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Abstract Research found that not only macro-level processes like cohort replacements foster gender role attitude (GRA) change, but also life events and changes in lived realities. Framing the COVID-19 pandemic as a ‘natural experiment’ allows to reduce endogeneity when examining the association between emerging cognitive dissonance and GRA change. Estimating asymmetrical fixed effects regressions, I investigate the influence of changes in the division of family labor on GRAs for respondents with no pre-pandemic attitude-behavior discrepancy, using pairfam waves 11 and 13. Indeed, changes in behavior for respondents who had aligned behaviors and attitudes before the pandemic can be associated with GRA adaptation: A change toward an egalitarian division of family labor during the pandemic can be associated with more egalitarian GRAs. Likewise, a change toward an inegalitarian division can be associated with less egalitarian GRAs. These findings support the usefulness of cognitive dissonance as one explanatory mechanism for intra-individual attitudinal change.
Katrin Firl (Thu,) studied this question.