The current study examines whether a pivotal event central to gender relations—marriage—is associated with changes in sexism. Drawing upon a nationally representative study assessing sexist attitudes across 14 years, event-aligned piecewise latent growth models examined change in hostile and benevolent sexism (1) across the years prior to marriage, (2) within the year immediately post marriage, and (3) across the years following marriage (N = 1,615). Matching average trajectories established in prior research, hostile sexism and women’s benevolent sexism showed small declines across the years prior to marriage. Immediately post marriage, however, men’s hostile sexism and women’s hostile and benevolent sexism significantly increased from pre-marriage levels, before returning to declining trajectories across the following years. By contrast, men’s benevolent sexism was stable prior to marriage, did not change within the year immediately post marriage, but then significantly departed from the pre-marriage trajectory by declining across the years following marriage. These novel findings reveal that investigating meaningful life events provides new insight into the factors that may be associated with changes in sexism. The results also open new avenues to advance understanding of the relationship experiences and motivations that may reinforce and reduce sexist attitudes.

目前的研究探讨了性别关系的关键事件——婚姻——是否与性别歧视的变化有关。根据一项评估 14 年来性别歧视态度的全国代表性研究，与事件相关的分段潜在增长模型检查了敌对和善意的性别歧视的变化（1）婚前几年，（2）婚后一年内，以及（3 ）在结婚后的几年中（ N = 1,615）。与先前研究中建立的平均轨迹相匹配，敌对性别歧视和女性仁慈性别歧视在结婚前几年显示出小幅下降。然而，婚后不久，男性的敌对性别歧视和女性的敌对和仁慈性别歧视较婚前水平显着增加，然后在接下来的几年里又回到下降的轨迹。相比之下，男性的仁慈性别歧视在婚前是稳定的，在婚后一年内没有变化，但随后明显偏离了婚前的轨迹，在婚后的几年里有所下降。这些新颖的发现表明，调查有意义的生活事件可以为可能与性别歧视变化相关的因素提供新的见解。研究结果还开辟了新的途径，以增进对可能加强和减少性别歧视态度的关系经历和动机的理解。