161

British Journal of Social Psychology (2003), 42, 161–186

© 2003 The British Psychological Society
www.bps.org.uk

Attitudes toward group-based inequality:

Social dominance or social identity?

Michael T. Schmitt*, Nyla R. Branscombe and

Diane M. Kappen
Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, USA

In Ž ve studies we explored how the context in which people think about the social
structure and the implications of the social structure for one’s in-group affect
attitudes toward inequality. In Studies 1 and 2 we found that social dominance
orientation (SDO) scores re ect attitudes toward speciŽ c types of inequality that are
salient in context. Consistent with social identity theory, in Studies 3 to 5 we found
that SDO scores re ected the interests of speciŽ c group identities. Indeed, when we
compared existing privileged and disadvantaged groups, and when we manipulated
in-group status, we found that participants held more positive attitudes toward
inequality when the in-group was privileged, compared to when the in-group was
disadvantaged. Across all of our studies, results were consistent with the contention
that attitudes toward inequality are group-speciŽ c and depend on the social-structural
position of salient in-groups. We discuss the implications of our Ž ndings for social
dominance theory.

Group-based social inequality exists in essentially all modern societies and appears to
be rather self-sustaining (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). We investigate two factors that
affect the degree to which people accept or reject group-based inequality: the specific
form of inequality being considered, and whether that inequality places the in-group in
a disadvantaged or privileged position. We argue that attitudes toward inequality
depend on the specific inequality being considered, and arise from specific social
identities. We contrast a social identity theory perspective with that of social domi-
nance theory, which suggests that attitudes relevant to specific forms of inequality are
determined by individual differences in a general orientation toward hierarchical or
egalitarian social structures.

Social dominance orientation

Social dominance theory (SDT) builds on the perspective that cultures of structural
inequality tend to reproduce and reinforce the inequality that exists within them
by proposing a psychological mechanism through which inequality is maintained.
This mechanism, ‘social dominance orientation’ (SDO), is defined as ‘a very general

*Requests for reprints should be addressed to M. T. Schmitt, Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University,
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1364, USA.
162 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

individual differences orientation expressing the value that people place on

nonegalitarian and hierarchically structured relationships among social groups’
(Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, p. 61). Although previous work has sometimes framed this
preference for hierarchy in terms of a preference for in-group superiority, ‘current
theorizing views SDO as the more general desire for unequal relations among social
groups, regardless of whether this means in-group domination or in-group sub-
ordination’ (Sidanius, Levin, & Federico, 1998). Individuals who are high in social
dominance are hypothesized to accept ‘hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths’ which
justify social practices that enhance or sustain social inequality, while individuals low
in SDO are more likely to endorse ‘hierarchy-attenuating legitimizing myths’ and justify
social practices that reduce inequality (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, Ch. 4). In short, SDT
argues that group-based hierarchies reproduce and reinforce themselves via individuals
who have a general preference for hierarchical structures over egalitarian ones.
Research has generally supported SDT’s hypothesized correlation between SDO and
specific forms of prejudice, stereotyping, and acceptance of legitimizing myths. For
example, Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, and Malle (1994) found that SDO was positively
correlated with anti-Black racism, sexism, nationalism, cultural elitism, political-
economic conservativism, belief in meritocracy, pro-military attitudes, and favouring
punitive legal policies. SDO was negatively correlated with favouring civil-rights
policies, social welfare, environmentalism, and noblesse oblige. The empirical fact that
SDO scores correlate with a wide variety of inequality-relevant beliefs and attitudes has
been interpreted as evidence that SDO is a very general psychological variable that
determines attitudes toward inequality in all of its specific instantiations. However,
because individual difference research of this sort is necessarily correlational, it is
difficult to determine the extent to which SDO actually exerts a causal influence over
more specific attitudes and beliefs.

Social identity theory and attitudes toward inequality

Social identity theory (SIT; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) assumes that attitudes are shaped by
individuals’ memberships in social groups and the structural context in which those
groups are situated. When people think of themselves in terms their membership in a
social group, they are motivated to protect the identity of that group relative to other
groups, especially when status boundaries between groups are rigid, and status differ-
ences between groups are contestable (Tajfel, 1978a). Thus, applying a social identity
perspective, we predict that the position of one’s in-group in the social structure is an
important influence on attitudes toward inequality (see also Oakes, Haslam, & Turner,
1994). For privileged groups, equality is inconsistent with the maintenance of a
positive group identity because it represents a decrease in status and power. Hierarchy-
enhancing legitimizing myths protect the identity of privileged groups because they
suggest that the in-group’s high status is deserved. For disadvantaged groups, however,
equality and the legitimizing myths that support it are consistent with the maintenance
of a positive group identity because equality represents an increase in status and
power. In addition, the power held by a privileged out-group is not likely to be trusted
to serve the interests of a disadvantaged in-group. Therefore, to protect their group’s
status and identity, privileged groups should like inequality more than disadvantaged
groups do. Furthermore, because in-group members are assumed to share common
interests, goals and values, power held by the in-group can be trusted to be used in
ways that are perceived as just, responsible, and in the in-group’s interests (Haslam,
 Attitudes toward inequality 163

2001, Ch. 8). Thus, privileged groups should feel more comfortable with inequality
because it provides the in-group with power, while disadvantaged groups should feel
less comfortable with inequality because it provides power to the out-group at the
expense of the in-group.
A related theoretical perspective, self-categorization theory (SCT; Turner, Hogg,
Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), leads us to predict that attitudes toward inequality
should be group and context specific (Oakes et al., 1994; Reicher & Hopkins, 1996).
People belong to many different groups, making many different kinds of intergroup
categorization possible. Because inequality exists based on a wide variety of social
categorizations, how people feel about inequality is likely to depend on how they are
categorizing the social environment (Reynolds, Turner, Haslam, & Ryan, 2001).
Whether individuals consider themselves to be privileged or disadvantaged is funda-
mentally dependent on how they categorize the social environment. For example, an
African-American man might consider himself a member of a privileged group when
categorizing the social context in terms of gender, but consider himself a member of a
disadvantaged group when categorizing in terms of race. Therefore, attitudes toward
inequality will depend on what kind of intergroup comparisons are relevant or salient.
Furthermore, attitudes toward inequality depend on both the particular categorization
it relates to (gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc.) and the direction of the
inequality (i.e., is the in-group or out-group favoured?).
Social dominance theorists do not dispute that privileged groups are likely to be
more supportive of inequality than disadvantaged groups (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). In
fact, there is considerable evidence that privileged and disadvantaged social groups
score differently on measures of SDO, and that the size of this difference is related to
the differential positions these groups occupy in the social structure (see Sidanius &
Pratto, 1999, pp. 77–81, 269, Fig. 10.2). However, a social identity approach differs
from SDT in the theoretical importance it assigns to individuals’ general orientation
toward inequality. SDT suggests that in-group status directly affects an individual’s
general social dominance orientation (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, p. 40), and that SDO, in
turn, affects acceptance or rejection of more specific forms of inequality. A social
identity approach, however, would suggest that SDO differences between privileged
and disadvantaged groups can be accounted for by group differences in attitudes
toward the specific inequality that exists between them. For example, the consistent
finding that men prefer inequality more than women do might be the result of women
being less favourable toward existing gender inequality than men are. Similarly, differ-
ences in attitudes toward inequality between Whites and ethnic minorities might be
due to Whites being more favourable toward ‘pro-White’ racism than are minorities.
However, contexts in which individuals are led to consider forms of inequality in the
opposite direction than that which exists currently (e.g. women having more than
men) might result in disadvantaged groups reporting more positive attitudes toward
inequality than privileged groups. For example, women should feel more positively
than men toward inequality that privileges women and disadvantages men.
In our view, how people orient themselves toward inequality will be a function of
what social categorizations come to mind when ‘general’ attitudes toward inequality
are assessed. For instance, if participants think mostly in terms of race when filling out
a measure of attitudes toward inequality, their scores on the measure should, for the
most part, reflect attitudes toward racial inequality. A number of perspectives suggest
that attitudes are constructed ‘on the fly’ as a function of context, rather than existing
as pre-stored attitude orientations (Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Millar & Tesser, 1992;
164 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

