Abstract
Although women can experience sexism from other women (ingroup discrimination) and men (outgroup discrimination), those who claim to experience ingroup discrimination may suffer greater social costs than those who claim outgroup sexism. In three experiments (Study 1: N = 167; Study 2: N = 119; Study 3: N = 181), participants were randomly assigned to evaluate a woman’s claim of sexism that was perpetrated by a woman manager (ingroup discrimination) or man manager (outgroup discrimination). Women who claimed ingroup (vs. outgroup) discrimination (1) had their claims delegitimized more, (2) were perceived as greater complainers, but (3) were not perceived as less likeable (Studies 1–3). Claim of delegitimization (Studies 1–3) and violation of prototypes of discrimination (Study 3) mediated the effects of ingroup versus outgroup discrimination on perceptions of the employee as a complainer. These findings indicate that ingroup discrimination can be a pernicious barrier to women’s advancement in the workplace as these claims are viewed less seriously than more prototypical forms of outgroup discrimination.
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All data and code are available here: https://osf.io/tmz94/.
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to Henry Ma and Emma Butner for their assistance in data checking.
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Kerry Spalding was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
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These experiments were part of Kerry E. Spalding’s dissertation at the University of Washington. The first two authors contributed equally toward the manuscript and share first authorship.
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Spalding, K.E., Schachtman, R. & Kaiser, C.R. The Delegitimization of Women’s Claims of Ingroup-Directed Sexism. Sex Roles 90, 444–457 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01463-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01463-4