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Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice Toward Female Leaders
Abstract
A role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders proposes that perceived incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles leads to 2 forms of prejudice: (a) perceiving women less favorably than men as potential occupants of leadership roles and (b) evaluating behavior that fulfills the prescriptions of a leader role less favorably when it is enacted by a woman. One consequence is that attitudes are less positive toward female than male leaders and potential leaders. Other consequences are that it is more difficult for women to become leaders and to achieve success in leadership roles. Evidence from varied research paradigms substantiates that these consequences occur, especially in situations that heighten perceptions of incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles.
... To date, research on the conditions for women in political leadership positions has mainly been conducted in male-dominated contexts in which women constitute a minority (e.g., Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2009;Murray 2010;Rai and Spary 2019). Much of the research seeking to explain the gendered obstacles that women face in politics and political leadership within such contexts has been inspired by role congruity theory, which highlights how masculine leadership ideals clash with female gender roles to create role incongruity, resulting in prejudice and discrimination against women leaders (Eagly and Karau 2002). While assumptions about masculine leadership ideals likely reside on solid grounds in heavily male-dominated political contexts, the worldwide development in recent decades toward more gender-equal political representation, with an increasing percentage of women in top political leadership positions, raises new questions about the conditions for women's political leadership. ...
... These multilayered findings point to the need to empirically assess a broader range of gendered practices that affect men and women leaders' opportunities to lead on equal terms. While role congruity theory holds that masculine leadership ideals provide a key reason for negative gender biases and discrimination against women leaders in practice (Eagly and Karau 2002;Schneider, Bos, and DiFilippo 2022), a feminist institutional perspective would question the clear-cut link that has been postulated between the gendered norms of the ideal leaders and the actual (gendered) practices in a given institutional context. ...
... In the numerically gender-balanced context of the Riksdag, we find indications of a mainly feminine-coded parliamentary leadership ideal that emphasizes inclusion, the importance of listening, being interpersonally sensitive, and finding broad solutions. In line with role congruity theory, which maintains that there is a link between ideals and the evaluations of leaders (Eagly and Karau 2002), we find that men and women leaders are, in general, evaluated equally favorably. Masculine practices nevertheless appear to remain with respect to how leaders are treated. ...
Women’s access to political leadership positions has increased greatly in recent decades, which calls for research concerning the conditions of women’s political leadership in more gender-balanced contexts. This article responds to this need by exploring the leadership ideals, evaluations, and treatment of men and women leaders in the numerically gender-equal Swedish parliament (the Riksdag). Drawing on interviews with almost all the current top political leaders in the Swedish parliament, along with an original survey of Swedish members of parliament, we reveal a mainly feminine-coded parliamentary leadership ideal that should be more appropriate for women leaders. Masculine practices remain, however, and women leaders continue to be disadvantaged. To explain this anomaly between ideals and practices, we argue that a feminist institutionalist perspective, which emphasizes how gender shapes a given context in multiple ways, contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the conditions for women’s political leadership than that provided by the widely employed role congruity theory.
... We introduce the original argument that the oversight style of men and women is substantially different, with women asking more questions than men when in opposition and less questions than men when in government. Building on research from Social Psychology, we propose that this gendered behaviour originates in different behavioural expectations (Eagly and Karau, 2002;Heilman and Okimoto, 2007;Rudman et al., 2012) as well as different levels of risk aversity between women and men (Jianakoplos and Bernasek, 1998;Ertac and Gurdal, 2012;Nelson, 2015). For elected representatives, any action that threatens their re-election is risky including those that threaten the support of their party for re-nomination (Hix, 2002). ...
... In other words, women belonging to governing parties are less likely to use oversight instruments, while women belonging to opposition parties are more likely to use oversight instruments in comparison to their men colleagues. We ground these expectations in social role theory (Eagly and Karau, 2002) as well as in women's higher reluctance to engage in any action that might risk their re-nomination. ...
