Neo-sexism Scale (NS)

1. Abstract

The Neo-sexism Scale (NS) is an influential psychometric instrument developed by Francine Tougas, Rupert Brown, Ann M. Beaton, and Stéphane Joly in 1995 to assess covert, contemporary negative attitudes toward women. As overt expressions of gender discrimination became socially proscribed following second-wave feminist legal reforms and shifting egalitarian social norms, prejudice against women evolved into more subtle, disguised, and rationalized modalities. Grounded in the conceptual traditions of modern racism and symbolic prejudice theory (McConahay, 1986; Kinder & Sears, 1981), neosexism is formally defined as the manifestation of a conflict between egalitarian values and residual, unacknowledged negative feelings toward women. This psychological conflict typically crystallizes in three interrelated beliefs: the denial that women still face systemic discrimination in the labor market and society, antagonism toward women’s political, social, and economic demands, and resentment against affirmative action or special governmental policies designed to ameliorate gender inequality.

The scale consists of 11 self-report items evaluated on a Likert-type response format ranging either from 1 (Total Disagreement / Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Total Agreement / Strongly Agree) or on an abbreviated 5-point Likert continuum. Two items are reverse-coded to minimize acquiescence response bias. Across extensive psychometric investigations in Canada, the United States, and Western Europe, the Neo-sexism Scale has consistently demonstrated robust psychometric adequacy. Internal consistency reliability estimates (Cronbach’s alpha) typically range from .74 to .86 across student, workforce, and managerial samples. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses generally substantiate a predominant unidimensional construct, though multidimensional solutions differentiating denial of discrimination from resentment over collective demands have occasionally emerged in specialized populations. Construct validity is supported by significant positive correlations with old-fashioned sexism, modern sexism, ambivalent sexism (specifically hostile sexism), and opposition to affirmative action programs, alongside significant negative relationships with support for gender equality policies and feminist identification. The Neo-sexism Scale remains a foundational tool in social psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, and sociology for diagnosing covert bias and predicting behavioral resistance to structural equity initiatives.

2. Keywords

Neo-sexism Scale, modern sexism, gender prejudice, covert discrimination, affirmative action attitudes, social dominance orientation, modern racism theory, ambivalent sexism, gender inequality, psychometrics

3. Authors

The Neo-sexism Scale was formulated and validated by a collaborative team of social psychologists specializing in intergroup relations, social justice, and organizational equity:

• Francine Tougas, Ph.D. — School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Tougas is a prominent social psychologist recognized for her extensive scholarship on relative deprivation theory, affirmative action, collective mobilization, and contemporary forms of intergroup bias.
• Rupert Brown, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom. Dr. Brown is an internationally renowned scholar in social identity theory, intergroup contact, prejudice reduction, and intergroup relations.
• Ann M. Beaton, Ph.D. — Département de psychologie, Université de Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Dr. Beaton’s empirical research focuses on linguistic minority identities, collective relative deprivation, managerial decision-making, and gender dynamics in professional hierarchies.
• Stéphane Joly, M.A. — School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Co-researcher and methodologist specializing in applied psychometrics, organizational attitudes, and quantitative analysis of intergroup beliefs.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Neo-sexism Scale (NS) is to quantify contemporary, veiled, and socially legitimized manifestations of gender prejudice that circumvent traditional measures of explicit sexism. Historically, classic or “old-fashioned” sexism was characterized by blatant adherence to traditional gender roles, explicit assertions of female intellectual or biological inferiority, and unapologetic endorsement of patriarchal dominance and differential treatment in domestic, academic, and occupational spheres. However, as egalitarian values gained pervasive legislative and cultural traction throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, overt expressions of sexism became increasingly taboo and socially undesirable across public and corporate discourse.

Despite these normative shifts, empirical indicators revealed that systemic inequities, workplace marginalization, unequal wage structures, and underrepresentation of women in executive leadership persisted. Psychologists recognized that the diminution of overt hostility did not equate to the eradication of prejudice; rather, prejudice had transformed into a modernized, covert ideology. Tougas and colleagues (1995) designed the Neo-sexism Scale to capture this subtle ideological shift. The theoretical rationale posits that individuals may sincerely endorse broad principles of egalitarianism and equal opportunity while simultaneously harboring unconscious, subtle, or rationalized antipathy toward women. This cognitive dissonance is resolved by adopting a belief system that denies the ongoing existence of structural discrimination, frames women’s contemporary grievances as excessive or petulant whining, and perceives institutional remedies—such as affirmative action and quota-based hiring initiatives—as unfair, reverse discrimination against men.

