WHO CONSIDERS THEMSELVES VICTIMS OF DISCRIMINATION - INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE PREDICTORS OF PERCEIVED GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN WOMEN AND MEN

We focus on the general issue of how and why individuals might decide if they have been victims of gender discrimination and how social stat us differences between women and men may change the significance of ex periencing gender discrimination. Because both self-protective and sit uational factors have been found to influence interpretation of prejud icial events, in the present study we explore several individual-diffe rence factors that might differentially predict perceived gender discr imination in women and men. We found that, for men, low self-esteem an d high personal assertiveness were related to higher ratings of person al discrimination. Low self-esteem was also related to men's perceptio ns of discrimination against men as a group. For women, high need for approval was negatively related to perceptions of personal discriminat ion whereas depression was positively related. Depression was also rel ated to higher ratings of discrimination against women, as was feminis m. We argue that perceptions of discrimination serve different purpose s for structural ly privileged and disadvantaged groups.