Loving those who justify inequality: the effects of system threat on attraction to women who embody benevolent sexist ideals.

People are often faced with threats to the legitimacy of their sociopolitical system. According to system-justification theory, when faced with such threats, people are motivated to restore their faith in the status quo by engaging in psychological processes that bolster its apparent legitimacy (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). How might such processes of system justification manifest themselves in everyday interpersonal functioning? One way that system justification is revealed in social psychological functioning has been well-documented—through the endorsement and cognitive activation of stereotypes whose specific content justifies social inequality (e.g., Kay et al., 2007). Stereotypes of men and women, in particular, can serve as psychological tools that justify and maintain social inequality. For example, Jackman (1994) has suggested that ascribing favorable and flattering, but clearly stereotypical, traits to women reduces resistance to gender-based role divisions (also see Hoffman & Hurst, 1990) by subtly implying that women are well suited to the roles they have traditionally occupied, and that stereotypically feminine traits are valued by society (also see Jost & Kay, 2005). Elaborating on this idea, Glick and Fiske (1996) developed a measure of such stereotypes and demonstrated, across 19 countries, that the tendency to engage in this form of ‘‘benevolent sexism’’ (i.e., viewing women as ‘‘pure creatures who ought to be protected, supported, and adored and whose love is necessary to make a man complete’’; Glick & Fiske, 2001, p. 109) was (a) highest in countries with the greatest level of gender inequality, but was also (b) positively correlated with explicitly negative, hostile views of women (Glick et al., 2000). It has also been demonstrated that exposure to benevolent sexist stereotypes leads to strengthened beliefs in the fairness of the status quo (Jost & Kay, 2005). Does the psychological link between benevolent stereotyping and system justification influence how women are treated and judged?We argue that it does, and specifically that when people experience a threat to the legitimacy of the social system, one factor that affects their attraction to a potential romantic partner is whether that partner embodies system-justifying stereotypes, such as those that align with benevolent sexist ideals. We hypothesized that male participants whose faith in the federal system was threatened would show greater romantic interest in women who embody benevolent sexist ideals than in women who do not embody these ideals. We also hypothesized that they would show greater interest in women who embody benevolent sexist ideals than would male participants whose faith in the system was not threatened.