Counting on you: Benevolent sexism increases women’s financial risk-taking

The present research examined whether and how benevolent sexism, a subjectively positive but sexist ideology, would influence women’s financial risk-taking and we proposed that benevolent sexism would increase women’s financial risk-taking through economic dependency. Three studies converged to support our proposition. Specifically, Studies 1 and 2 (n = 387) showed that benevolent sexism was positively associated with women’s financial risk-taking; such that the more benevolent sexism women endorsed, the more financial risks they tended to take. Using an experimental design, Study 3 (n = 126) established the causal link between benevolent sexism and financial risk-taking for women, and also demonstrated the mediating effect of economic dependency. These findings highlight the role of social ideology in influencing women’s financial risk-taking. Implications were discussed.