The influence of authoritarian attitudes, gender role attitudes, and ethnic identity upon attitudes towards woman abuse
Abstract
This study investigated attitudes towards woman abuse among South Asian Americans and European Americans adults (N = 151) grounded in feminist psychological theory. The expected predictors of attitudes towards woman abuse were gender role attitudes, authoritarian attitudes, gender, and ethnicity. Participants completed the Inventory of Attitudes towards Wife Beating (IBWB), the Attitudes towards Woman (AWS) scale, the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale, the Multi-group Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM), and a demographic questionnaire. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficients, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA), discriminant function analysis (DFA), and regression analysis. The strongest predictors of attitudes towards woman abuse were gender role attitudes, number of years in the United States, and authoritarian attitudes. Several gender and ethnic differences in attitudes towards woman abuse were found. A combination of variables (i.e., gender, gender role attitudes, authoritarian attitudes, age at immigration, and number of years in United States) were correlated with attitudes towards woman abuse and these variables may be population dependent. The feminist psychological theory of woman abuse was partially supported by the findings of this study for gender role attitudes being predictive of attitudes towards abuse for men, women, and European Americans (i.e., Italian Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, etc.).
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Baluch, Suraiya Parwin, "The influence of authoritarian attitudes, gender role attitudes, and ethnic identity upon attitudes towards woman abuse" (2004). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI3134431.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI3134431
