Positive group attitudes can coexist with pervasive discrimination against that group

Evidence

The clearest challenge to the traditional analysis of prejudice derives from research on sexism, a topic that Allport neglected. Sexism researchers have since documented that women elicit predominantly positive sentiments but are often targets of prejudice. Initial explanations for sex discrimination rested upon the belief that attitudes toward women were negative (see Rudman, ch. 7 this volume), but empirical examination of evaluations of women and men as social groups showed positive attitudes toward women (see review by Eagly & Mladinic, 1994), deriving especially from the communal qualities that people associate with women (e.g., warm, friendly, sensitive). The evaluative edge of women over men appears on standard attitude measures, such as evaluative thermometer ratings or semantic differential ratings of women as a social group, and has been dubbed the women-are-wonderful effect (Eagly & Mladinic, 1994). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 183

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• DEFINE: Introduces and names the ‘women-are-wonderful effect’ as a technical term for women’s evaluative edge over men.
• ADDENDUM: Reinforces the immodesty article’s theme that surface attitudes and underlying discriminatory structures can diverge, though the connection is thematic rather than specific.

Related

• Women receive positive evaluations yet remain targets of discrimination (similarity 0.93)
• Both men and women hold pro-female rather than anti-female attitudes. (similarity 0.84)
• Some prejudices involve positive affect combined with low respect (similarity 0.84)
• Prejudice toward women includes positive beliefs, not just antipathy (similarity 0.82)
• Women are not immune from intergroup prejudice despite lower average levels (similarity 0.81)
• Implicit measures show more positive evaluation of women than men (similarity 0.81)
• Female targets of discrimination are nonetheless liked more than men (similarity 0.80)
• People report liking women more than men because women are seen as more communal (similarity 0.80)
• Enduring intergroup inequality does not require hostile feelings or derogatory stereotypes. (similarity 0.80)
• Disguised and implicit measures confirm no overall negative evaluation of women (similarity 0.79)
• The desire to control, not hatred, drives dominant groups’ discrimination (similarity 0.79)
• Prejudice persists despite absent negative attitudes toward groups. (similarity 0.79)
• Greater explicit positivity toward women rules out the attitude interpretation of male-name favoritism. (similarity 0.79)
• Behavioral discrimination persists even where attitudes lack textbook negative prejudice (similarity 0.79)