Schwarz & Sudman, 1996; Wilson & Hodges, 1992). We argue that SDO scores reflect
how people feel about the specific forms of inequality that are salient while they are
filling out the measure. Recent work by Levin (1996, cited in Sidanius & Pratto, 1999)
supports this view. In the context of thinking about different groups of Jewish Israelis,
high status Jewish Israelis were more positively oriented toward inequality than lower
status Jewish Israelis. However, when thinking about Israeli–Palestinian relations,
these different Jewish Israeli groups did not differ in attitudes toward inequality.
Furthermore, cross-cultural research has revealed that SDO predicts those beliefs that
are particularly relevant to the inequality that exists within one’s own society (Pratto
et al., 1994, 2000). In that sense, empirically SDO is not a general orientation toward
inequality because it only correlates with the acceptance or legitimization of the
specific forms of inequality that are relevant to the context in which the SDO measure
is completed.
SDT accounts for the context specificity of the correlates of SDO by arguing that
SDO affects attitudes relevant to the particular forms of inequality that exist in a given
social context. As Sidanius and Pratto (1999) write, ‘the groups most likely to be the
targets of social dominance drives will be those groups that are the most salient and
that define the sharpest power differential within any given society at any given time’
(p. 61). Thus, SDT explains the context specificity of SDO by retaining the idea that
the general attitude orientation precedes attitudes toward inequality in its specific
forms. In that sense, SDT places theoretical weight on individual differences in a
pre-existing orientation toward inequality as a determinant of how individuals respond
to inequality in specific social contexts. However, our approach derived from social
identity theory emphasizes the reverse causal direction. We argue that ‘general’ atti-
tudes toward inequality are constructed in context based on salient attitudes toward
more specific forms of inequality. Thus, in contrast to SDT, we place greater theoreti-
cal weight on how the social context shapes attitudes toward inequality by making
particular forms of inequality salient, and through the emergence of specific social
identity concerns.

Gender and attitudes toward inequality

Although SDT assumes that group status is one determinant of SDO, it rejects this
explanation for why women and men differ in SDO. Instead, SDT explains the consist-
ent finding that men are higher in SDO than women in terms of essentialistic differ-
ences between women and men that emerged in the course of human evolution. Thus,
the theory argues that women and men evolved to be differentially predisposed to
social dominance, with men being higher in SDO than women (Sidanius & Pratto,
1999, Ch. 10). According to SDT, being oriented toward social dominance increases
the chances of reproductive success for men, but not for women. This perspective led
to the ‘invariance hypothesis’, which suggests that the size of gender differences in
SDO would be insensitive to contextual variations in differential status (Sidanius, Levin,
Liu, & Pratto, 2000).
From a social identity perspective we argue that for women and men, as well as
other social groups differing in their structural position, group differences in SDO can
be accounted for by the differential implications that inequality has for members of
privileged and disadvantaged groups. Thus, group differences in SDO are due to group
differences in the attitudes toward the specific forms of inequality that exist between
 Attitudes toward inequality 165

those groups. Specifically, we argue that women express lower levels of SDO than men
simply because gender inequality represents disadvantage for women, but privilege for
men.

Overview of the current research

Social dominance theory suggests that SDO is a general attitude orientation that causes
individuals to accept specific forms of inequality and the ideologies that justify them.
Because we assume that attitudes toward inequality are fundamentally specific to
context, we expect that individuals completing an SDO measure instantiate inequality
in terms of specific forms of inequality. Furthermore, we predicted that the relation-
ship between SDO and attitudes relevant to specific forms of inequality depends on
those specific forms of inequality being salient when participants complete measures
of SDO. In Studies 1 and 2, we test the hypothesis that SDO scores reflect attitudes
toward specific, salient forms of inequality.
Because a social identity approach suggests that attitudes toward inequality depend
on the structural position of salient in-groups, we directly manipulated the perceived
status of an in-group and measured its effect of SDO in Study 3. In Study 4 we tested
our prediction that attitudes toward inequality differ between privileged and dis-
advantaged groups because of group differences in attitudes relevant to the specific
inequality existing between them. We examined the extent to which gender differ-
ences in sexism mediated the gender difference in SDO, and the extent to which
racial group differences in racism mediated racial group differences in SDO. We also
tested SDT’s prediction that SDO mediates the effect of group status and gender on
endorsement of hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths (i.e. racism and sexism).
SDT assumes that gender differences in SDO are inherent and invariant across
contexts. In contrast, we suggest that men express higher SDO than women because
men feel more positively about patriarchy than women do. Thus, in Study 5, we asked
participants to report how comfortable they were with gender inequality in two
different contexts—when considering inequality favouring men over women, and
when considering inequality favouring women over men. We predicted that women
would be more positive toward inequality favouring women than would men. We
also examined attitudes toward four other types of inequality, also in both possible
directions. We predicted that the effect of gender would be specific to the inequality
relevant to that social identity (i.e. gender inequality). We also measured SDO to
examine SDT’s prediction that attitudes toward specific forms of inequality would be a
function of individual differences in SDO.

STUDY 1
Previous research has found that SDO scores are correlated with attitudes and beliefs
relevant to a number of specific forms of inequality. We suggest that when participants
complete measures of SDO, specific forms of inequality come to mind and influence
the meaning of the SDO measure. Thus, we asked participants to complete a measure
of SDO and then a series of questions about what groups they thought about while
filling out the measure. In addition, participants had previously completed a measure
of racism, allowing us to investigate to what extent the relationship between SDO and
racism was dependent on participants thinking about race while completing the SDO
166 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

measure. We predicted that the relationship between SDO and racism would be
dependent on the extent to which participants thought about race while completing
the SDO measure, with stronger associations between racism and SDO being found the
more that participants thought about race.