In applied and academic research, the NS serves several critical functions:

• Predicting Opposition to Diversity and Affirmative Action Programs: The scale reliably predicts resistance to corporate equity policies, equal opportunity initiatives, and targeted recruitment efforts, demonstrating that opposition is often driven not merely by abstract procedural justice concerns, but by modern sexist attitudes.
• Organizational Evaluation and Leadership Research: In organizational contexts, the NS is utilized to examine how managers evaluate male versus female subordinates, assess promotion decisions, and analyze subtle microaggressions or institutional resistance to women breaking the “glass ceiling.”
• Cross-Cultural and Longitudinal Benchmarking: Sociologists and social psychologists utilize the NS to track societal changes in gender attitudes over time, comparing modern prejudice levels across demographic cohorts, educational strata, and geopolitical boundaries.
• Investigating Intergroup Collective Action: The instrument facilitates empirical investigations into why some women endorse or reject collective action for female empowerment, highlighting how internalized neosexist beliefs can inhibit feminist identification and solidarity.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the Neo-sexism Scale is neosexism, conceptualized as a modern ideological belief system characterized by a psychological conflict between abstract egalitarian values and residual negative affect toward women. Tougas et al. (1995) operationalized this construct not as crude biological chauvinism, but as a sophisticated socio-political worldview that justifies maintaining the gender hierarchy under the guise of fairness, meritocracy, and objective neutrality. The construct comprises three core cognitive-affective dimensions:

1. Denial of Ongoing Discrimination

This dimension reflects the cognitive conviction that gender-based structural barriers, glass ceilings, wage gaps, and hiring discrimination have been fully resolved in modern democratic institutions. Individuals high in this dimension firmly believe that complete workplace parity has already been achieved. For instance, endorsement of items asserting that discrimination in the labor force is no longer an issue represents a defensive denial mechanism. By convincing oneself that systemic prejudice is a relic of the past, the individual neutralizes any moral obligation to support structural corrective measures or examine one’s own implicit biases.

2. Antagonism Toward Women’s Demands

The second dimension captures affective and evaluative resentment directed toward the collective mobilization, advocacy, and social demands of women and feminist organizations. Because adherents of neosexism believe that institutional fairness has already been attained, they interpret further demands for equality as exaggerated, illegitimate, and self-serving. Demands for equitable parental leave, pay transparency, or boardroom representation are pathologized as unreasonable power grabs rather than genuine appeals for justice. This is reflected in items describing women’s requests for equality as simply exaggerated or advising that women should not push too hard for societal change.

3. Resentment Over Special Protections and Perceived Unfair Advantages

The third dimension concerns perceived zero-sum competition and grievance regarding affirmative action, preferential hiring, government funding, or educational admissions policies aimed at women. Neosexist ideology frames equity-oriented interventions not as remedial tools designed to level an uneven playing field, but as discriminatory practices that violate strict meritocratic principles and unfairly penalize men. Believing that women have received more from the government than they deserve or that underqualified women are routinely selected over competent men exemplifies this defensive attributional style. This dimension is tightly coupled with perceptions of collective relative deprivation among men, who perceive targeted initiatives as an unearned threat to their historical entitlements.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual genesis of the Neo-sexism Scale is deeply rooted in several foundational paradigms of social psychology, most notably the theory of modern/symbolic racism developed by David O. Sears, Donald R. Kinder, and John B. McConahay, integrated with social identity theory and relative deprivation frameworks.

Symbolic and Modern Prejudice Paradigm

During the 1970s and 1980s, racial attitude researchers observed a stark paradox in American public opinion: while survey endorsement of crude, biological white supremacy declined precipitous, white resistance to desegregation policies, affirmative action, and civil rights busing remained intense. McConahay and Hough (1976) and Kinder and Sears (1981) introduced the concepts of symbolic racism and modern racism to resolve this paradox. They postulated that overt antipathy had been superseded by a blend of early learned, diffuse negative feelings combined with traditional cultural values (such as Protestant work ethic, individualism, and obedience to established authority).