... First, if parties perceive deviation from the role of a defiant opposition or obedient government member, this is likely to be costlier for women than men MPs. This argument builds on social role theory (Eagly and Karau, 2002) which predicts that individuals hold subconscious beliefs about the traits and behaviour of the two genders that follow from stereotypes. Women are usually ascribed communal characteristics, e.g., being concerned with the welfare of others or displaying high levels of affection, helpfulness and interpersonal sensitivity. ...
This article is the first to show that gender shapes the degree to which legislators use formal mechanisms to oversee government activities. Extensive scholarly work has analysed the use of oversight instruments, especially regarding who monitors whom. Whether, how, and why the conformity of men and women with institutional roles differs, has not yet received scholarly attention. We hypothesise that women become more active than men in overseeing the executive when in opposition while reducing their monitoring activities even more strongly than men when in government because of different social roles ascribed to men and women as well as differences in risk aversity between sexes. We analyse panel data for three oversight tools from the German Bundestag between 1949 and 2013 to test this proposition. Our findings imply that characteristics of political actors influence even a strongly institutionalised process as oversight and further clarify the gender bias in political representation.
... Widely held stereotypical descriptions state that women are expected to be nice, likeable, warm, kind, compassionate, communal, nurturing, people-orientated, empathetic, and concerned for the welfare of others. By contrast, stereotypical behavioural expectations traditionally associated with men orientate towards assertiveness, aggression, confidence, competence, ambition, self-sufficiency, logic, self-confidence, and goal attainment (Diekman and Eagly, 2000;Eagly and Karau, 2002;Fiske and Stevens, 1993;Huddy and Terkildsen, 1993a;Bos, 2014, 2019). The experiences of Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Theresa May, Nadine Dorries, Rosena Allin-Khan, Angela Eagle, Jacinda Ardern, Julia ...
... In this thesis, in the context of the United Kingdom (UK), I set about answering these three questions. The critiques of women's behaviour described above are each underpinned by a set of gendered stereotypical expectations that are the product of the positions that men and women have historically occupied in politics specifically and society more broadly (Eagly and Karau, 2002). However, the content of such stereotypes is not necessarily fixed but should instead be considered dynamic concepts (Diekman and Eagly, 2000;Eagly and Wood, 2012;Eagly et al., 2020). ...
... Throughout this thesis, I adopt the general framework of gender role theory to understand the influence of stereotypes in politics (Eagly, 2013;Eagly and Karau, 2002;Schneider and Bos, 2019). Gender role theory suggests that stereotypes are formed initially through the traditional division in societal roles between men and women. ...
Do politicians behave in accordance with gender stereotypes? Does the pressure to do so shift by context and over time? Do voters uphold these stereotypes when they perceive and evaluate politicians' behaviour? Focusing on elites and voters in the United Kingdom, this thesis addresses these questions in three papers. The first paper analyses whether politicians express behavioural styles that are consistent with stereotypes, and how the pressure to do so may have diminished over time. I describe novel quantitative text analysis approaches to measure styles in parliamentary debates between 1997 and 2019 and show that women's styles have changed substantially over time, as they have increasingly adopted styles congruent with "masculine" stereotypes. The second paper investigates whether there are gender differences in the sets of issues that politicians raise, whether women do more to raise women's concerns and experiences across the policy process more broadly, and how the incentive to do so changes with increased political experience. Using quantitative text analysis techniques to measure the issues politicians raise, I find that, among junior politicians, women talk significantly more about stereotypically "feminine" issue areas, but also that this gender gap decreases markedly with increased seniority. However, women continue to refer to women's experiences in a wide range of issue areas throughout their careers. The third paper evaluates whether the styles politicians use influence how voters evaluate them, and whether this matters more for women than it does for men. In a novel survey experiment, I manipulate politician gender and argument style and find that style usage has important consequences for how voters evaluate politicians, but that the effects of style are not conditional on politician gender. Taken together, this thesis provides important theoretical arguments and empirical evidence concerning the dynamic validity of stereotypes in informing elite and voter behaviour in the UK.