Method
In a pre-testing session, White undergraduates at the University of Kansas (51 women
and 51 men; M =18.94 years of age) completed an 8-item measure of modern racism
(a =.87; McConahay, 1986). In a second session that took place approximately 8 weeks
later, participants first completed a measure of SDO. We measured SDO with a 10-item
scale (a =.91) based on a factor analysis of 40 non-redundant items which have been
used to measure SDO in prior research (Pratto et al., 1994; Sidanius & Pratto, 1993;
Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo, 1996; Sidanius, Pratto, & Rabinowitz, 1994; Pratto, Sidanius,
Stallworth, & Malle, 1994) and seven new items we based on published definitions of
SDO. Because previous SDO research has used many different measures, we conducted
this factor analysis to extract a common core of items. The 10-item scale we employed
is shown in the Appendix. In a separate sample of college students (N= 106), we found
that this measure was highly correlated with the 16-item version of the SDO scale,
r=.89, p< .001. For both the racism and SDO measures, participants responded to each
item on a 1 to 7 (strongly disagree to strongly agree) response scale.
On the following page of the questionnaire booklet, we asked participants if they
thought about any specific social groups while filling out the SDO measure, and if so,
to list those groups. On the last page of the questionnaire, participants were presented
with a list of 10 social groups for which they were asked to indicate the percentage of
the time they thought about each group while filling out the SDO measure by circling a
number on an 11-point scale (0%–100%, in 10% increments). The order of the groups
in this list was randomized in four different versions of the questionnaire. Participants
then ranked the groups listed in terms of how much they thought about each group
while filling out the measure of SDO.

Results
Thinking about groups
Two coders classified participants’ responses to the open-ended questions and agreed
93% of the time. The coders settled coding disparities after discussion. Responses to
the question ‘What, if any, specific social groups did you think about while filling out
the questionnaire?’ are listed in Table 1, and results for the percentage and ranking
measures are shown in Table 2. On all three of these measures, race was clearly the
most thought-about social categorization.
Pre-test racism scores were uncorrelated with the amount of time participants spent
thinking about race while filling out the measure, r(99) =.12, ns. Thus, at least in the
case of race, the salience of the type of group while filling out the measure was not a
simple reflection of the level of prejudice toward the group.

Effect of time spent thinking about race

To examine how differences in time spent thinking about race while filling out the
SDO measure affected the relationship between racism and SDO, we conducted a
 Attitudes toward inequality 167

Table 1. Study 1: Percentage of participants who reported thinking about each social group while
Ž lling out the SDO measure

Social group Per cent mentioned

Race 58
Social class 35
Nations 21
Gender 20
Political 11
Religious 10
Criminals 9
Sexual orientation 8
Hate groups 6
Occupational 6
Personal cliques 6
Age 5
Cultural 5
Disabled 3
Other 7

Table 2. Study 1: Mean and median percentage of the time spent thinking about different social
groups while Ž lling out the social dominance measure

Percentage Ranking
Type of group Mean Median Mean Median

Race 72.08 80 2.01 1

Other nations 51.58 50 3.66 3
Occupations 41.39 50 4.41 4
Gender 35.94 30 4.28 4
Political 27.92 20 5.32 5
Religious 20.00 0 5.48 6
Sexual orientation 15.15 0 6.42 7
Age 13.66 0 5.89 6
Universities 4.46 0 8.17 9
Greek organizations 3.07 0 8.85 10

hierarchical regression analysis. We first regressed only the main effects of pre-test
racism scores and percentage of time thinking about race onto SDO. In this model,
only pre-test racism was a significant predictor of SDO, such that higher racism scores
predicted higher SDO, t(98) =5.79, p<.001. We next added the interaction between
racism and time spent thinking about race into the regression equation, and found that
this significantly increased the amount of variance in SDO accounted for, DR2= .09,
F(1,97) =13.05, p< .001. With the interaction term included in the model, pre-test
racism no longer reliably predicted SDO, t(97) =1.37, p=.18. Time thinking about
race was a significant predictor of SDO, t(97) = 3.36, p<.001. As predicted, however,
168 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

Figure 1. Study 1: The effect of thinking about race and pre-test racism on SDO scores. Estimated
SDO scores are plotted at one standard deviation above and below the mean of racism (M=2.99,
SD =1.16) and time spent thinking about race (M =72, SD=28).

pre-test racism scores and the amount of time spent thinking about race significantly
interacted to predict SDO scores, t(97) =3.61, p<.001. As shown in Fig. 1, the more
that participants thought about race while filling out the SDO measure, the better
racism predicted SDO. Among participants who thought about race relatively little,
racism was not related to SDO. However, among those who thought about race more
of the time, racism and SDO were highly related. In an additional analysis, we found a
similar interaction between pre-test racism and thinking about race when we divided
participants into those who, when asked to report what groups they thought about
while filling out the SDO scale, mentioned thinking about race and those who did not,
t(97) = 3.96, p<.001.

Discussion
The results of this study strongly support the idea that people have specific groups in
mind when they report their attitudes toward inequality. Race was clearly the most
salient social categorization to come to mind for our participants. We found that the
relationship between racism and SDO was fundamentally dependent on participants
thinking specifically about race while completing the SDO measure. The less that
participants thought about race while completing the SDO measure, the weaker the
relationship between SDO and racism. Said another way, high and low racists only
differed in SDO if they thought about race while completing the SDO measure. The
fact that the relationship between racism and SDO was dependent on participants
 Attitudes toward inequality 169

thinking about race while completing the SDO scale is clearly problematic for SDT.
Previous research on SDO has found relatively high correlations between SDO and
racism, compared to SDO’s correlations with other specific attitudes (Pratto et al.,
1994, Table 7). This frequently observed correlation might simply be due to the
salience of race affecting how people complete the ‘general’ SDO measure, and not
due to SDO affecting racism. Although SDT does predict that SDO will have the
strongest effect on attitudes specific to the types of inequality that are most salient in a
given context, such a prediction cannot explain our results. Racial inequality was likely
to be salient in the minds of all participants when completing the measure of racism,
and thus SDT should expect that individual differences in SDO would be correlated
with racism regardless of time spent thinking about race while filling out the SDO
measure. However, our findings suggest that SDO and racism are only correlated if race
is a salient social categorization when the SDO measure is completed.

STUDY 2
We again tested the hypothesis that the salience of different social categorizations
affects the relationship between attitudes toward specific groups and SDO, this time by
manipulating rather than measuring what groups were salient to participants at
the time they completed the SDO measure. We made race salient for half of our
participants, made gender salient for the other half, and then we measured SDO. We
hypothesized that sexism scores (from an earlier pre-test session) would best predict
SDO when gender was salient, and that racism (also from the pre-test) would be the
best predictor of SDO when race was salient.
SDT suggests that SDO determines individuals’ endorsement of all sorts of more
specific hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths. From an SDT perspective, corre-
lations between different forms of prejudice are due to different forms of prejudice
having their roots in a general orientation toward group-based inequality. Thus, we
examined the extent to which SDO could account for the association between racism
and sexism by partialling out their covariation with SDO. If both racism and sexism
are specific attitudes relevant to inequality that are determined by individuals’
general orientation toward inequality, then controlling for SDO should eliminate the
correlations between racism and sexism.