Tougas et al. (1995) systematically translated this framework to the domain of gender relations. They recognized that just as modern racists do not openly express hatred toward racial minorities, modern sexists do not outwardly declare women to be intellectually inferior or natural subordinates. Instead, neosexists express prejudice through socially acceptable ideological surrogates: claiming that women push too hard into spaces where they are not wanted, asserting that the present employment system is already fair, and lamenting the erosion of meritocracy due to affirmative action quotas. In this framework, prejudice is preserved precisely because it is cloaked in the language of justice, procedural fairness, and non-discrimination.

Relative Deprivation and Social Identity Theory

Tougas and her collaborators heavily incorporated relative deprivation theory (Runciman, 1966) into the theoretical architecture of neosexism. They argued that neosexist attitudes are especially mobilized when men experience or anticipate fraternal relative deprivation—the perception that their in-group (men) is losing status, resources, or occupational security relative to an out-group (women). In their seminal 1995 and 1999 studies, Tougas et al. demonstrated that neosexism mediates the relationship between men’s collective relative deprivation and their outright hostility toward affirmative action. When men perceive that governmental policies favor women at the expense of men, neosexist ideology supplies the cognitive rationalization necessary to oppose gender equity policies without viewing oneself as fundamentally misogynistic.

Integration with Contemporary Sexism Theories

The Neo-sexism Scale emerged alongside complementary theoretical constructs, such as Janet Swim and colleagues’ (1995) Modern Sexism Scale and Peter Glick and Susan Fiske’s (1996) Ambivalent Sexism Theory. While Swim’s Modern Sexism Scale emphasizes cognitive denial of discrimination, the Neo-sexism Scale places an exceptionally strong structural emphasis on competition over institutional resources, perceived unfairness in labor markets, and the perceived costs of affirmative action policies within public and private institutions.

7. Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Neo-sexism Scale has been rigorously scrutinized across dozens of independent empirical investigations across multiple linguistic and national contexts.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established through strong, theoretically coherent associations with established measures of prejudice, authoritarianism, and gender ideology:

• Modern Sexism and Old-Fashioned Sexism: Tougas et al. (1995) and subsequent comparative studies (e.g., Campbell, Schellenberg, & Senn, 1997) revealed that the NS correlates moderately to highly with Swim et al.’s (1995) Modern Sexism Scale (typically r = .65 to .80), confirming that both capture overlapping manifestations of contemporary gender bias. Simultaneously, the NS exhibits moderate correlations with Old-Fashioned Sexism scales (typically r = .40 to .55), demonstrating that while neosexism shares ideological variance with traditional chauvinism, it represents a distinct psychometric entity that captures unique variance unaddressed by traditional items.
• Ambivalent Sexism: When mapped against Glick and Fiske’s (1996) Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), the NS correlates robustly with hostile sexism (r values commonly between .50 and .68), reflecting shared antagonism toward non-traditional, career-oriented women. Its correlation with benevolent sexism is consistently lower (r = .20 to .35), demonstrating clear construct differentiation between defensive resentment and paternalistic affection.
• Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance: Consistent with ideological modeling, neosexism is positively associated with Altemeyer’s Right-Wing Authoritarianism (r ≈ .35 to .50) and Sidanius and Pratto’s Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) (r ≈ .40 to .58), indicating that individuals who favor group-based hierarchy and traditional social order are significantly more prone to adopt neosexist beliefs.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated by showing that neosexism is not merely a manifestation of generalized misanthropy or political conservatism in the abstract. When controlling for general political orientation, the NS accounts for substantial unique variance in attitudes toward gender-specific employment policies (Tougas et al., 1995). Furthermore, social desirability bias scales (such as the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale) demonstrate negligible or non-significant correlations with neosexism scores (typically r < -.15), confirming that respondents do not view the subtly phrased neosexist items as blatantly socially undesirable, thereby overcoming the self-presentation confound that undermines old-fashioned sexism scales.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The predictive utility of the NS has been documented across various realistic and experimental paradigms:

• Affirmative Action Attitudes: In their foundational study, Tougas et al. (1995) found that neosexism was the single strongest direct predictor of negative attitudes toward affirmative action programs among male employees, fully mediating the relationship between perceived collective threat and policy rejection.
• Personnel Selection Decisions: In managerial simulations, high neosexism scores among corporate evaluators significantly predicted lower suitability ratings, lower salary recommendations, and fewer promotion recommendations for equally qualified female candidates applying for traditionally male-dominated executive positions (Beaton, Tougas, & Joly, 1996).
• Evaluation of Sexual Harassment Grievances: Research utilizing vignette methodologies has shown that participants scoring high on neosexism are significantly less likely to believe female victims of workplace sexual harassment, more likely to blame the victim, and less likely to recommend formal organizational disciplinary action against male perpetrators.

