UCLA

While there has been considerable progress in reducing social inequalities between men and women, sexism and gender discrimination continue to plague society and cause considerable harm. Given its prevalence, some may even argue that being subjected to gender-based mistreatment is a normative experience for women. While the harms of gender discrimination have been well-documented in adult populations, less is known about how gender discrimination may affect the development of adolescent girls. In this dissertation, I pursue two inter-related lines of research: one among adults in the context of the workplace, and one among adolescents in school contexts—domains in which gender discrimination may be especially likely to occur. Paper 1 seeks to help explain why women targets of gender discrimination so seldom choose to confront their perpetrators in the workplace, by proposing a novel psychological mechanism that may inhibit confronting behavior: complainer confirmation anxiety. Paper 2 explores adults’ motivated perceptions (via social dominance orientation) of stereotyping women who claim gender discrimination in the workplace as complainers. Paper 3 examines how gender discrimination by adults in school is linked with depression and sleep duration as indicators of adjustment over time in middle school, as well as how perceptions of school unfairness help to explain the relations between discrimination and adjustment. Implications for addressing gender discrimination in school and work settings are discussed.