Method
Participants and measures
White undergraduates at the University of Kansas (39 men and 41 women; M= 18.6
years of age) participated in the study for credit in their introductory psychology
course. All participants had previously completed measures of old-fashioned racism
(a= .77; McConahay, 1986) and old-fashioned sexism (a= .71, Swim, Aikin, Hall, &
Hunter, 1995) in a mass-testing session at the beginning of the semester.

Group salience
Participants in the race salience condition first completed a short questionnaire that
was intended to make race salient. They were asked to indicate their race and then
answer either ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ to five questions about how they felt about belong-
ing to their racial group (e.g. ‘It feels natural to be a member of my racial group’). In
170 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

the gender salience condition participants completed the same questionnaire, except
that the word ‘gender’ was substituted for ‘race’. After completing the salience
manipulation questionnaire, students filled out the 10-item SDO scale (a =.93).

Results
SDO did not reliably differ between the two salience conditions, t(78) =1.47. Using
hierarchical regression, we assessed how pre-test sexism and racism scores differen-
tially predicted SDO in each condition. In the race salient condition, we first regressed
SDO onto racism and found that racism significantly predicted SDO, b= .32,
t(37) = 2.41, p<.05. When sexism was additionally regressed onto SDO, sexism did not
significantly predict SDO, b =.03, t(36) = 0.19, ns, and the addition of sexism to the
regression equation did not account for any additional variance in SDO scores above
that accounted for by racism alone, DR= .001, ns. In addition, even with sexism added
as another predictor of SDO, racism still predicted SDO, b =.31, t(36) =1.92, p< .05.
The results of this hierarchical analysis are consistent with our prediction that in
the race salient condition, racism would predict SDO, and that when racism was
controlled for, sexism would not significantly predict SDO.
Conversely, when we first regressed SDO onto sexism for those participants who
were in the gender salient condition, sexism significantly predicted SDO, b =.40,
t(39) = 2.44, p<.05. When racism was also regressed onto SDO, racism did not signifi-
cantly predict SDO, b =.15, t(38) =0.99, ns, and racism did not predict a significant
amount of variance in SDO beyond that accounted for by sexism alone, DR =.02, ns. In
addition, even with racism added as another predictor of SDO, sexism still predicted
SDO, b =.37, t(38) =2.15, p<.05. The results of this hierarchical analysis are consistent
with our prediction that in the gender salient condition, sexism would predict SDO,
and that when sexism was controlled for, racism would not significantly predict SDO.
We found that racism and sexism were correlated, r(79) =.35, p<.001. We therefore
examined the extent to which SDO could account for this association between racism
and sexism by partialling out their covariation with SDO. When controlling for SDO,
the partial correlation between the two forms of prejudice decreased slightly but
remained significant, r(77) = .29, p<.01. Thus, very little of the covariance between
racism and sexism could be explained by SDO.

Discussion
Replicating the findings of Study 1, we found that attitudes toward a specific group and
SDO were related only when participants were thinking of that specific group when
completing the measure of SDO. We found that when race was salient, SDO scores
reflected racism but not sexism, and when gender was salient, SDO scores reflected
sexism but not racism. These results, and those of Study 1, suggest that how people
feel about inequality is fundamentally dependent on what particular type of inequality
they have in mind. We suggest that when participants are thinking of specific groups
while completing a measure of SDO, they are essentially completing a measure of
attitudes toward inequality specific to salient social groups.
The contextual nature of the relationship between SDO and specific attitudes calls
into question SDT’s explanation for the correlation between SDO and attitudes toward
specific forms of inequality. Although SDT accepts that the relationship between SDO
 Attitudes toward inequality 171

and different specific prejudices could be dependent on context, our findings

are inconsistent with the idea that it is SDO that affects more specific beliefs and
ideologies. Because we measured racism and sexism before manipulating what
categorization was salient, and measured SDO after manipulating category salience, the
differential relationship between SDO and specific forms of prejudice observed in each
condition can only be explained in one causal direction—with the specific prejudices
affecting SDO scores. Because SDT argues that SDO is a general orientation that affects
more specific beliefs related to the social hierarchy, evidence for the reverse causal
direction challenges SDT’s explanation for the observed relationships between SDO
and more specific attitudes.

STUDY 3
In Studies 1 and 2 we found that SDO scores were affected by how participants
instantiated group-based inequality in specific ways. Based on social identity theory
(SIT), we predicted that SDO scores should vary as a function of the specific ways in
which inequality is instantiated in context, and the implications of that inequality for
the in-group. We tested this hypothesis experimentally in Study 3 by manipulating
perceptions of the in-group’s relative position in the social structure. Unlike previous
studies that compared attitudes toward inequality between existing privileged and
disadvantaged groups (e.g. men and women, Whites and racial minorities), we manipu-
lated perceptions of in-group status and then measured SDO. Our study is the first of
which we are aware to manipulate directly perceptions of the in-group’s status and
examine its effects on SDO scores. Undergraduates read that their university received
either more resources or fewer resources than other universities in the same region,
and then completed the 10-item SDO measure. Based on SIT, we predicted that those
who believed that inequality favoured their university would feel more positively
toward inequality than those who believed that inequality favoured other schools and
disadvantaged their own.

Method
Participants
Male (N=26) and female (N=39) undergraduates at the University of Kansas partici-
pated for credit in their introductory psychology course. The majority of participants
were White (N=63), and the average age was 18.68 years.

Manipulating group status

The perceived status of the University of Kansas was manipulated by presenting
participants with two different versions of a bogus questionnaire. In the privileged
condition, the questionnaire instructions read, ‘The University of Kansas receives many
benefits that other Kansas institutions do not. We are interested in knowing whether
University of Kansas students are aware of some important facts about the benefits that
our university receives. From the list of facts below, please indicate that you already
did know each fact by checking the box marked ‘‘YES’’, or that you did not know that
fact by checking the box marked ‘‘NO’’. The first few facts listed true but neutral
statements about the University (e.g. ‘The University of Kansas was established in
1865’), while the rest indicated that the University of Kansas receives more benefits
172 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

than other schools in the state and region (e.g. ‘KU receives more funding from the
state of Kansas overall than other Kansas institutions’). In the disadvantaged condition,
the instructions and list of facts stated that the University of Kansas receives fewer
benefits than other schools. On the following page in the questionnaire, participants
completed the 10–item measure of SDO (a =.91).

