do” and “On the whole, men make better business executives than women do.” He also used a United Nations measure of gender inequality, from the year the sexism question was asked and from 2009.
Brandt found that sexism was directly associated with increases in gender inequality overtime.
“You could get the impression that having sexist beliefs, or prejudiced beliefs more generally, is just an individual thing—‘my beliefs don’t impact you,’” Brandt says. But this study shows that isn’t true. If individual people in a society are sexist, men and women in that society become less equal.
“Gender inequality is such a tough beast to crack because there are so many contributing factors,” Brandt says. Policies can contribute to inequality—and some countries have insured some measure of equality by mandating that some number of seats in the legislature be reserved for women. But this study suggests that if the goal is increased equality, individual attitudes have to change.
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LVT
1.4 / 5 (10) Oct 28, 2011We saw a study on this very site showing both women and men preferred male bosses. A big clue that perhaps they are!
Callippo
5 / 5 (1) Oct 28, 2011Corban
not rated yet Oct 28, 2011Callippo
not rated yet Oct 28, 2011The same economical criterions, which motivate the companies into seeking of new solutions will force these companies, which invested into some technology, in ignorance of alternative solutions. In economy this reluctant behavior is what the "protection of investments" is called. After all, we all could see soon, whether the cold fusion is working or not, despite it's being ignored with "big science".
Callippo
not rated yet Oct 28, 2011The problem of capitalism is, it's driven with people of limited timespan and these people don't care about profit, until it exceeds the horizon of their own life. Such people will not care about the profit of the human civilization as a whole from any long term perspective.
After all, what the owner of oil fields could get from implementation of cold fusion by now? The price of his property would just fall dramatically. What the current government could get from implementation of cold fusion by now? The access of individuals to unlimited source of energy would just undermine all mechanisms, in which the contemporary governments maintain their power.
Nerdyguy
5 / 5 (8) Oct 28, 2011Callipo, it brought a smile to my face to see you bringing cold fusion into a discussion about gender inequality.
Callippo
not rated yet Oct 28, 2011Unfortunately, the way in which physicists are denying the cold fusion has much to do with the way, in which people are introducing sexism, racism, antisemitism or whatever else xenophobia into society. These stances are related to selfinforcing emergent mechanism, which is propagating in avalanche way through the whole society in similar way, like the photon wave in lasing environment.
beau2am
not rated yet Oct 28, 2011No, it's not a big clue. There are so many holes in your proposed statement, I'm having a difficult time deciding which one to start with...
I think I don't even want to go into it, and I imagine I'd use too much of my own time on explaining errors in logic to you.
-For instance: Define "better". (that's just a start. you made a large leap in logic there)
Nerdyguy
5 / 5 (8) Oct 28, 2011I reread his comments carefully. The word "better" is not included in them. Plus, the reference was actually to a study that reported its results here.
beau2am
not rated yet Oct 28, 2011I made an implication.
Here's what he said:
"We saw a study on this very site showing both women and men preferred male bosses. A big clue that perhaps they are!"
Perhaps they are what?
He could either mean perhaps they are preferred.
Or he might mean something else.
If he mean't, "We saw a study on this very site showing both women and men preferred male bosses. A big clue that perhaps male bosses are preferred by women and men!" -then what does that have to do with anything in this particular article?
I imagine he meant, "We saw a study on this very site showing both women and men preferred male bosses. A big clue that perhaps male executives and political leaders are better than female!"
Like I said, if he meant the first one -then what relevance did any of his comment have to the article on this page?