Download data and study materials from OSF
Principal investigators:
Sara Morell
University of Michigan
Email: shmorell@umich.edu
Homepage: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sara-morell/
Lauren Hahn
University of Michigan
Email: lbpotts@umich.edu
Homepage: https://lsa.umich.edu/comm/people/graduate-students/lauren-b--potts.html
Mara Ostfeld
University of Michigan
Email: mostfeld@umich.edu
Homepage: https://poverty.umich.edu/about-us/team/mara-ostfeld/
Sample size: 800
Field period: 04/24/2020-04/05/2021
Why is gender such an unreliable predictor of support for policies that advance women’s rights? Unlike many other marginalized groups, women are rarely socialized in gender-segregated contexts. Instead, both women and men are generally raised in family and community contexts where men play an outsized role in shaping norms and wield a disproportionate amount of physical, economic, and social power. In this paper, we explore how the norms of various local institutions affect attitudes toward gendered policies among individuals whose political attitudes are still in development. In a survey experiment conducted on a national probability sample of U.S. teenagers, we show that thinking of a single family member with liberal or conservative attitudes towards gender can shape teenage support for gender-related policies, particularly among boys. Our findings highlight the powerful role that family members can play in shaping public opinion on women’s rights.
H1: Regardless of gender, adolescents will be more likely to report higher support for Pro-Women Policies when reflecting on pro-women’s rights messaging from a close family member than when reflecting on pro-protecting men messaging from a close family member.
H2a: Girls will be more likely than boys to shift attitudes in response to political messaging around gender equality.
H2b: Boys will be more likely than girls to shift attitudes in response to political messaging around gender equality.
The experiment employed a 2x2 factorial design plus a control group. The first factor we manipulated was the authority figure respondents thought of – either a family member (Family) or one’s school superintendent (Superintendent). The second factor we manipulated was that figure’s position on a salient women’s rights issue - either being supportive of women speaking out about sexism (Pro-Speaking Out), or supportive of protecting men from questionable claims of sexism (Protecting Men).
Respondents were asked to write three sentences about what their assigned authority figure (close family member or school superintendent) might say about the salient women's rights issue (pro-speaking out vs protecting men). Respondents in the control did the same writing task, but about what a close family member might say about the importance of eating a healthy breakfast.
Participants were asked how much they agree/disagree with seven questions related to gender policies and attitudes. Questions included topics like whether there was too much concern about sexism, free tampons in schools, whether men should be punished in their careers for wrongdoings as boys, efforts to hire more women and equal pay.
We found support for hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2b.
Being in the Pro-Speaking Out/Family treatment condition resulted in a 4.5% increase in support for policies that advance women's rights, compared to being in the Protecting Men/Family conditions (p=.04). There was not a statistically significant difference between the Pro-Speaking Out/Superintendent and Protecting Men/Superintendent conditions, highlighting that these effects are specific to family members.
Among teenage boys, being in the Pro-Speaking Out/Family treatment condition resulted in a 7.1% increase in support for policies that advance women's rights, compared to being in the Protecting Men/Family conditions (p=.02).
Among teenage girls, there was not a statistically significant difference between any of the treatment conditions.