THE AMERICAN DREAM: THE EFFECT OF MERITOCRACY BELIEFS OF WOMEN ON FUTURE EXPECTATIONS OF SEXISM

Abstract

Members of stigmatized groups differ in the degree to which they feel that society can be accurately described as meritocratic. Previous research investigated the effects of endorsing or rejecting meritocracy beliefs on women's predictions of future sexism, and found that after a sexist event, women predicted future sexism at a different company to be less likely when they were high in meritocracy endorsement, compared to low. The current research first investigated mechanisms that might be driving this effect, hypothesized to be either compensatory in nature or generalizing in nature. Second, the current research attempted to examine how attitude certainty might moderate the previous findings. Female participants read a vignette in which they applied to and were rejected from a hypothetical management position, for either an unspecified reason or a sexist reason. Our results indicated that neither of the proposed hypotheses fully explained the findings; this may have been due to the inclusion of measures of attitude certainty. Thus, future research should further examine the role that attitude certainty might play in one's endorsement (or lack of endorsement) in meritocracy beliefs, and the effects these constructs might have on members of stigmatized groups.