The Role of Religiosity and Scriptural Interpretation on Ambivalent Sexist Attitude

The current study was initiated on the basis of previous research providing contradictory findings with regards to the relationship between religiosity and ambivalent sexism in the literature. The current study was the first experimental research on the related topic, hypothesizing that manipulation of Qur’anic verses’ interpretation (simply, by providing different interpretations of verses translated and interpreted by scholars with distinct perspectives) would influence participants’ sexism related attitudes. For that purpose, participants were allocated to three different conditions and each group was provided with a distinctive interpretation of a Qur’anic verse. The control group received an egalitarian inducing version [33:35] whereas the benevolent and hostile sexism inducing groups received different interpretations of the same verse [4:34]. It was expected that ambivalent sexism scores would vary based on what was induced. Also, parental religiosity (mother and father), participants’ religiosity and scriptural literalism were included as control variables. Findings revealed the effectiveness of the interpretation provided for the control group. Additionally, men scored higher than women for all conditions and hostile sexism for men was induced successfully however none of the sexism types were induced in women. The findings of the study are discussed in light of the literature. Keywords: Ambivalent sexism, Islam, Religiosity, Qur’anic interpretation.