Family and Gendered Fitness Interests Effects on Attitudes Toward Women’s Veiling, Status-Seeking and Stereotyping of Women in Pakistan

Objective: Although male relatives tend to sway people toward, and female relatives tend to sway people away from conservative political attitudes, there exist many ways in which family composition might cause these effects. Here we test several pathways whereby family might influence attitudes toward female veiling, gender stereotypes, and status-seeking in Pakistan. Methods: Research assistants administered a survey to a diverse sample of 538 adults in Karachi neighborhoods of varying socio-economic status. Within each neighborhood we selected households and available adults within households randomly. Surveys captured socio-demographic data about the participant and their household, and their opinion on family structures, culture, gender roles, religion, and female attire. Results: We find that likelihood of deriving future reproductive fitness from males increases status-seeking and stereotypes of women as warm and kind but decreases support for women having the right to choose whether to wear a veil in public. In contrast, deriving future fitness from females leads people to stereotype women as less warm but highly competent. Family effects were distinguishable from those deriving from an individual’s own sex. Conclusions: Findings suggest that the inclusive fitness people gain through relatives of each gender may be one of the factors responsible for family effects, shifting dimensions of social cognition and swaying attitudes relevant to sexual conflict.