A recent study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science has shed new light on the relationship between sexist attitudes and parenting behavior. The findings indicate that mothers and fathers who endorse sexist beliefs tend to display reduced responsiveness to their children during family interactions.
The researchers were driven to explore how sexist attitudes might contribute to and reinforce these gender disparities, even in relatively egalitarian societies. While previous research had focused on self-reported beliefs and hypothetical scenarios, there was limited evidence on whether these attitudes were associated with actual behavior. This research aimed to bridge that gap by observing real-life parenting behaviors within families.
This study delved into both hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism refers to overt, explicit, and openly negative attitudes and behaviors directed toward women (e.g., “Women seek to gain power by getting control over men”), while benevolent sexism includes attitudes and behaviors that cast women as fragile, dependent, or in need of protection and care from men e.g., “Women should be cherished and protected by men”).
“Decades of research have established that sexist attitudes are harmful. Hostile sexism involves beliefs that men should possess social power and women are competing to take men’s power. Not surprisingly, men’s hostile sexism reliably predicts workplace bias and discrimination, objectification and sexual harassment, and violence toward women,” said study author Nickola Overall, a professor at the University of Auckland.
“But two gaps in the research motivated this research. First, most investigations have relied on self-report assessments, providing a lot of evidence that hostile sexism is associated with how people think they behave, rather than how people actually behave. Second, sexist attitudes are likely to have the most harmful impact on the people we are closest to and interact with every day—our family. Yet, this massive body of work has overlooked a critical, consequential behavioral outcome that likely emerges from sexist attitudes: how hostile sexism affects parenting.”
To explore how these different forms of sexism relate to parenting behavior and whether they affect fathers and mothers differently, the researchers conducted a series of two studies.
Study 1 involved 95 mixed-gender cohabiting couples, including their 5-year-old child. Parents completed demographic questionnaires, parenting attitude measures, and measures of sexist attitudes. The families also engaged in a 10-minute video-recorded family activity where they worked together as a family to build a tower. Trained coders then rated the parents’ responsive behavior toward their child, focusing on warmth, engagement, contingent responding to children’s cues, and respect for the child’s autonomy.
The findings from Study 1 revealed that fathers’ higher hostile sexism was associated with less responsive parenting behavior. Surprisingly, mothers’ hostile sexism was similarly associated with less responsive parenting behavior. Fathers’ benevolent sexism, on the other hand, was linked to more responsive parenting behavior, while mothers’ benevolent sexism was associated with higher authoritarian parenting attitudes.
“Unexpectedly, in our studies, mothers’ higher hostile sexism was reliably associated with less responsive parenting behavior within family interactions,” Overall told PsyPost. “Women can agree with hostile sexism, including that men should hold social roles of power and possess the authority in the family. Much less is known about women’s hostile sexism, with prior research relying on self-reports showing null, weak, or unreliable associations between women’s hostile sexism and various outcomes.”
“One possible explanation for why mothers’ higher hostile sexism was associated with less responsive parenting behavior is that accepting fathers’ authority means mothers higher in hostile sexism follow fathers’ lead in directing family interactions, producing less engaged and child-focused parenting. Another possibility is that mothers higher in hostile sexism guard their role as caregiver by restricting fathers’ parental involvement (gatekeeping), which detracts from being responsive to their children.”
“Although unexpected, the associations between mothers’ sexism and less responsive parenting behavior offers critical advances, including that women’s sexist attitudes (1) do likely shape how they behave, but these behaviors may not be evident in self-reports, and (2) may be associated with a range of family process that can have harmful consequences, including unresponsive parenting and associated costs to children’s health and development,” Overall explained.
In Study 2, which included 281 mixed-gender cohabiting couples, the researchers aimed to replicate the associations found in Study 1 while also assessing parenting behavior in two different contexts: a free-play interaction and a semi-structured family activity. The results of Study 2 largely replicated those of Study 1, demonstrating that both fathers’ and mothers’ hostile sexism were associated with less responsive parenting behavior in both interaction contexts. Additionally, mothers’ benevolent sexism was linked to less responsive parenting in both contexts.
The study’s findings suggest complex relationships between sexist attitudes and parenting behaviors, with both hostile and benevolent sexism playing distinct roles. While fathers’ hostile sexism had been previously associated with less responsive parenting, this study surprisingly found a similar link between mothers’ hostile sexism and less responsive parenting behavior. These results highlight the importance of understanding how sexist attitudes impact family dynamics and child development.
“Two findings are important,” Overall told PsyPost. “First, fathers higher in hostile sexism exhibited less responsive parenting behavior during family interactions, irrespective of whether children were girls or boys. These findings illustrate that the harmful effects of men’s hostile sexism extend beyond behavior toward adult women and have broader effects in the family that have important consequences for children.”
“Second, and unexpectedly, mothers higher in hostile sexism also exhibited less responsive parenting behavior. These findings illustrate that mothers’, and not just fathers’, hostile sexism plays a role in family interactions, and that mother’s hostile sexism can also be harmful.”
“Discovering that both fathers’ and mothers’ hostile sexism predicts less responsive parenting is important because of the implications for children’s development,” Overall said. “Less responsive parenting is an established risk factor of poor child health and development, such as behavioral problems, emotional difficulties, poor academic achievement.”
“Acknowledging that both fathers’ and mothers’ sexist attitudes play a role is important. Reducing beliefs about who has or should have power should free both fathers and mothers from rigid roles, allowing them to be flexible and responsive coparents. Reducing these hostile attitudes is also important to improve child health and wellbeing.”
While this research provides valuable insights into the relationship between sexist attitudes and parenting behavior, it’s important to note some limitations. The study primarily focused on couples with 5-year-old children, and the findings may not fully generalize to families with children of other ages. Additionally, the study relied on observations during specific family interactions, and further research is needed to explore how these attitudes affect parenting over time.
“Despite the strengths of observing parenting behaviors that have established long-term consequences, these correlational findings cannot establish that differences in levels of hostile sexism caused differences in parenting,” Overall said. “Additional analyses showed that the associations between mothers’ and fathers’ hostile sexism and poorer parenting were stronger than a range of alternative factors that undermine responsive parenting, such as co-parents’ aggressive behavior toward each other. Nonetheless, we cannot rule out the possibility of other alternative explanations. It is important that the results are reported as associations—higher hostile sexism is associated with less responsive parenting.”
“It is important to remember the flip side of our findings,” Overall said. “Parents who have more egalitarian beliefs about gender, and who are comfortable sharing gender, were more responsive to their children. Not being concerned about who has or should have power frees parents from rigid roles that interfere with parents’ responsiveness. These families are likely more flexible as coparents, with both mothers and fathers feeling able to freely respond to their child as they expressed different needs across interaction.”
The study, “Fathers’ and Mothers’ Sexism Predict Less Responsive Parenting Behavior During Family Interactions“, was authored by Nickola C. Overall, Emily J. Cross, Rachel S. T. Low, Caitlin S. McRae, Annette M. E. Henderson, and Valerie T. Chang.
