Hostile Sexism Predicts Annual Within-Person Increases in Sexual Prejudice for Both Men and Women: Evidence from an Eight-year RI-CLPM

Although many Western democracies have made important strides towards egalitarianism in recent years, members of the LGB+ community continue to endure sustained animus. Yet, little empirical work has examined the ideologies that promote sexual prejudice in the 21st century. We address this oversight by positing that hostile sexism temporally precedes increases in sexual prejudice for both men and women. Accordingly, we use nine annual waves (2014-2023) of longitudinal panel data from a nationwide random sample of New Zealand adults to examine the within-person cross-lagged associations between ambivalent sexism and sexual prejudice across heterosexual men (n = 22,751) and women (n = 38,004). As hypothesized, hostile sexism (but not benevolent sexism) predicted within-person increases in sexual prejudice for both heterosexual men and heterosexual women over time. These results replicated across ethnic majority men and women, ethnic minority men (but not women), and LGB+ men (but not women), as well as when adjusting for participants’ age. Together, these results demonstrate that the pernicious effects of hostile sexism extend beyond women’s rights and highlight the importance of addressing sexism to foster broader egalitarian ideals over time.