Perceptions of Personal Sex Discrimination: The Role of Belief in a Just World and Situational Ambiguity

ABSTRACT

The roles of belief in a just world (BJW) and discrimination against ones' group in perceptions of personal discrimination were examined. Female participants (n = 63) were personally discriminated against in a laboratory setting. We manipulated whether the experimenter appeared to discriminate against other participants, which presumably made the presence of personal discrimination less ambiguous, or did not appear to discriminate against others, which presumably made personal discrimination more ambiguous. In the no group discrimination condition, but not in the group discrimination condition, participants' perceptions of being personally discriminated against depended on individual differences in BJW: Women with a strong BJW perceived less personal discrimination than those with a weak BJW. Also, strong BJW women in the group discrimination condition perceived less personal discrimination than strong BJW women in the no group discrimination condition.

Keywords:

• belief in a just world
• legitimizing beliefs
• personal discrimination
• sexism

Notes

1. The experimenter was male or female, counterbalanced with condition.

2. We also independently manipulated the presence or absence of personal sex-discrimination (i.e., sex discrimination directed at the participant personally), which resulted in two additional conditions: group discrimination only and no discrimination. In contrast to the participants presented in the current article—who were all in the personal discrimination condition—participants excluded from the current article were told that their score had been, or would be adjusted. Thus, a manipulation of whether the participant's scores had already been or would be adjusted was nested within a no sex bias condition. There was no relation between BJW and perceptions of personal discrimination in these conditions. Furthermore, the pattern of results was identical for analyses conducted separately with either the “already adjusted” condition or the “would be adjusted” condition. Thus, we collapsed across these conditions.

3. None of the participants indicated suspicion about the purpose of the study.

4. There were concerns about linearity among weak BJW women in the no group discrimination condition. Given that problems with linearity raise concerns about interpreting coefficients and weakens the power of regression analyses (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001), an ANCOVA was performed rather than regression. Importantly, however, the pattern of results using regression was the same as those reported using ANCOVA (the interaction between BJW and condition was p = .13).

5. The primary analyses (using both ANOVA and regression) with political conservatism and perceived control in place of BJW did not produce significant interaction effects with situational ambiguity.