Results and discussion

Participants in the privileged condition (M =2.53, SD =1.22) were significantly more
positive toward inequality than were those in the disadvantaged condition (M =1.97,
SD=0.90), t(64) = 2.12, p<.05. Thus, by manipulating perceived in-group status, we
have obtained clear evidence that the social-structural position of contextually salient
in-groups influences attitudes toward inequality. As predicted, participants were
more positive toward inequality when it favoured their in-group compared with when
it disadvantaged their in-group.
Thus, SDO scores vary as a function of the in-group’s relative structural position. SIT
explains this difference in terms of how SDO scores reflect attitudes toward the
specific forms of inequality relevant to the social categorizations that are active
in context. In contrast, SDT suggests that group status has a direct effect on
individuals’ general orientation toward inequality, and that this general orientation, in
turn, affects more specific beliefs. We examined these competing explanations
in Study 4.

STUDY 4
Studies 1 and 2 suggest that attitudes toward specific forms of inequality affect how
people complete measures of SDO. Thus, based on SIT, we suggest that group differ-
ences in SDO scores may stem from group differences in attitudes relevant to the
particular forms of inequality affecting those groups. We tested this hypothesis by
examining how well racism and sexism mediate racial and gender group differences in
social dominance orientation scores. We hypothesized that gender group differences
in sexism would mediate gender differences in SDO. Similarly, we hypothesized that
racial group differences in racism would mediate racial group differences in SDO.
In addition, we tested predictions derived from social dominance theory. SDT
predicts that group status affects SDO, with higher status groups being higher in SDO.
In addition, SDT predicts legitimizing myths such as racism and sexism result from
SDO. Thus, SDT predicts that men and Whites should endorse sexism and racism
(hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths) more than women and ethnic minority
groups, and that this effect should be mediated by SDO (see Sidanius & Pratto, 1999,
p. 40).

Method
Participants
Undergraduates (N=605) at the University of Kansas participated in a large question-
naire session for credit in an introductory psychology class. Of the sample 90% were
 Attitudes toward inequality 173

White, 48% identified themselves as male and 52% as female. Ages ranged from 17 to
45 years (M= 18.7).

Measures
Participants completed the 10-item SDO measure (a =.87), a 13-item measure of
sexism, consisting of items tapping old-fashioned and modern sexism (a= .79; Swim
et al., 1995), and a 13-item measure of racism, consisting of items tapping both
old-fashioned and modern racism (a =.88; McConahay, 1986). Participants responded
to each item on a 1 to 7 (strongly disagree to strongly agree) Likert scale.

Results
Gender and race effects
Replicating previous findings, men (M =2.91, SD=1.15) were significantly more pro-
inequality than women (M=2.37, SD=0.96), F(1, 601) = 27.05, p<.001. Whites
(M =2.66, SD= 1.08) were more pro-inequality than other racial groups (M=2.23,
SD =1.06), F(1, 601) =12.83, p<.001.
Next we tested the hypothesis that the observed group differences in SDO are
mediated by group differences in attitudes specific to the inequality that exists
between those groups, following the method described by Baron and Kenny (1986).
The regression models testing for mediation are presented in Fig. 2. First we assessed
whether the relationship between gender and SDO was mediated by sexism (Fig. 2a).
As we predicted, sexism mediated the effect of gender group membership on SDO,
reducing the direct effect of gender on SDO to a statistically non-significant level.
Examining racism as a potential mediator of gender group effects on SDO (Fig. 2b), we
found that racism only partially mediated the effect of gender on SDO, and gender still
reliably predicted SDO even when controlling for racism. Thus, attitudes relevant to
gender inequality could better account for gender differences in SDO than could
attitudes relevant to racial inequality. Turning to the race differences in SDO, we found
that the effect of race on SDO was partially mediated by racism (Fig. 2). However,
sexism did not mediate the effect of race on SDO (Fig. 2). Therefore, attitudes relevant
to racial inequality mediated the relationship between race and attitudes toward
inequality, but attitudes relevant to gender inequality did not.
As shown in Fig. 3, we next tested SDT’s prediction that SDO mediates the effect of
gender and race on legitimizing myths (i.e. racism and sexism). We first examined
whether SDO mediated gender differences in sexism and racism (Fig. 3a and b). SDO
partially mediated the effect of gender on sexism and racism, but in neither case did
SDO reduce the effect of gender on sexism or racism to non-significance. We next
examined whether SDO mediated racial differences in racism and sexism. In support of
SDT, SDO totally mediated the effect of race on racism (Fig. 3d). However, SDO did not
mediate the effect of race on sexism, as the first requirement for mediation—a signifi-
cant effect of race on sexism—was not met (Fig. 3c). Thus, these analyses offered only
limited support for SDT’s hypothesis that gender group differences in endorsement of
legitimizing myths are driven by SDO.
We next tested SDT’s assumption that different forms of hierarchy-legitimizing
myths have shared roots in a general orientation toward group-based inequality.
Racism and sexism were correlated, r(604) =.58, p< .001. We examined the extent to
which SDO could account for the association between racism and sexism by partialling
174 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

Figure 2. Study 4: Tests of sexism and racism as mediators of the effect of sex and race on SDO.
Path weights are standardized. The path weights in parentheses do not control for the effect of the
mediator. *p<.05.

out their covariation with SDO. As in Study 2, when controlling for SDO the partial
correlation between the two forms of prejudice decreased somewhat but remained
significant, r(602) =.41, p<.001.

Discussion
The results of Study 4 are consistent with the hypothesis that group differences in
specific group-relevant attitudes (i.e. toward gender and racial groups) mediate the
relationship between group membership and attitudes toward inequality. Specific
attitudes were most successful in reducing group differences in SDO when they were
relevant to the inequality that exists between the groups being compared. We found
 Attitudes toward inequality 175

Figure 3. Study 4: Tests of SDO as a mediator of the effect of sex and race on sexism and racism.
Path weights are standardized. The path weights in parentheses do not control for the effect of the
mediator. *p <.05.

limited support for SDT’s prediction that group membership affects individuals’ gen-
eral orientation toward inequality, which in turn affects endorsement of legitimizing
myths. SDO did mediate the effect of group membership on legitimizing ideologies in
the case of racial group differences in racism. However, SDO only partially mediated
the effect of gender on sexism and racism—in neither case did controlling for SDO
reduce the effect of gender to non-significance. Furthermore, despite the fact that
Whites were higher in SDO than other racial groups, this racial group difference in
SDO did not generalize to racial group differences in sexism. Thus, although we cannot
draw definitive causal inferences because of the correlational nature of these data, the
causal hypotheses we derived from SIT generally received more support than those
specified by SDT. The observed group differences appear to result from the different
176 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

implications that inequality has for specific social identities, rather than resulting from
a general orientation. While SDO was correlated with racism and sexism, it was rather
unsuccessful in explaining group differences in these two forms of prejudice.

