Gendered Social Perceptions of “The Poor”: Differences in Individualistic Attributions, Stereotypes, and Attitudes Toward Social Protection Policies

Poverty is a phenomenon that affects men and women differently. In the current research, we examined social perceptions of poor men and women across three experiments focusing on attributions for poverty, classist attitudes, and stereotypes about poor people. In Study 1, participants from the genera...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sex roles 2023-10, Vol.89 (7-8), p.377-393
Main Authors: Alcañiz-Colomer, Joaquín, Moya, Miguel, Valor-Segura, Inmaculada
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Experiments
Females
Gender differences
Gender roles
Gender stereotypes
Gender Studies
Low income groups
Males
Medicine/Public Health
Men
Negative Attitudes
Original
Original Article
Political parties
Poverty
Protection
Psychology
Social attitudes
Social Organizations
Social perception
Sociology
Stereotypes
Welfare state
Women
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Summary:Poverty is a phenomenon that affects men and women differently. In the current research, we examined social perceptions of poor men and women across three experiments focusing on attributions for poverty, classist attitudes, and stereotypes about poor people. In Study 1, participants from the general population ( N  = 484) made more individualistic (dispositional) attributions for men’s poverty compared to women’s poverty, blaming men more for their poverty. Participants also believed that men would manage the assistance they received from the state more poorly than women. These patterns were observed across all three studies. In Study 2 ( N  = 256), we also found that more individualistic attributions for why men were in poverty predicted more negative attitudes toward social protection policies concerning men. In Study 3 ( N  = 358), we replicated the results observed in Study 2, and found that women in poverty were described as mor communal and competent than men in poverty. We interpret these results considering the operation of traditional gender roles as well as the parallelism between stereotypes of women and poor people. Our results are relevant to the framing of the proposals by social organizations, political parties, and emancipation movements that advocate for policies and programs to address poverty.
ISSN:0360-0025
1573-2762
DOI:10.1007/s11199-023-01375-9