A new study has looked at how people respond to research showing a difference between the sexes depending on whether that difference favors men or women.
The bottom line is that both sexes react less positively to differences that favor men. In other words, there is a clear case of sexist discrimination against men .
Sexual bias
Steve Stewart-Williams , the lead author of the cited study, is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Nottingham, and is an expert in investigating the evolution of altruism and human gender differences. The philosophical implications of evolutionary theory were the focus of his first book, Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life .
It now presents the findings of a study that looks at how people react to research that describes a sex difference , depending on whether that difference favors men or women, as well as a second study that establishes how accurately people can predict how they will react. the average man and woman.
In Study 1, Western participants viewed a fictional popular science article describing a sex difference that favors men or favors women (i.e., men / women draw better; women / men lie more). Both genders reacted less positively to differences favoring men, judging the findings to be less important, less credible, and more offensive, harmful, and annoying .
Participants predicted that the average man and woman would react more positively to gender differences by favoring their own sex. This was true for the average woman, although the level of favoritism for her own sex was lower than the participants predicted .
Study 2 reproduced these findings in a sample from Southeast Asia . The results are consistent with the idea that both sexes are more protective of women than men, but that both exaggerate the level of same-sex favoritism within each sex, a misconception that could harm relationships between people of different sexes. .