Sex differences in sociopolitical attitudes: A replication and extension

Abstract

Sex differences in various aspects of sociopolitical ideology were studied with a sample of 783 Swedish high school students (median age = 18 years) from metropolitan Stockholm by use of the S6 Conservatism Scale. Males and females were compared with respect to six ideological dimensions: (1) general conservatism, (2) political‐economic conservatism, (3) religion, (4) punitiveness, (5) social inequality and (6) racism. The results revealed statistically significant differences on all six dimensions showing females to be less generally conservative, less ‘capitalist’ oriented, less punitive, more egalitarian and less racist than males. However, in line with previous findings, females were found to be more religious than males. Furthermore, the results showed females to be more ideologically homogeneous than males. Despite these differences the attitude profiles and attitude structures were quite similar for both sexes. There were no significant sex by social class interactions with respect to the sociopolitical attitude dimensions. In line with previous findings, females were found to be somewhat less interested in politics than males.