Ruth Gaunt

• Professor of Social Psychology at University of Lincoln

This study explores the role of gender ideologies in moderating social judg-ments of gender norm violators. Three hundred and eleven participants evaluated a male or a female target who was either a primary breadwin-ner or a primary caregiver. Attributions of personal traits, moral emotions, and marital emotions were examined. Results showed that b...

The present study examined the role of ambivalent sexist ideologies in the division of childcare responsibilities. We proposed maternal gatekeeping as a mediator through which hostile sexist attitudes toward men and women facilitate gendered division of childcare. A sample of 207 mothers with at least one child aged 6 years or younger completed ext...

Creating Equality at Home tells the fascinating stories of 25 couples around the world whose everyday decisions about sharing the housework and childcare – from who cooks the food, washes the dishes, and helps with homework, to who cuts back on paid work – all add up to a gender revolution. From North and South America to Europe, Asia, and Australi...

Despite wide public support for gender equality in work and caregiving, family responsibilities are still divided predominantly along traditional gender lines. This study examined the role of biological essentialism in the division of family roles using a nationally representative sample of British parents with young children (N = 5,605). Both moth...

This mixed-methods study explored the centrality and meanings of men’s and women’s parental and work-related identities by comparing semi-traditional, equal-sharing, and role-reversed couples. Quantitative analysis involved 2,813 British parents (1,380 men, 1,433 women) who were primary caregivers, primary breadwinners, or equal sharers with at lea...

Although societal transformations of the division of paid work and childcare have been observed over recent decades, the arrangements of most couples still reflect traditional gendered norms, with mothers as primary caregivers and fathers as main breadwinners. This persistent gender gap disadvantages men and women, preventing them from organising w...

This mixed-methods study examined couples' relationship quality, satisfaction and well-being by comparing semi-traditional, equal-sharing and role-reversed couples. Quantitative analysis involved 2813 parents (1380 men, 1433 women) with at least one child aged 11 or under who were primary caregivers, primary breadwinners or equal-sharers. Qualitati...

The present study examined the role of individuals’ social psychological characteristics in the division of housework and childcare responsibilities, comparing parents in role-reversed arrangements with parents in a more traditional division of roles. A sample of 353 parents with young children completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesized, p...

This study draws on identity theory to explore parental and work-related identities by comparing primary caregivers and breadwinners. It examined how the salience and centrality of identities vary by gender and family role, and the relationships between identities and individuals’ involvement in paid work and childcare. A sample of 236 parents with...

This mixed-methods study compared couples in which childcare responsibilities are shared equally, or assumed primarily by the father, with more traditional arrangements. Combining survey data from a nationally representative sample of British parents as well as in-depth interviews with couples with young children, the study found that both fathers...

This study aimed to explore the circumstances and considerations that lead to the allocation of family roles among male carer/female breadwinner families in comparison to traditional parents. A sample of 236 parents with children from birth to 5 years old completed extensive questionnaires about their daily routines and perceptions of their divisio...

This study tests the hypotheses derived from three theoretical approaches to the determinants of parents' involvement in childcare: economic and structural models, gender ideologies, and family systems theory. Two hundred and thirty-seven Israeli couples with three 40-month-old infants completed self-report questionnaires that measured the father's...

This study aimed to explore the allocation of family work among male carer/female breadwinner couples in comparison to traditional couples, in an attempt to identify the most change-resistant aspects of gendered family roles. A sample of 236 parents with children from birth to 5 years old completed extensive questionnaires about their daily routine...

Background Ambulance service employees have high sickness absence rates compared to other National Health Service (NHS) occupations. The aim of this study was to understand factors linked to sickness absence in front-line ambulance service staff by determining whether there was an association between work and daily (non-work-related) stress, coping...

This study sought to explore the role of couples’ social psychological characteristics in the division of childcare responsibilities. Using a longitudinal sample of 148 expecting couples, gender ideologies, attitudes toward the father role and self-enhancement values were measured during the third trimester of pregnancy. As hypothesized, prenatal g...

