The Role of Legitimizing Ideologies as Predictors of Ambivalent Sexism in Young People: Evidence from Italy and the USA

The studies presented here focus on the relationship between legitimizing ideologies and ambivalent sexism. 544 Italian students (Study 1) and 297 US students (Study 2) completed several scales: social dominance orientation (SDO), system-justification (SJ), political orientation, religiosity and the Glick and Fiske (1996) Ambivalent Sexism Inventory. Zero-order correlations revealed that all facets of ideological attitudes to be positively related to each other and correlated with ambivalent sexism. In particular, the social dominance orientation was related to both ideology components of SJ and political orientation and to ambivalent sexism (hostile and benevolent). Moderated regressions revealed that SDO has a positive impact on hostile sexism for men only, while SJ has a positive impact on hostile sexism for women only. While the first result was stable across the two studies, the last moderated effect has been detected only in Study 1. We discuss the results with respect to different facets of social ideologies and cultural differences between the two countries.