How Attractive Are Sexist Intimates to Adolescents? The Influence of Sexist Beliefs and Relationship Experience

The emergence of heterosexual intimate relationship experiences has been described as central to the development of ambivalent sexist attitudes during adolescence. The quality of these relationships might be largely determined by the perceived attractiveness and expectancies about potential partners also in ideological terms. In a questionnaire study, 262 Spanish adolescents reported their attraction toward various sexist (hostile, benevolent, and ambivalent) and non-sexist profiles of other-sex targets as potential friends and intimate partners. Relationships between attraction judgments and participants' own sexist beliefs as well as their experiences in romantic relationships were examined. Results show that young women considered benevolent sexist young men to be most attractive and young men considered ambivalent sexist young women to be most attractive. Congruency effects were found between these preferences and participants' own sexist attitudes. In addition, young women's experiences in romantic relationships significantly predicted their preference for benevolent sexist young men. Discussion focuses on the importance of socialization in the development of such preferences and on the endorsement of benevolent sexism in female and male adolescents. More generally, theoretical and applied implications of these results in relation to ambivalent sexism theory are discussed. © The Author(s) 2013