8. Reliability

The Neo-sexism Scale possesses well-established internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse populations, including university undergraduates, corporate managers, blue-collar workers, and community samples.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the original validation studies conducted by Tougas, Brown, Beaton, and Joly (1995), the 11-item scale yielded robust internal consistency across independent samples:

• In an initial sample of 124 male professionals, Cronbach’s alpha was α = .78.
• In a replication sample of 188 male employees, the internal consistency reached α = .81.
• In subsequent cross-validation studies involving both male and female working adults (e.g., Tougas et al., 1999), Cronbach’s alpha consistently stabilized between α = .76 and α = .84.

Subsequent psychometric evaluations have corroborated these parameters. Campbell, Schellenberg, and Senn (1997), in an extensive comparative analysis of contemporary sexism scales involving 342 Canadian university students, reported Cronbach’s alphas of .80 for men and .77 for women. Across European adaptations, including French, Spanish, and German translations, coefficient alpha values have routinely met or exceeded the accepted psychometric standard of .70, typically clustering around .78 to .85.

Item-Total Correlations and Subscale Consistency

Corrected item-total correlations across the 11 items generally range from .35 to .65. Items focusing directly on exaggerated female demands (e.g., Item 6) and affirmative action hiring pressures (e.g., Item 10) frequently exhibit the highest item-total correlations (often exceeding .55). Reverse-scored items (Item 2 and Item 11) occasionally display slightly lower item-total correlations (between .30 and .45), a common psychometric artifact of reverse valence, yet their retention is essential for mitigating acquiescent response sets.

Test-Retest Reliability

Temporal stability evaluations over short to medium test intervals (ranging from two to eight weeks) have demonstrated strong test-retest reliability coefficients, typically ranging from r = .78 to .86. This indicates that neosexism operates as an enduring, trait-like socio-political attitude and stable ideological schema rather than a transient, state-dependent mood fluctuation.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent structural dimensionality of the Neo-sexism Scale has been investigated using both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the scale’s initial formulation by Tougas et al. (1995), principal components analysis and principal axis factoring with orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Oblimin) rotations were conducted on the 11 items. Scree test inspection and eigenvalue-greater-than-one criteria supported a dominant single-factor solution. The primary general factor accounted for the lion’s share of total common variance (typically between 32% and 42% of total variance across samples). Standardized factor loadings on this unifactorial structure were moderate to high, with all items loading significantly at > .40, and the majority loading between .50 and .75.

In some exploratory investigations involving diverse occupational cohorts, secondary sub-dimensions have emerged. For example, a two-factor structure is occasionally identified, separating:

1. Denial of Ongoing Gender Inequity (items such as 1, 2, and 11);
2. Resentment Toward Collective Demands and Corrective Policies (items such as 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10).

However, because these latent sub-factors correlate highly (inter-factor correlations typically exceeding r = .60), Tougas and colleagues maintained that neosexism is most appropriately and parsimoniously conceptualized and scored as an integrated, unidimensional composite construct.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent structural equation modeling and CFA evaluations (e.g., Campbell et al., 1997; Tougas et al., 1999) have tested the single-factor model against multidimensional alternatives. Goodness-of-fit indices across several studies have demonstrated acceptable to good fit for the unidimensional representation when minor error covariances among similarly phrased items are accounted for:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values typically range from .90 to .95.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Values consistently exceed .88 to .93.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates range from .048 to .072 (90% CI [.035, .085]), indicating adequate to close approximation to the population covariance matrix.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Observed values generally remain below .06.