STUDY 5
In Study 1 we found that our sample tended to think about inequality in terms of
inequalities that actually exist in society (e.g. racial inequality, gender inequality).
When people think about inequality, they are generally likely to think about inequality
in the direction that currently exists in their social context. For example, when think-
ing about racial inequality, Americans are likely to think of pro-White inequality rather
than inequality that favours other racial groups over Whites. Because Studies 1 and 2
made it clear that the type of inequality thought about affects reported attitudes
toward inequality, we hypothesized that the correlation between SDO and attitudes
toward specific forms of inequality would be reduced when participants first thought
of inequality in both possible directions. Thus, we asked participants to report their
level of comfort with specific types and directions of inequality before they completed
the SDO measure. For instance, participants reported how comfortable they were
with inequality favouring White Americans and with inequality that favours Black
Americans. We then examined the correlations between SDO and attitudes toward the
specific types and directions of inequality. We expected that reminding participants of
inequality of various forms in both possible directions would greatly reduce SDO’s
power to predict attitudes toward specific forms of inequality.
SDT suggests that people should be more comfortable with inequality that currently
exists in society than inequality in the reverse direction because inequality as it exists is
likely to be justified by hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999,
Ch. 4). Furthermore, SDT suggests that the higher individuals are in SDO, the more they
should accept inequality as it exists compared to the reverse. However, a social identity
approach leads us to predict that one’s social identity is likely to affect comfort with
inequality relevant to that particular identity—people are likely to be more comfortable
with inequality favouring the in-group rather than the reverse. For four of the types of
inequality that we asked participants to consider, the direction of inequality that favours
the in-group is also the direction of inequality that actually exists in society (e.g. pro-
White inequality that is a reality and it also favours the racial in-group of our White
participants). However, this is not the case for gender inequality. Because our sample
contained roughly equal numbers of men and women, the direction of inequality that
favours the gender in-group is orthogonal to the direction that actually exists in society.
For this reason, we anticipated that participant gender would interact with the type and
direction of inequality that we asked participants to consider. We expected that women
and men would both be more favourable toward gender inequality that favours the
in-group, with women being more comfortable with inequality favouring women than
inequality favouring men, and men being more comfortable with inequality favouring
men than inequality favouring women. However, we did not expect that gender would
affect comfort with the other forms of inequality.
According to SDT, however, men should be more pro-inequality than women,
especially with regard to inequality in the direction in which it actually exists. Because
men are assumed to be inherently higher in SDO than women, men should be more
likely to adopt hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths, and therefore be more comfort-
able with existing inequalities. Furthermore, because SDT assumes that women and
 Attitudes toward inequality 177

Table 3. Study 5: Degree of comfort with different types and directions of inequality

Type and direction of inequality Comfort Effect of direction

Kansas University has more than Kansas State 6.72 (2.40)

Kansas State has more than Kansas University 5.85 (2.35) t(70)=2.34, p<.05

Men have more than women 4.94 (2.59)

Women have more than men 4.85 (2.51) t(70)=0.27, p=.40

College graduates have more than H.S. graduates 6.70 (2.58)

H.S. graduates have more than college graduates 4.39 (2.93) t(70)=4.49, p<.001

White Americans have more than Black Americans 4.62 (2.77)

Black Americans have more than White Americans 4.18 (2.61) t(70)=1.61, p<.06a

Heterosexuals have more than homosexuals 5.73 (2.87)

Homosexuals have more than heterosexuals 4.37 (2.59) t(70)=3.19, p<.01

Note. a When examining the data for only White participants, the effect of direction on comfort with
racial inequality was signiŽ cant, t(59)=1.77, p<.05.
Scale ranges from 1 to 9, with higher numbers indicating greater comfort with that form of
inequality. Tests for the effect of direction are one-tailed.

men differ in their general orientation toward hierarchy, the theory suggests that the
effect of gender should not be limited to gender inequality.

Method
Male (N =35) and female (N =36) students at the University of Kansas participated in
exchange for extra credit in an introductory psychology course. The majority of the
sample was White (N=60), and the average age was 19.66 years. On the first page of
the questionnaire, participants reported their level of comfort with the 10 different
forms of inequality listed in Table 3. Five different intergroup comparisons were
presented and both possible directions of inequality were specified for each. For
example, participants reported their level of comfort with ‘men having more power
and resources than women’, as well as their comfort with ‘women having more power
and resources than men’. Participants responded to each type of inequality on a 1 to 9
(extremely uncomfortable to not uncomfortable) scale. On the next page, participants
completed the 10-item SDO measure using a 1 to 7 (strongly disagree to strongly agree)
scale (a=.88).

Results
We analysed the comfort with inequality items with a 2×2 ×2× 5 mixed model ANOVA,
with participant gender and SDO as between-participants variables. High and low SDO
groups were created using a median split (median=2.45). One of the within-
participants manipulations was the type of inequality (e.g. racial, gender, etc.). The
178 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

second within-participants manipulation was the direction of inequality—whether the

inequality considered was in a historically accurate or inaccurate direction.

Effects of type and direction of inequality

Comfort with inequality varied depending on the groups between which the inequality
was specified, F(4, 268) =17.43, p<.001, and the direction of inequality, F(1,
67) =17.94, p<.001. However, these main effects were qualified by an interaction
between type of inequality and the direction of inequality, F(4, 268) =6.22, p< .001. As
shown in Table 3, participants were more comfortable with inequality in the direction
in which it actually exists. The one obvious exception to this pattern occurred for
gender inequality, for which there was no effect of direction.

Effects of SDO
SDO did not have a significant main effect on comfort with inequality, F(1, 67) =0.20,
p=.66, and SDO was not involved in any reliable interactions with the other variables
in the model. Thus, no support was found for SDT’s prediction that participants high in
SDO would be more comfortable with inequality than those low in SDO. Nor did we
obtain any support for SDT’s prediction that SDO would interact with direction of
inequality, such that participants high in SDO would favour inequality as it exists
relative to the inequality in the reverse direction more than would those low in SDO.

Gender effects
In contrast to SDT predictions, participant gender did not have a reliable main effect
on comfort with inequality, F(1,67) <0.01, p=.96. However, gender did tend to qualify
the effect of the direction of inequality, F(1,67) =7.32, p< .07. In addition, we found a
reliable three-way interaction between gender, type of inequality, and direction of
inequality, F(4, 268) = 3.91, p< .01. Because we expected that participant gender would
interact with the direction of inequality specifically in the case of inequality between
women and men, we conducted a mixed-model ANOVA as described above, but
eliminated the items concerning gender inequality. After removing the items relevant
to gender inequality, participant gender no longer reliably interacted with any of the
other variables in the analysis, nor did it exert a main effect on comfort with inequality,
F(1, 67)= 0.07, p=.80. However, when looking specifically at the items relevant to
gender inequality, participant gender reliably interacted with the direction of inequal-
ity, F(1, 67)=24.53, p<.001. The main effects of participant gender and direction of
inequality (favouring men vs. favouring women) were not significant. As shown in Fig.
4, women (M= 5.47) were more comfortable with inequality favouring women than
men (M= 4.03) were, t(69) =2.20, p< .05. Women (M =4.20) were less comfortable
with inequality favouring men than men (M= 5.89) were, t(69) = 3.22, p<.01. In con-
trast to previous findings, after thinking about gender inequality in both possible
directions, women and men did not differ in their SDO scores, t(69) =0.50, p=.62.

