People react more positively to female- than to male-favoring sex differences: A direct replication of a counterintuitive finding

by Steve Stewart-Williams, Xiu Ling Wong, Chern Yi Marybeth Chang, Andrew G. Thomas

We report a direct replication of our earlier study looking at how people react to research on sex differences depending on whether the research puts men or women in a better light. Three-hundred-and-three participants read a fictional popular-science article about fabricated research finding that women score higher on a desirable trait/lower on an undesirable one (female-favoring difference) or that men do (male-favoring difference). Consistent with our original study, both sexes reacted less positively to the male-favoring differences, with no difference between men and women in the strength of this effect. Also consistent with our original study, belief in male privilege and a left-leaning political orientation predicted less positive reactions to the male-favoring sex differences; neither variable, however, predicted reactions to the female-favoring sex differences (in the original study, male-privilege belief predicted positive reactions). As well as looking at how participants reacted to the research, we looked at their predictions about how the average man and woman would react. Consistent with our earlier results, participants of both sexes predicted that the average man and woman would exhibit considerable own-sex favoritism. In doing so, they exaggerated the magnitude of the average woman’s own-sex favoritism and predicted strong own-sex favoritism from the average man when in fact the average man exhibited modest other-sex favoritism. A greater awareness of people’s tendency to exaggerate own-sex bias could help to ameliorate conflict between the sexes.