Adaptation of the Modern Sexism Inventories to Portugal: The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory

The relationship between men and women is rather unique and composed by inequality and prejudice towards members of the opposite sex. Whilst hostile sexism has been well studied, modern sexism is characterized by the simultaneity of hostile and benevolent forms of prejudice, therefore conceptualized as Ambivalent Sexism. The purpose of this study was to adapt the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) and the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI) to the Portuguese population and evaluate their psychometric properties. Both inventories were administrated to 258 university students (31% male and 69% female) with a mean age of 27 years. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the multidimensionality of both inventories and provided evidence of factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity, and internal reliability. Men revealed higher levels of hostility and benevolence toward women, whereas women revealed higher levels of hostility toward men. Hostility toward men increased with age whereas benevolence decreased. Hostile and benevolent prejudice was higher in participants with less education. Religiosity was correlated with benevolent sexism. This study showed the validity and reliability of Modern Sexism Inventories in Portugal.