Correlational analyses
Interestingly, none of the 10 individual inequality items were significantly correlated
with the SDO measure. In fact, the average correlation between SDO and the specific
forms of inequality was virtually zero, average r= ­ .01. When we regressed SDO on all
10 inequality items simultaneously, not a single item was predictive of SDO, and the
 Attitudes toward inequality 179

Figure 4. Study 5: Effects of the direction of gender inequality and participant gender on comfort
with inequality. Scale ranges from 1–9.

overall regression model was not significant, F(10, 60)=0.68, p= .74. SDO was
also uncorrelated with the average comfort with inequality in the direction it
actually exists, r(70) =.11, p=.36, and with average comfort with inequality in the
opposite direction, r(70) = ­ .13, p=.28. However, many of the individual comfort with
inequality items were correlated with each other. To assess how well SDO could
account for the shared variance among these items, we compared the correlations
between these items with their partial correlations, controlling for SDO. Among the
items assessing comfort with inequality in the reality-based direction, the average
correlation (.31) was the same as the average partial correlation controlling for SDO
(.31). Similarly, among the items assessing comfort with inequality in the direction
opposite to reality, the average correlation (.47) was identical to the average partial
correlation controlling for SDO (.47). In sum, SDO was uncorrelated with comfort with
inequality, and could not account for the covariation among the individual comfort
with inequality items.

Discussion
Contrary to SDT, SDO did not influence participants’ expressed comfort with
inequality. Furthermore, SDO could not account for the relative comfort with
inequality in the direction it exists compared with inequality in the reverse direction.
Nor could SDO account for the observed covariation among the individual comfort
with inequality items. Thus, in this study, SDO scores had very little explanatory value.
180 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

These findings are quite inconsistent with previous work finding that SDO is correlated
with a variety of attitudes and beliefs relevant to group-based inequality. In most
circumstances, participants completing SDO measures are likely to think about
inequality in the forms and directions that actually exist in society, and thus it is not
surprising that SDO scores correlate with beliefs relevant to those forms of inequality.
We suggest that because we asked participants to consider different forms of inequality
in both possible directions, we fundamentally altered the meaning of inequality and
the meaning of the SDO scale. Thus, these data suggest that attitudes toward inequality
are not generic, but depend on the specific type and direction of inequality being
considered.
Contrary to previous findings and SDT predictions, men and women did not differ in
SDO after having first considered gender inequality in both directions. Women and
men also did not differ in their overall comfort with specific forms of inequality.
However, men and women did differ in attitudes toward gender inequality, with both
groups feeling more comfortable with inequality when it benefited their own gender
group. In fact, women displayed a greater preference for inequality compared to men
when that inequality favoured women. SDT’s ‘invariance hypothesis’ argues that
women and men differ in terms of SDO, and that this difference is not sensitive to the
context. Thus, SDT predicts that men will be more favourable toward inequality than
women regardless of the context (Sidanius et al., 2000). While we found that men
were more comfortable with patriarchy than women, when participants considered
inequality that favours women, we observed a complete reversal, with women being
more favourable toward inequality than men. Importantly, as predicted by SIT, the
effect of participant gender was specific to gender inequality. When considering other
forms of inequality, gender did not exert a main effect or interact with the type or
direction of the inequality. Thus, the effect of participant gender was specific to the
inequality relevant to that social identity.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Generality and speciŽ city

Our data suggest that how people orient themselves towards inequality results from
specific attitudes and beliefs about specific forms of inequality that are salient in
context. In Study 1, SDO was only related to racial attitudes when participants actually
had race in mind while completing the SDO measure. Similarly, when we manipulated
the salience of different social categorizations in Study 2, SDO was best predicted by
the specific attitudes that were most relevant to that social categorization. These
findings suggest that rather than reporting their general orientation toward inequality,
people completing SDO measures are reporting their attitudes toward those
specific forms of inequality that come to mind while responding to an SDO measure.
Furthermore, while SDT expects the SDO’s effect on more specific attitudes to be
context specific, our findings suggest that it is actually specific attitudes affecting how
participants complete the SDO measure—the reverse of the causal direction specified
by SDT.
At best, the fact that specific groups come to mind and affect the meaning of SDO
scores represents a measurement challenge for social dominance theorists. At worst, it
suggests they may be attempting to measure a distinct psychological construct that
does not exist. Because SDO scores are affected by more specific attitudes, and
 Attitudes toward inequality 181

because many different forms of inequality may come to mind while completing
measures of SDO, scores on SDO measures become difficult to interpret. Our results
suggest that when people complete a measure of SDO they are likely to think about
those forms of inequality that exist in their society. Therefore, measuring ‘general’
attitudes toward inequality and measuring attitudes toward specific disadvantaged
groups may amount to little more than measuring the same attitudes twice. Accounting
for previously obtained correlations between SDO and a variety of specific attitudes
does not require the assumption that SDO has a causal effect on those variables.
Instead, the variety of correlations that have been observed may be due a variety of
different types of inequality being salient while participants complete SDO measures.
Thus, the evidence for SDO’s generality might be less a reflection of the reality of a
general orientation toward inequality, and more of a reflection of the general wording
of the questionnaire and the many different ways in which individuals can interpret
and instantiate the meaning of ‘group-based inequality’. In our view, SDO scores can
only truly be understood in terms of the social identities or social categorizations that
are relevant to the context in which the SDO measure is completed. Indeed, we argue
that group-based inequality has little, if any, psychological or social meaning outside of
specific social contexts.

The importance of group membership

As suggested by social identity theory, we found evidence that attitudes toward
inequality result from specific social identity concerns that arise from the position
of the in-group in the social structure. In Study 3, we manipulated the perceived
structural position of an in-group and found that participants reported higher levels
of SDO when the in-group benefited from inequality compared to when it was dis-
advantaged. Based on SIT, we interpreted this finding as evidence that attitudes toward
inequality are specific to context and dependent on the implications that inequality has
for the in-group. A SDT interpretation might suggest that individuals’ general orien-
tations toward inequality are affected by in-group status. When we tested these
competing interpretations in Study 4, we found greater support for SIT than SDT.
Limited support was found for SDT’s prediction that group differences in endorsement
of legitimizing myths could be accounted for by group differences in SDO. However, in
support of SIT we found that group differences in SDO scores could be explained by
group differences in attitudes relevant to the specific inequality that exists between
those groups. We found that gender differences in SDO were totally mediated by
sexism, but not racism, and racial group differences in SDO were partially mediated
by racism, but not at all mediated by sexism. Thus, we suggest that group differences
in SDO scores are not indicative of group differences in a general orientation toward
inequality. Instead, we argue that group differences in SDO scores are reflective
of group differences in attitudes relevant to the specific inequality existing between
those groups.

