Perceived/experienced sexism and perceptions of support and job attitudes

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to provide a psychometrically sound measure intended to capture perceived/experienced sexism in the workplace, the perceived/experienced sexism scale (PESS). PESS is used to consider the effects of perceived experiences of benevolent and hostile sexism at work, as well their relationships with perceived organizational support and the job attitudes of job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

Design/methodology/approach

This study revised the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick and Fiske, 1996) to create and validate the PESS. Amazon Mechanical Turk was used to collect two samples (220 and 183) of perceptions of female employees.

Findings

Results suggest perceived organizational support and trust perceptions mediate the relationships between perceptions of sexism and organizational outcomes of job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

Originality/value

Existing measures of sexism are intended to identify and measure sexism by examining perpetrators’ actions or thoughts. However, researchers must make assumptions as to the effect such sexist acts or behaviors has on the target. Thus, this study provides a measure of sexism from the perspective of the target.

Citation

Deuling, J., Wittmer, J.L.-S., Wilson, K. and Thomas, A. (2024), "Perceived/experienced sexism and perceptions of support and job attitudes", Gender in Management, Vol. 39 No. 1, pp. 71-86. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-11-2021-0347