Social dominance orientation and the legitimization of inequality across cultures

The authors tested three hypotheses from social dominance theory in four cu ltures: (a) that individual differences in social dominance orientation (SD O), or the preference for group-based inequality, can be reliably measured in societies that are group-based hegemonies; (b) that SDO correlates posit ively with attitudes supporting hegemonic groups and correlates negatively with attitudes supporting oppressed groups; and (c) that men are higher on SDO than women. For the most part, the results confirmed the hypotheses. SD O scales were internally reliable and were administered in English, Chinese , and Hebrew. SDO scores correlated with sexism, measured in culturally app ropriate ways, in every culture, and with ethnic prejudice and other attitu des concerning the local hegemony except in China. Men were higher on SDO t han women in most samples. Findings are discussed in terms of ideological a nd psychological facilitators of group dominance.