Men’s body concerns have been increasing in recent decades, as contemporary men express what had almost exclusively been feminine concerns over body appearance. Although traditional masculinity can account for some body concerns, it cannot fully explain their increased prevalence or changing forms. This project examines recent shifts from a product...

This study draws on identity theory to explore parental and work identities. It examined gender differences in identities, as well as the moderating role of gender in the effects of individuals’ socio-structural characteristics. A sample of 148 couples with young children completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesized, couples’ paid work strat...

The current study draws on identity theory to explore mothers' and fathers' involvement in childcare. It examined the relationships between the salience and centrality of individuals’ parental and work-related identities and the extent to which they are involved in various forms of childcare. A sample of 148 couples with at least one child aged 6 y...

This research examined the effects of ambivalent sexist attitudes on the attribution of emotions to men and women in terms of the emotion valence and perceived humanness. In line with ambivalent sexism theory, Study 1 showed that hostile sexist men attributed less positive emotions to women, and benevo-lent sexist men attributed more positive emoti...

This study draws on ambivalent sexism theory to explore the role of benevolent and hostile gender attitudes in determining perceptions of individuals who comply with traditional gender roles or violate them. Three hundred and eleven participants were presented with a description of a male or a female target who was either a primary breadwinner or a...

This study explored the relationships between Jewish religiosity and ambivalent sexist attitudes toward men and women. Drawing on ambivalent sexism theory and Judaism's views of gender relations, it was hypothe-sized that religiosity would be positively related to benevo-lent sexism and benevolent attitudes toward men. The hypotheses were tested in...

This study examined modeling and compensatory processes underlying the effects of an early paternal model on father involvement in child care. Drawing on social learning theory, it was hypothesized that father–son relationships would moderate the association between a father's involvement and his own father's involvement. A sample of 136 kibbutz fa...

This study tests alternative theoretical models of the division of household labor within a non-familial context of men and women operating homes for autistic children and adults. This context makes it possible to disentangle overlapping hypotheses that stem from competing models. A sample of 128 staff members completed extensive questionnaires. Th...

This study explored the mediating role of stereotypes and evaluations in the relationships between intergroup conflict, social contact, and behavioral intentions to engage in intergroup contact. The hypotheses, derived from realistic group conflict theory and intergroup contact theory, were tested on samples of Arab and Jewish high school students...

This research applies the Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000) to explore the moderating role of superordinate categorization in infrahumanization. Two studies were conducted within the context of an inter-racial intergroup conflict. As hypothesized, perceived outgroup identification with the superordinate category (Study 1) or...

Maternal gatekeeping is commonly described as a collection of beliefs and behaviors that ultimately inhibit a collaborative effort between mothers and fathers in family work (Allen & Hawkins, 1999; Fagan & Barnett, 2003). These beliefs and behaviors limit fathers' opportunities to experience child care and housework and to develop the relevant skil...

This study examined maternal gatekeeping, its background and psychological antecedents, and its consequences for paternal and maternal involvement in childcare. 209 couples with 6 to 36-month-old children completed extensive questionnaires. Analyses revealed that different dimensions of gatekeeping were differentially associated with the psychologi...

Infra-humanizing outgroups involves considering outgroups less human and more animal-like than the ingroup, which is perceived, in essence, as fully human. In this article, the first section presents the theoretical background of infra-humanization and distinguishes it from related concepts, such as dehumanization. The three basic hypotheses of the...

This study examined the complex relationships between gender, job insecurity and job-related stress. Previous findings have suggested that men experience greater job insecurity than women, and are more vulnerable to job-related stress. The current study tested the hypothesis that the gender ideology of employees moderates the effect of gender on jo...

Infra-humanizing outgroups involves considering outgroups less human and more animal-like than the ingroup, which is perceived, in essence, as fully human. In this article, the first section presents the theoretical background of infra-humanization and distinguishes it from related concepts, such as dehumanization. The three basic hypotheses of the...

