Playing games and asking questions in a non-WEIRD sample: Adapting and testing the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory in Western Burkina Faso

A recent debate across the social sciences questions the generalizability of research findings obtained from Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) samples to the rest of humanity at large. In this paper, we aim to adapt and test the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI, Glick & Fiske, 1996), on a small, non-WEIRD sample of men in Burkina Faso. Using a within-participants experimental design we further attempt to cross-validate this adapted ASI with a behavioural measure, namely the dictator game. Generally, the adapted version of the ASI does not perform well in terms of validity and reliability. In the dictator game, women generally receive a larger proportion of the stake than men. While the allocations to male recipients are not related to participants’ levels of hostile or benevolent sexism, there is a significant negative correlation between benevolent sexism and allocations to female recipients.