Date of Award

January 2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Heather Terrell

Abstract

Both hostile and benevolent sexism have been found to correlate with attitudes related to pregnancy (Terrell et al, in prep). Benevolent and hostile sexism have both been shown to correlate with attitudes towards sorority members as well (Walkky, unpublished). The goal of the present study was to expand on the knowledge of how sexism relates to pregnancy attitudes, especially how it relates to sorority membership. Participants read a scenario about a college woman, who was either in a sorority or not, who had just discovered that she was pregnant. In the scenario, she chose to either end the pregnancy, continue the pregnancy and put the child up for adoption, or continue the pregnancy and keep the child. Only an effect of pregnancy outcome was found such that participants thought that ending the pregnancy was always the worst decision compared to keeping the child and putting the child up for adoption, which did not differ from each other. Further research is needed to expand on the role that sexism and sorority membership play in attitudes towards pregnant women and their decisions.

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