Psychologist-historians: historying women and benevolent sexism

Abstract

Analysis of the cultural influences on psychologist-historian authors regarding general trends of benevolent and hostile sexism through the lens of women's perceived place in society at the time of a text's publication. The present study analyzed 55 American History of Psychology textbooks published between 1900 and 2007. Significant trends in feministic cultural periods were found to coincide with the decrease of the inclusion of women in texts (hostile sexism). The per decade analysis shows that while inclusion has increased across time it has only increased from 2.87% in 1900 to 7.95% in 2007. Additionally, in a second analysis, passages were sampled from all 11 decades to assess reader's perceptions of linguistic implications of gender difference when gender identifiers had been removed. A discernable difference was detected that increased during the aforementioned feministic cultural periods (benevolent sexism).