somewhat from the original American student samples. Good results obtain with Canadian college students (25%
non-European origin; Campbell et al., 1997 ), German students ( Eyssel & Bohner, 2007 ), Swedish students
(Akrami, Ekehammar, & Yang-Wallentin, 2011 ), Dutch students ( Barreto & Ellemers, 2005 ), and nonstudent
German women ( Becker & Wagner, 2009 ), but more variable results with a small sample ( n546) of female
White and Black firefighters ( Yoder & McDonald, 1997 ), which obtained some sporadic item correlations with
race, education, and age (not corrected for large numbers of correlations calculated). Both older and more edu-
cated nonstudent women rejected modern sexism more than did younger and less educated ones in a larger
German sample ( n5250; Becker & Wagner, 2009 ).
Reliability
Internal Consistency
In both the original studies ( Swim et al., 1995 ), Cronbach alpha coefficients were reported for both modern
(.84, .75) and old-fashioned (.66, .65) sexism. In subsequent modern sexism studies, alpha coefficients were com-
parable (.84, Becker & Wagner, 2009 ; .80, Eyssel & Bohner, 2007 ; .78, Swim, Mallett, Russo-Devosa, & Stangor,
2005 ; .65, Campbell et al., 1997 ) or lower (.08, Yoder & McDonald, 1997 , although testing conditions were less
than ideal: mailed surveys, 1 /C02 years after an initial survey).
Validity
Convergent/Concurrent
MSS correlates moderately with hostile sexism (.31) and benevolent sexism (.42), described below, as well as
traditional gender-role preference (.30) ( Becker & Wagner, 2009 ). Modern sexism and the Attitudes toward
Women Scale (AWS; Spence et al., 1973 ) do correlate (phi 5.35 for men, .48 for women; Swim & Cohen, 1997 ).
But MSS operates at a more subtle level than the AWS’s blatant self-report, the MSS instead correlating better, for
example, with judged sexual harassment (.18 /C0.50, controlling for gender; Swim & Cohen, 1997 ). MSS correlates
as part of a package of measures that indicate acceptance of stereotyping, dominance, authoritarianism, tradi-
tional roles, unemotional processing, and more fixed, uncomplicated cognitive style, all more true for White and
male participants than Black and female ones (Table 3, Carter, Hall, Carney, & Rosip, 2006 ). Big-five personality
traits agreeableness and openness to experience also relate negatively to MSS ( Akrami et al., 2011 ).
Divergent/Discriminant
As indicated, modern sexism diverges from the more blatant forms of sexism. For example, MSS loads sepa-
rately from both AWS and old-fashioned sexism in a factor analysis ( Swim & Cohen, 1997 ). The mean judged sex-
ism of items on such measures indicate their degree of overt sexism ( Swim et al., 2005 ): beliefs from the AWS are
the highest on rated overt sexism, followed by traditional gender role behaviors, actively hostile sexist beliefs,
benevolent sexist beliefs (see below), unwanted sexual attention, and MSS items as the least obviously sexist.
In the original study ( Swim et al., 1995 ), modern sexism correlates negatively with egalitarian values by female
(/C0.29) and male ( /C0.16) respondents, as does old-fashioned sexism ( /C0.16,/C0.29, respectively). Individualistic
values do not correlate with either form of sexism for either gender ( /C0.01 to .08), except for men on MSS (.19).
In both original studies ( Swim et al., 1995 ), men scored higher than women on both old-fashioned and modern
sexism. Progressive, gender-identified women score lower than women more traditionally identified or less iden-
tified overall ( Becker & Wagner, 2009 ). All other studies that assess both genders report men scoring higher than
women on modern sexism.
Social desirability does not correlate with MSS (.08, Campbell et al., 1997 ).
Construct/Factor Analytic
Exploratory principal components analysis eliminated several items double-loading on both the intended mod-
ern and old-fashioned dimensions, resulting in eight modern sexism items (five for denial of continuing sexism,
two for antagonism toward women’s demands, and one for resentment of special favors for women; see scale
below). All the eliminated double-loading items came from the second two components of the scale. A confirma-
tory factor analysis on the selected items showed by several indices that a two-factor solution fit better than a
one-factor solution, separately by gender and for the combined sample.
Most of the published work differentiates subtle modern sexism from old-fashioned sexism and other more
blatant measures, such as the AWS ( Swim et al., 1995 ;Swim & Cohen, 1997 ; but see Yoder & McDonald, 1997 ).701 OVERVIEW OF THE MEASURES
VI. SOCIOCULTURAL INTERACTION AND CONFLICT