... Hostility Lenience: Hostility Seen as More Justified against Women Politicians One reason to expect more hostile constituent contacts targeting female political leaders is, to put it harshly, that they are more disliked than their male counterparts. Role congruity theory explains that, contrary to men, women are punished and face backlash when they demonstrate qualities typical of agentic leadership (Brescoll, Okimoto, and Vial 2018;Eagly and Karau 2002;Okimoto and Brescoll 2010;Rudman et al. 2012). People prefer women to exercise leadership in a communal way: being inclusive, nondominant, and non-powerseeking and instead serving in the interest of some greater good (Brescoll, Okimoto, and Vial 2018). ...
... Norms on how women politicians should exercise leadership, as well as sexist norms on women's gender roles, provide a theoretical foundation for the expectation that women politicians will receive a higher number of complaints from constituents. Role congruity theory demonstrates that women are expected to lead in communal, nurturing, and inclusive ways (Brescoll, Okimoto, and Vial 2018;Eagly and Karau 2002). This would entail more availability to constituents and openness to their views. ...
We know that women politicians are harassed by constituents to a greater extent than men, but we know less about why this difference exists. This study tests potential drivers of hostility against women politicans using an original survey experiment with 7,500 respondents in the United States and Sweden. First, I test whether constituents hold more lenient attitudes toward hostility directed at women than men, which would make hostility in messages targeting women representatives more likely. Second, I test whether constituents prefer to direct their complaints to women, which would increase the risk of hostility by generating a higher number of angry contacts. Results from both countries show a preference for directing complaints to women representatives over men, but no evidence of more leniency toward hostility directed at women.
... Conveying morality through public rhetoric serves as a means by which politicians may signal their partisan credentials, particularly insofar as liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are guided by different moral intuitions (Clifford 2020;Graham, Haidt, and Nosek 2009;Kraft 2018). At the same time, femininity and masculinity are associated with distinct moral characteristics (Eagly and Karau 2002;Koenig et al. 2011), the perception of which may benefit or undermine a politician's partisan appeal depending on how that politician's gender and partisan identity intersect (Schneider and Bos 2016;Wineinger 2021). Given the salience of morality to ideologically sorted partisan voters, and given the gendered nature of morality, we examine moral rhetoric as a discursive device with which female politicians may strategically navigate the gendered landscape of partisan politics. ...
... Scholars of gender stereotypes have documented the pervasiveness of ideas about femininity and masculinity among the American public. Feminine stereotypes descriptively and prescriptively associate women with communal roles and characterize them as affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, and gentle (Eagly and Karau 2002). In contrast, masculine stereotypes descriptively and prescriptively associate men with agentic roles and characterize them with traits of aggressiveness and dominance that connote traditional conceptions of leadership (Koenig et al. 2011). ...
Moral rhetoric presents a strategic dilemma for female politicians, who must navigate stereotypes while appealing to copartisan voters. In this article, we investigate how gender shapes elite moral rhetoric given the influence of partisanship, ideology, gender stereotypes, and moral psychology. Drawing on moral foundations theory, we examine how female and male representatives differ in their emphasis on the five foundations of care, fairness, authority, loyalty, and purity. Using the Moral Foundations Dictionary, we analyze a corpus of 2.23 million tweets by U.S. Congress members between 2013 and 2021. We find that female representatives are more likely to emphasize care and less likely to emphasize authority and loyalty than their male peers. However, when subsetting by party, we find that gender effects are most pronounced among Democrats and largely negligible among Republicans. These findings offer insight into the rhetorical dynamics of political leadership at the intersection of gender and partisan identities.
... Thus, women are perceived as unable to work outside the home for as many hours as men (Kiser 2015). Furthermore, there is the tendency to underestimate women's professional abilities along with an expectation that men are naturally inclined to science, mathematics, and practical pursuits-also challenging men who may not be inclined to gender-stereotypical roles (Eagly and Karau 2002;hall et al. 2019). ...
