Sex Differences in the Acceptability of Discrimination
Timur Kuran1
and
Edward J. McCaffery2*
1 Duke University
2 University of Southern California
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: emccaffery{at}law.usc.edu.
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Abstract |
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A large telephone survey conducted after the attacks of September 11, 2001, suggests that the willingness to tolerate discrimination varies significantly across domains, with a very high tolerance of discrimination against poorly educated immigrants and a strikingly low tolerance of discrimination against the genetically disadvantaged. Regardless of domain, tolerance is greater among men than among women. A survey conducted simultaneously over the World Wide Web, using volunteer panels, replicated the phone survey results and revealed an even larger sex gap. This finding suggests that a social desirability bias leads women to overstate and men to understate their tolerance of discrimination in public.
