Sexist Attitudes, Relationship Conflict and Satisfaction in Heterosexual Couples, and Men’s and Women’s Wellbeing

Abstract

The current study tests the implications of men’s and women’s gender-related attitudes for relationship quality and wellbeing. We apply ambivalent sexism theory to differentiate between attitudes that should have detrimental versus beneficial effects for relationships by promoting antagonism (hostile sexism) versus complimentary relational roles (benevolent sexism) between men and women. Actor-partner interdependence analyses of heterosexual couples participating in a nationally representative panel study (N = 755) revealed that men’s hostile sexism predicted greater relationship conflict and lower relationship satisfaction, which in turn were associated with greater psychological distress and lower wellbeing for both men and their women partners. In contrast, men’s benevolent sexism predicted lower relationship conflict and greater satisfaction, which in turn was associated with lower distress and greater wellbeing for men but not women partners. Women’s sexist attitudes had differential effects. Women’s hostile sexism predicted lower relationship conflict and greater satisfaction, which was associated with higher wellbeing for men partners. In contrast, women’s benevolent sexism predicted greater relationship conflict, which related to greater distress and lower wellbeing for women and men partners. These results highlight the importance of gender-related attitudes on relationship quality, which has important implications for wellbeing.