Gender and attitudes toward inequality

SDT explains gender differences in SDO in terms of differential adaptation to evolution-
ary pressures, and thus expects gender differences in SDO to be rather insensitive
to the different implications that gender inequality has for men and women as a
182 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

function of social context. Results from two of our studies are inconsistent with SDT’s
perspective on gender differences in SDO. In Study 4, we found that gender differ-
ences in SDO were totally mediated by sexism. In contrast to SDT, this finding suggests
that the gender difference in SDO is fundamentally about women’s and men’s different
positions in the social structure.
SDT predicts that gender differences in SDO will not be sensitive to the relative
positions of women and men in the social structure (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, Ch. 10).
However, when we manipulated the direction of gender inequality in Study 5 by
asking about both pro-male and pro-female inequality, we found that attitudes toward
inequality were dependent on the relative positions of women and men. When con-
sidering inequality that favours men, men felt more positively about that inequality
than women did, replicating the commonly observed gender difference in attitudes
toward inequality. However, when considering inequality that favours women, the
gender difference reversed, with women feeling more positively about that inequality
than men did. Furthermore, gender did not affect attitudes toward the other types
of inequality we examined, suggesting that gender differences in attitudes toward
inequality are not general, but specific to the inequality that exists between women
and men.
Thus, our results suggest that the relative positions of women and men in the social
structure is extremely important for men’s and women’s relative attitudes toward
inequality. When inequality favours women, women are much more likely to be
positively disposed to it than men are. In that respect, we see men’s and women’s
differing perspectives on inequality as yet another example of how privileged and
disadvantaged groups feel differently about the specific inequality existing between
them, rather than as evidence of an evolved gender difference that is insensitive to the
social-structural context.

Social dominance and contextualized identities

Our results suggest that people construct their attitudes toward inequality depending
on the specific social identity concerns that arise from the context of inter-
group relations (see also Levin, 1996). If attitudes toward group-based inequality are
dependent on taking the in-group’s perspective on structural relations, SDT’s focus on
the individual differences in SDO would seem to be misplaced. The individual differ-
ences approach taken in SDO research has been criticized for drawing attention away
from the impact of the existing social structure on intergroup relations (Billig, 1976;
Turner, 1999), and for not being able to account for the effects of social context and
social norms on prejudice (Minard, 1952), the uniformity of prejudice across groups of
people, or historical changes in prejudice (Brown, 1995). Indeed, this individual-
differences approach to attitudes toward social inequality risks being a ‘zero-variables’
theory that explains nothing at all (Wicklund, 1990). In other words, simply
finding that people who have a general orientation toward inequality generally
accept inequality does little to identify the factors that lead people to accept or reject
inequality. Empirically, we found that SDO had little explanatory power. In Study 5,
SDO could not account for any covariance between specific attitudes relevant
to inequality. Furthermore, when participants considered inequality in opposite
directions, SDO had no effect on attitudes toward a number of different forms of
inequality.
 Attitudes toward inequality 183

In our view, the most important contribution of the social dominance perspective is
its acknowledgement of the reality of structural inequality and the differential power
held by privileged and disadvantaged groups. However, by placing theoretical weight
on individual differences, SDT obscures the group-based nature of social reality and
the politics of intergroup relations. A fully developed social psychological theory of
structural inequality must take into account the differential power held by privileged
and disadvantaged groups and the different psychological issues that arise from dis-
advantaged and privileged groups interpreting and responding to the social context
from the in-group’s unique perspective. It was precisely these issues that social identity
theory was developed to address. Indeed, early SIT work considered the psychological
consequences of the relative position of the in-group in the social structure (Tajfel,
1978b), and more recent work has continued in this tradition (Branscombe, 1998;
Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999; Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998;
Ellemers, 1993).
Both disadvantaged and privileged groups construe social inequality from the
vantage point of their own group (Oakes et al., 1994), resulting in different perspec-
tives on inequality for privileged and disadvantaged groups. Because they hold the
power to define the dominant culture, privileged groups can be relatively successful at
protecting their privileged status. Furthermore, assuming that groups tend to respond
to the social context in ways that protect or enhance the in-group’s status provides
a way of understanding when disadvantaged groups will organize to resist their
devaluation and oppression (Ellemers, 1993; Reynolds, Oakes, Haslam, Nolan, &
Dolnik, 2000; Tajfel, 1978b; Veenstra & Haslam, 2000), and how privileged groups
respond to threats to their status and power (Branscombe, Ellemers, Spears, & Doosje,
1999).
Furthermore, SIT does not simply suggest that people always favour the in-group
relative to out-groups, nor does it assume that group-based inequality is inevitable.
Instead, the social identity perspective suggests that a number of factors moderate the
extent to which people act in terms of their group membership. For example, dis-
advantaged groups are more likely collectively to resist their disadvantage when they
perceive social reality to be organized along group lines, they perceive alternatives to
the status quo as plausible and legitimate, and they have enough collective power
to affect social change (Tajfel, 1978b). In addition, SIT suggests that members of
privileged groups do not always engage in discrimination against the disadvantaged,
but are more likely to do so, for example, when their privilege is insecure. Therefore,
the social identity approach assumes that responses to group-based inequality
fundamentally emerge in a dynamic context of intergroup relations. In contrast, SDT
assumes that the complex dynamics of intergroup relations and structural inequality
result from individuals’ psychological dispositions.

Conclusions
Our results support the idea that the rejection or acceptance of inequality is highly
dependent on the type and the direction of inequality being considered. We suggest
that attitudes toward inequality are fundamentally context specific, and thus, SDO
scores are reflective of attitudes toward the types of inequality that are salient when
the measure is completed. We found that the implications of inequality for one’s
in-group affect SDO scores, and that SDO scores are reflective of specific identity
concerns that arise from the social context. Both privileged and disadvantaged groups
184 Michael T. Schmitt et al.

hold attitudes toward inequality that are relatively consistent with their in-group’s
interests. We suggest that future work on attitudes toward social inequality should
focus on the specific social identity concerns that arise from how inequality is
construed in context.

Acknowledgements

We thank Monica Biernat, Wim Koomen, Tom Postmes, Steve Reicher, Russell Spears and three
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Received 20 November 2000; revised version received 22 January 2002

Appendix: Measure of social dominance orientation

1. If certain groups stayed in their place, we would have fewer problems.
2. Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.
3. Inferior groups should stay in their place.
4. Some people are just inferior to others.
5. Some groups of people are just more worthy than others.
6. It is OK with me that some groups have fewer resources than others.
7. Devaluation of some social groups is perfectly justifiable.
8. I don’t have any problems with the idea that some groups control the fate of
other groups.
9. It is OK with me that some groups have more control over public policy than
others.
10. It is OK with me that some groups are dominated by other groups.
Note. Items 1–5 have been used previously in SDO research. Items 6–10 are newly
created items.