Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Date of Award

Spring 4-10-2025

Document Type

Honors Paper

Degree Name

Psychology-BS

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Dr. Michele Acker

First Committee Member

Dr. Michele Acker

Second Committee Member

Dr. Meredith Meyer

Third Committee Member

Dr. Margaret Koehler

Keywords

Psychology, Social, Clothing, Sexism, Prosocial, Gender

Subject Categories

Higher Education | Personality and Social Contexts | Social Psychology

Abstract

The values and morals we adopt young in life often stick with us throughout our life. These morals can affect how we interact with others, especially when it comes to helping strangers. Not only do morals and values have some effect on interactions with others, snap judgements about someone based on their outward appearance can also have some influence on whether there is a desire to help a stranger. This study looks at how personal ideology, specifically sexism, influences the willingness to help women dressed in either revealing or nonrevealing clothing. Participants were shown a picture of a model in either nonrevealing or revealing clothing then asked a series of helping situation questions as well as were given the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996). I found that only hostile sexism predicted with a participant’s willingness to help others. Participants who had a high hostile sexism score were more likely to help the revealing model, but specifically on helping questions regarding crying, donations, jumpstarting battery, and settling a debate. This study serves as a way to bridge the gap in the literature regarding how sexism influences helping interactions towards women.

Licensing Permission

Copyright, all rights reserved. Fair Use

Acknowledgement 1

1

Acknowledgement 2

1

Additional Files
whitehair_acc_report.pdf (143 kB)
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