... Thus, women are expected to care for children and to have stereotypical "feminine traits" (i.e., warmth, nurturing), and men are expected to fulfill instrumental roles at work. People tend to strive for congruence between stereotypes and job requirements, so women tend to be hired for female-dominated jobs consistent with gendered expectations (Eagly and Karau 2002). ...
Women’s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is related to the hierarchical social structure of gender relations in these fields. However, interventions to increase women’s participation have focused primarily on women’s interests rather than on STEM managers’ hiring practices. In this research, we examine STEM hiring practices, explore the implicit bias in criteria used by STEM managers, and suggest possible corrective solutions. Using an experimental design with 213 men and women STEM managers, we show that when evaluating a female candidate, women and men STEM managers apply differential selection criteria, with men demonstrating implicit in-group gender favoritism in their hiring decisions. Specifically, the ability to work long hours was a more important criterion for male managers when evaluating a female candidate, forming an implicit gender bias, whereas female managers gave greater importance to problem-solving ability, a more gender-equal criterion. Adding a personal note to the curriculum vitae stating that the candidate had hired a full-time nanny was useful in decreasing the importance of the ability to work long hours criterion for men managers. We suggest individual and institutional interventions to reduce this bias, as a path to increasing women’s participation in STEM.
... Sin embargo, al mostrar un comportamiento más masculino, las mujeres enfrentan una reacción adicional por desviarse de las acciones estereotípicamente femeninas (Rudman y Phelan, 2008). Como consecuencia, las mujeres políticas experimentan un doble estándar desventajoso como resultado direc-to de la disparidad en la percepción de lo que son buenas frente a lo que "hace un líder exitoso" (Eagly y Karau, 2002;Heilman, 2001). ...
... In contrast, men are stereotyped as competitive and courageous; strong and muscular; analytical and good with numbers; and arrogant and egotistical. Many of the stereotypes associated with men are also linked to leadership (Eagly and Karau, 2002). Men in politics are more likely to be described as driven and leaders (Schneider and Bos, 2014: 255), as the stereotypes used to evaluate men and politicians overlap substantially. ...
In this research note, we document the extent to which negative beliefs about women's capacity to hold public office are widespread in Canada. Using a list experiment, our results demonstrate that many Canadians believe that men are “naturally better” leaders than are women and that women are “too emotional” and “too nice” for politics. While some groups are willing to explicitly own these views when asked directly about them (for example, older people, men, those who are more conservative and religious), others are unwilling to do so unless social desirability is mitigated (for example, younger people, left-leaning). By overcoming concerns with social desirability, we show that women still face explicit, often sexist, barriers in political work.
... However, a double bind may still exist, according to role congruity theory (Eagly and Karau 2002). Butler and Geis (1990) show that competent, assertive women speakers elicit more negative facial expressions than do equally competent, assertive men. ...
Although mayors can have important impacts on citizens’ daily lives, local politics remains understudied, especially compared with national and regional politics. This study focuses on Canadian mayors’ digital political gender performance—or self-presentation—on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and the context in which this gendered performance arises. Overall, results confirm that mayors’ gendered performances are on a continuum rather than binary. Results from a visual content analysis of nine Canadian mayors’ social media accounts show that, broadly speaking, women mayors gravitate toward congruent, mixed gendered performances and avoidance strategies, whereas men mayors also display mixed performance of their gender, while more freely exploring congruent and incongruent approaches to gendered stereotypes. Additionally, semistructured interviews with these mayors show that women mayors still work under added constraints because of their gender, which translates into comments on their appearance, attitude, and lifestyle choices; increased aggression and lack of respect; and a generally greater mental load.