Factorial invariance testing across gender has demonstrated metric (weak) invariance, indicating that the items reflect the underlying latent construct with comparable factor loadings across both male and female respondents. However, scalar (strong) invariance is sometimes partially constrained, as men systematically exhibit higher latent intercept values on items assessing resentment of affirmative action and perceived female overcompensation.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Neo-sexism Scale (NS) is a self-administered, objective psychometric questionnaire. Below is the operational overview of the instrument:

• Instrument Type: Self-report attitudinal survey / psychological rating scale.
• Target Population: Adults, working professionals, university students, and managers. Can be adapted for broad community and organizational samples.
• Item Count: 11 items.
• Response Format: A Likert-type continuum. As established in the psychometric validation literature, two formats are widely employed:
  • 7-point continuum: 1 (Total Disagreement) to 7 (Total Agreement); or
  • 5-point continuum: 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).
• Reverse-Scored Items: Items 2 and 11 are phrased in an egalitarian/positive direction and MUST be reverse-scored prior to composite calculation:
  • For a 7-point scale: Recode 1 → 7, 2 → 6, 3 → 5, 4 → 4, 5 → 3, 6 → 2, 7 → 1 (Formula: Reversed = 8 - Score).
  • For a 5-point scale: Recode 1 → 5, 2 → 4, 3 → 3, 4 → 2, 5 → 1 (Formula: Reversed = 6 - Score).
• Scoring and Indexing: After reversing Items 2 and 11, calculate the total score by summing all 11 items (range: 11–77 for the 7-point format; 11–55 for the 5-point format) or by averaging all 11 items (range: 1.0–7.0 or 1.0–5.0). Higher mean or sum scores reflect higher levels of neosexist ideology, greater denial of gender discrimination, and heightened resentment toward women’s equity initiatives.
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Neo-sexism Scale was formally developed and published in 1995 by Francine Tougas, Rupert Brown, Ann M. Beaton, and Stéphane Joly in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Society for Personality and Social Psychology / SAGE Publications).

• Copyright & Commercial Status: The original scale items are protected under standard academic copyright held by the authors and the original publisher (SAGE Publications). However, consistent with psychometric conventions in social and behavioral sciences, the Neo-sexism Scale is classified as an open-access scientific assessment for non-commercial academic research and instructional educational applications.
• Fee: There are no commercial fees, per-administration licensing costs, or purchase requirements for legitimate non-profit academic research, university teaching, or scholarly scientific studies.
• Commercial and Organizational Consulting Usage: Organizations, corporate entities, commercial assessment providers, or management consulting firms intending to administer the instrument for profit-making diversity audits, corporate hiring diagnostics, or proprietary training programs should consult the copyright holders or seek proper institutional clearance.
• Recommended Citation: Any academic dissemination or empirical deployment must appropriately cite the foundational validation publication (Tougas et al., 1995).

12. References

• Beaton, A. M., Tougas, F., & Joly, S. (1996). Neosexism among male managers: Is it a matter of numbers? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(24), 2189–2203. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb01795.x
• Campbell, B. E., Schellenberg, E. G., & Senn, C. Y. (1997). Evaluating measures of contemporary sexism. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(1), 89–102. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00102.x
• Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (1986). The aversive form of racism. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism (pp. 61–89). Academic Press.
• Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). An ambivalent alliance: Hostile and benevolent sexism as mutually reinforcing components of ambivalent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(3), 491–512. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.491
• Jacobson, C. K. (1985). Resistance to affirmative action: Self-interest or racism? Journal of Conflict Resolution, 29(2), 306–329. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002785029002006
• Kinder, D. R., & Sears, D. O. (1981). Prejudice and politics: Symbolic racism versus racial threats to the good life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(3), 414–431. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.40.3.414
• McConahay, J. B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the Modern Racism Scale. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism (pp. 91–125). Academic Press.
• McConahay, J. B., & Hough, J. C. (1976). Symbolic racism. Journal of Social Issues, 32(2), 23–45. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1976.tb02493.x
• Swim, J. K., Aikin, K. J., Hall, W. S., & Hunter, B. A. (1995). Sexism and racism: Old-fashioned and modern prejudices. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(2), 199–214. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.68.2.199
• Tougas, F., Brown, R., Beaton, A. M., & Joly, S. (1995). Neosexism: Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(8), 842–849. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295218007
• Tougas, F., Brown, R., Beaton, A. M., & St-Pierre, L. (1999). Neosexism among women: The role of personally experienced social mobility attempts. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(12), 1487–1497. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672992510005

13. Items of the Scale