The Association Between Political Affiliation, Empathy, and Perceptions of Harmful Gender Stereotypes

Abstract

This study examined the correlational ties between toxic masculinity, toxic femininity, empathy, and political affiliation among 115 undergraduates at the East Carolina University enrolled in the PSYC 1000 research participation pool. Participants completed the Toxic Masculinity Scale (TMS), the Feminine Ideology Scale (FIS), the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ), and the Pew Research Centers Ideology Consistency Scale (PI). Analyses examined the relationship of political views with gender ideology and empathy. Overall, results revealed a strong positive correlation between TMS and conservative political ideology (r = -0.439, p < 0.001.), and revealed a strong negative correlation between FIS and political ideology (r = -0.300, p = 0.001). Unexpectedly, empathy and political affiliation had no correlation (r= -0.091, p = 0.333). This data suggested that extreme gender role ideology is strongly associated with political affiliation while empathy has no correlation to political affiliation and extreme gender ideology