Gender Essentialism, Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation, and Filial Piety as Predictors for Transprejudice in Chinese People

Although research on prejudice against gender and sexual minorities has been increasing in recent years, little attention has been paid to predictors for transprejudice and its potential culture-specific correlates in particular. This cross-sectional study addressed these gaps in the literature by exploring the relative contributions of social dominance orientation, authoritarianism, filial piety, and essentialist beliefs of gender to negative attitudes toward transgender people in 371 Chinese participants. Path analyses showed that (a) consistent with previous research, authoritarianism and social dominance orientation made independent contributions to explaining variance in transprejudice; (b) filial piety, as a culture-specific variable, was a unique predictor for transprejudice beyond the effects of authoritarianism and social dominance orientation; and (c) these relations appeared to be mediated by gender essentialism. Our findings suggest that people with higher levels of authoritarianism and social dominance orientation tend to have stronger essentialist beliefs of gender, which may in turn contribute to the development of transprejudice. It also highlights the importance of identifying culture-specific predictors (e.g., filial piety in a Chinese context) when we attempt to understand transprejudice.