... According to expectation states theory, gender becomes especially salient in settings where gender stereotypes are linked to specific jobs, as is the case in jobs with authority (Ridgeway 2001;Ridgeway and Correll 2004). Social psychologists have proposed that because of the prescriptive nature of gender stereotypes, women in authority may experience hostile reactions from colleagues and clients (Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch 1972;Burgess and Borgida 1999;Eagly and Karau 2002). In a similar vein, feminist scholarship on gender and power contends that the increased presence of women in authority may be seen as a threat to men's power; harassment may ensue from a desire to preserve the gender order and penalize inappropriate ways of "doing gender" (Berdahl 2007;Rudman et al. 2012;West and Zimmerman 1987). ...
In contrast to the rich literature on the causes of the gender gap in workplace authority, relatively little is known about how the jobs and experiences of women and men compare once they have positions with authority. Using linked survey and administrative data of about 100,000 women and men working in Dutch organizations, I analyzed differences in job resources (earnings, autonomy, and nonroutine work) and strains (workplace harassment, work–nonwork interference, and job burnout) between women and men in positions of workplace authority. I find that women in authority report lower levels of job resources than men with authority jobs, and are more likely to report experiences of work-related strains. Crucially, women with authority jobs are the most likely of all gender/authority status groups to report experiencing sexual harassment, bullying, and intimidation at the workplace, and they have the highest probability of reporting job burnout symptoms. These findings suggest that women’s entry into authority positions alone is not sufficient for achieving gender equality.
... People also apply social codes of politeness towards voice assistants [11], much like how we employ politeness among other people [14]. What's more, stereotyping gender-based attributes is commonplace for voice technology users: Computer tutors with characteristically male voices were rated more competent than female-voiced tutors [67], in line with people's general perceptions of gender and competence [24,25,106]. In more recent work, researchers have found that some voice assistant users even actively personify modern assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home [17,76]. ...
Language technologies have a racial bias, committing greater errors for Black users than for white users. However, little work has evaluated what effect these disparate error rates have on users themselves. The present study aims to understand if speech recognition errors in human-computer interactions may mirror the same effects as misunderstandings in interpersonal cross-race communication. In a controlled experiment (N=108), we randomly assigned Black and white participants to interact with a voice assistant pre-programmed to exhibit a high versus low error rate. Results revealed that Black participants in the high error rate condition, compared to Black participants in the low error rate condition, exhibited significantly higher levels of self-consciousness, lower levels of self-esteem and positive affect, and less favorable ratings of the technology. White participants did not exhibit this disparate pattern. We discuss design implications and the diverse research directions to which this initial study aims to contribute.
... Role congruity theory perceives an incompatibility between leadership and gender roles. According to role congruity theory, "and the lack of fit model, bias against female leaders emerges from the conflicting expectations between the female gender role and the leader role" (Eagly and Karau 2002;Goethals and Hoyt 2017). Moreover, "This bias results in less favorable attitudes toward female than male leaders and women experiencing greater difficulty than men in attaining top leadership roles and being viewed as effective in these roles" (Goethals and Hoyt 2017). ...
Ever since gaining approval to be admitted to the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF), Jordanian women have become more visible in this sector. Women were recruited in various fields across the military, including administrative posts, education, and human resources. There is a noticeable gap in the number of women reaching leadership positions despite the quality of their work and their tremendous contributions in this sector. The present study aims to explore the correlation between military culture and environment and women’s perceptions of leadership by drawing on quantitative data from female personnel at Al-Hussein Medical Center (HMC). A five-point Likert scale was adopted in the current questionnaire to test the extent of agreement with question items suggested for each aspect of work culture and environment construct. The results demonstrate that women at HMC perceive their work culture and environment positively, which in turn reflects their positive perceptions about their quality of work and their ability to lead. The female participants at HMC demonstrate positive perceptions of gender that challenge prevailing gender norms through gaining necessary support and opportunities for career advancement. The study results imply that supportive work environments have a greater impact on women’s aspirations to become leaders.
