It’s Not What Was Said but Who Said It to Whom: Interactant Sex Affects Attributions of Sexism in Ambiguous Situations

Building on error management theory and heuristic decision making, we conducted three studies manipulating the sex of the sender and receiver of messages and asked observers to rate the sender’s sexism (Studies 1-3), pleasantness, and professionalism (Studies 2-3). We also examined concern for political correctness (CPC) and social justice attitudes (Study 1), ambivalence toward men (Study 2), and neosexism (Study 3) as moderators of respondent ratings. Across all studies, we found that when the receiver was female, the sender was rated as significantly more sexist, especially when the sender was male. Although CPC, social justice attitudes, and ambivalence toward men failed to interact with scenario conditions, there was suggestive evidence that neosexism levels resulted in stronger sexism ratings in the male sender-female receiver condition.