This study examined the role of couple similarity in spouses' marital satisfaction and affect. The associations between spousal similarity and relationship measures were examined in a sample of 248 married couples. As hypothesized, greater similarity between partners was associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction and lower levels of nega...

This study draws on Bem’s conceptualization (The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993) of biological essentialism to explore fathers’ and mothers’ involvement in child care. The relationships between parental essentialist perceptions, gender ideology, fathers’ role attitudes, and...

This study used the theory of human values to explore parents' involvement with their children. The relationships between maternal and paternal value priorities and various forms of involvement in child care were examined in a sample of 209 couples with 1 child between 6 and 36 months of age. As predicted, giving high priority to openness-to-change...

The authors examined the hypothesis that people forecast a longer duration of uniquely human secondary emotions for their in-group than for an out-group. The authors conducted a field experiment in the setting of the European soccer championship. They asked Belgian participants to forecast the intensity with which their in-group Belgian fans or the...

The authors examined the hypothesis that people forecast a longer duration of uniquely human secondary emotions for their in-group than for an out-group. The authors conducted a field experiment in the setting of the European soccer championship. They asked Belgian participants to forecast the intensity with which their in-group Bel-gian fans or th...

The present study examined how the motivation to perceive the ingroup as more human than the outgroup affects the use of situational information to discount attribution of emotions. Participants read an essay describing the writer’s tendency to experience certain emotions. The writer’s group membership, type of expressed emotions and situational de...

Groups are social constructions with differences. People spontaneously attempt to explain differences between groups. Stereotypes often play this explanatory role. Specifically, group members tend to attribute different essences to social categories. Given widespread ethnocentrism, it is not surprising that individuals reserve “the human essence” f...

In explaining differences between groups, people ascribe the human essence to their ingroup and consider outgroups as less human. This phenomenon, called infra-humanization, occurs outside people's awareness. Because secondary emotions (e.g. love, hope, contempt, resentment) are considered uniquely human emotions, people not only attribute more sec...

This study tested the hypothesis that people perceive their ingroup as experiencing more uniquely human secondary emotions than the outgroup. Jacoby's process-dissociation procedure was used to measure participants' controlled recognition memory for materials that associated the ingroup or outgroup with secondary or primary emotions. Conscious memo...

According to Leyens et al.’s (2000) theory, intergroup discrimination involves a differential appraisal of the ingroup’s and the outgroup’s uniquely human characteristics. Four experiments investigated how emotions that are considered uniquely (i.e. secondary emotions) and non uniquely (i.e. primary emotions) human (Demoulin et al., 2001a) are diff...

According to Leyens et al.'s (2000) theory, intergroup discrimination involves a differential appraisal of the ingroup's and the outgroup's uniquely human characteristics. Four experiments investigated how emotions that are considered uniquely (i.e. secondary emotions) and non uniquely (i.e. primary emotions) human (Demoulin et al., 2001a) are diff...

According to the psychological essentialism perspective, people tend to explain differences between groups by attributing them different essences. Given a pervasive ethnocentrism, this tendency implies that the human essence will be restricted to the ingroup whereas outgroups will receive a lesser degree of humanity. Therefore, it is argued that pe...

Three experiments investigated how activation of knowledge about situational forces affects discounting in dispositional inference tasks. Each experiment varied a different knowledge activation factor--salience, accessibility, or specificity of situational information. In addition, all 3 experiments varied situational demands and cognitive load. Th...

Three experiments investigated how activation of knowledge about situational forces affects discounting in dispositional inference tasks. Each experiment varied a different knowledge activation factor—salience, accessibility, or specificity of situational information. In addition, all 3 experiments varied situational demands and cognitive load. The...

If people favor their ingroup, are especially concerned with their own group, and attribute different essences to different groups, itfollows that their essence must be superior to the essence of other groups. Intelligence, language, and certain emotions are all considered to be distinctive elements ofhuman nature or essence. The role ofintelligenc...