Sexist attitudes predict family-based aggression during a COVID-19 lockdown.

Nickola Christine Overall · Valerie T. Chang · Emily J. Cross · Rachel S. T. Low · Annette M. E. Henderson

34 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Family Psychology

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Intimate Partner and Family Violence Gender and Feminist Studies Family Dynamics and Relationships

Abstract

The current research examined whether men's hostile sexism was a risk factor for family-based aggression during a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in which families were confined to the home for 5 weeks. Parents who had reported on their sexist attitudes and aggressive behavior toward intimate partners and children prior to the COVID-19 pandemic completed assessments of aggressive behavior toward their partners and children during the lockdown (N = 362 parents of which 310 were drawn from the same family). Accounting for pre-lockdown levels of aggression, men who more strongly endorsed hostile sexism reported greater aggressive behavior toward their intimate partners and their children during the lockdown. The contextual factors that help explain these longitudinal associations differed across targets of family-based aggression. Men's hostile sexism predicted greater aggression toward intimate partners when men experienced low power during couples' interactions, whereas men's hostile sexism predicted greater aggressive parenting when men reported lower partner-child relationship quality. Novel effects also emerged for benevolent sexism. Men's higher benevolent sexism predicted lower aggressive parenting, and women's higher benevolent sexism predicted greater aggressive behavior toward partners, irrespective of power and relationship quality. The current study provides the first longitudinal demonstration that men's hostile sexism predicts residual changes in aggression toward both intimate partners and children. Such aggressive behavior will intensify the health, well-being, and developmental costs of the pandemic, highlighting the importance of targeting power-related gender role beliefs when screening for aggression risk and delivering therapeutic and education interventions as families face the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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References

1996The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism.2001Marriage and health: His and hers.2020Risk and resilience in family well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.1998The Investment Model Scale: Measuring commitment level, satisfaction level, quality of alternatives, and investment size 2017Associations of parenting dimensions and styles with externalizing problems of children and adolescents: An updated meta-analysis.2020Family violence and COVID‐19: Increased vulnerability and reduced options for support 2020Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown on trust, attitudes toward government, and well-being.2003Perceptions of stranger and acquaintance rape: The role of benevolent and hostile sexism in victim blame and rape proclivity.

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2021Implications of social isolation, separation, and loss during the COVID-19 pandemic for couples' relationships 2025Lost opportunities: How gendered arrangements harm men

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