Latent structure of the French Validation of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Echelle de Sexisme Ambivalent

Glick and Fiske's (1996) Ambivalent Sexism Inventory is a measure of hostile sexism (sexist antipathy) and benevolent sexism (a subjectively positive attitude toward women). This paper proposes a French version of this scale, the Echelle de Sexisme Ambivalent (ESA). Three studies on more than 1000 participants established the validity of this new scale. The first one is the application of Rasch's extended model that confirmed the psychometrical qualities of the ESA, for both male and female participants. The second study established the structural and predictive validity in a covariance analysis. This study again showed that both male and female participants displayed the same structural pattern. Next, both discriminant and convergent validity were assessed, by comparison to the Neosexism Scale (Tougas, Brown, Beaton and Joly, 1995) and the Social Dominance Scale (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). Finally, practical and theoretical implications are discussed