SPSSI NEWS RELEASE
1995 GORDON ALLPORT INTERGROUP RELATIONS
PRIZE
ANNOUNCED
The
1995 Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize Committee of the Society for the
Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) chose a paper entitled "The
Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating Hostile and Benevolent
Sexism," written by Peter Glick, Lawrence University, and Susan T. Fiske,
University of Massachusetts Amherst, as the winner from amongst 61 entries.
The
Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize, first awarded in 1968, honors the
memory of the late Dr. Gordon W. Allport, a founder and past president of SPSSI,
and is given to "the best paper or article of the year on intergroup
relations." Criteria for evaluating submissions included the originality of
the contribution, its relevance to core concerns in the area of intergroup
relations, and the degree to which it effectively reframes or resolves issues
and provides new directions or insights.
The
winning paper by Professors Glick and Fiske was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology this year. In a highly
readable format, it provides a complex analysis of the components of
contemporary sexist attitudes that have not previously been clearly delineated,
and it presents a measure, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), to enable
researchers to tap into these attitudes. Through the validation studies for the
ASI, involving 2,250 respondents across six samples, Glick and Fiske provide
evidence for the importance of distinguishing between sexist antipathy, which
they term Hostile Sexism, and a more subjectively positive orientation that they
term Benevolent Sexism. These are two positively correlated yet conceptually and
empirically distinct constructs that together show sexism as a special type of
prejudice that can incorporate a deep ambivalence, rather than straightforward
hostility. The paper also reports a convincing case for the convergent,
discriminant and predictive validity of the ASI. In constructing both a theory
of sexist ambivalence and a corresponding measure, Glick and Fiske have given
future researchers concerned with gender relations valuable insights and a tool
by which to continue their efforts to understand the nature of continuing sex
discrimination, a critical social issue.
THE SOCIETY FOR THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL ISSUES is a group of approximately 3500 psychologists and allied social scientists who share a concern with research on the psychological aspects of important social issues. SPSSI is a Division of the American Psychological Association.