Relationship Between Gender Essentialism and System-Justifying Beliefs: A Meta-Analysis

Gender inequality remains a significant social issue, disproportionately impacting cisgender and heterosexual women as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual plus individuals. This meta-analysis aims to investigate the relationship between gender essentialism-a belief that views gender as biologically determined and immutable-and system-justifying beliefs (SJB) that sustain and legitimize existing social order. A four-level meta-analysis of 51 studies was conducted, comprising 118 samples and 327 effect sizes, with a total of 29,252 participants (sample sizes ranging from 21 to 2,803, 40% cisgender men, mean age of 29.52 years). Results revealed a moderately strong, significant, and positive association between gender essentialism and SJB, Zr = 0.391, SE = 0.029, t(326) = 13.499, p < .0001, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.334, 0.448]. This relationship was not significantly moderated by the participant's group status (majority vs. minority) but was influenced by the type of SJB considered and the target of gender essentialism. Specifically, gender essentialist beliefs were more strongly related to justifications of gender asymmetry (e.g., sexism, heterosexism) than to general hierarchical attitudes (e.g., social dominance orientation). Additionally, this association was stronger for essentialism of marginalized individuals (e.g., transgender individuals and people with diverse gender identities) compared to relatively privileged groups (e.g., cisgender and heterosexual people). These findings suggest that gender essentialism may help both majority and minority groups to rationalize existing inequalities. This highlights the need for future research to focus on the social construction of gender to mitigate its impact on marginalized groups and reduce the reinforcement of social inequalities.