... The crisis issue area, the nature of the crisis, and the type of communication needed at a given time all intersect with a leader's gender. According to social role theory, people expect certain behavior of individuals based on their personal characteristics (Eagly and Karau 2002). When it comes to gender roles and behavior, society and individuals hold specific assumptions regarding the appropriate social roles and behaviors for both women and men. ...
At a time of pandemics, international economic downturns, and increasing environmental threats due to climate change, countries around the world are facing numerous crises. What impact might we expect these crises to have on the already common perception that executive leadership is a masculine domain? For years, women executives’ ability to lead has been questioned (Jalalzai 2013). However, the outbreak of COVID-19 brought headlines like CNN’s “Women Leaders Are Doing a Disproportionately Great Job at Handling the Pandemic” (Fincher 2020). Do crises offer women presidents and prime ministers opportunities to be perceived as competent leaders? Or do they prime masculinized leadership expectations and reinforce common conceptions that women are unfit to lead? We maintain that people’s perceptions of crisis leadership will depend on whether the crisis creates role (in)congruity between traditional gender norms and the leadership expectations generated by the particular crisis.
... second, as women enter politics, they are faced with parliaments that have to be understood as gendered workplaces and a status quo of practices that has been set by men in power (O'Brien and Piscopo 2019). Women in politics are facing a gendered environment ranging from how they portray themselves to preconceptions about their political positions and fitness for office (Bauer 2015;eagly and Karau 2002). Women MPs are more exposed to situations that range from pressure and anxiety (erikson and Josefsson 2019) to outright sexism, sexual harassment, and violence (Collier and raney 2018;Krook 2018). ...
As the share of women in parliaments rises, increased attention is paid to how they substantively represent women. Meanwhile, the availability of parliamentary speech data has enabled researchers to dissect politicians’ rhetorical patterns. We combine these two literatures to ask whether rhetorical differences between men and women in parliament are connected to style, policy, and preferences of women voters. We apply machine‐learning models to speeches from five West European parliaments (2000–18) to measure the femininity of the rhetoric used in each speech. Results show that women and men talk differently in parliament, and that this distinctiveness is due to both style and substance. Combining these results with public opinion surveys, we find that women MPs have the most distinctively “feminine” discourse on issues that are most salient to women in society. These findings showcase the direct connection between descriptive and substantive representation of women in contemporary democracies.
... Such behaviors flourish extremely well in countries that are deeply patriarchal. Within the African context, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Benin may be considered moderate; however, Islamic nations such as Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, and Libya may exhibit extreme masculine qualities, such as preventing women to drive, watch football or participate in sports (Srivastava et al. 2017;Eagly and Karau 2002;Nzeyo 2019). ...
There is a disdain for women in leadership positions in South African local government, and this can be attributed to manifold factors. Some of these factors may include distrust of women’s capacity or capability and leadership styles, flexibility and consultation in decision-making, issues of values and ethos, demography and social class, and political considerations in South African local government system. The objective of this article is to (1) explore gender roles in South African local government systems, (2) assess distrust of women in leadership positions in South African local government, and (3) explore how the male boss syndrome suppresses the creativity and efficiency of women in leadership positions in South African local governments. Data for this study were derived from female managements in several municipalities in the Northwest Province of South Africa. The findings demonstrate that innovation and a creative mindset are overlooked by male leaders in local government, simply because they emanate from a woman. Further, while women are hailed and acknowledged for their successes in business, science, technology, and innovation, and even have been considered for the presidency, at government levels, the sentiments are different, in that males in the sector consider the local parlance as a settlement for the liberation struggle. In conclusion, the transformation of gender relations may not be dramatic, but disruptions can quicken the process.
... For example, a meta-analysis by Eagly et al. showed that women are consistently devalued in their leadership performance relative to their male counterparts "if they intrude on traditionally male domains by adopting male-stereotypic leadership styles, or by occupying male-dominated leadership positions" (1992: 18; see also Eagly and Karau 2002). In addition, women often internalize these devaluations and gender stereotypes, creating self-imposed psychological barriers to attaining leadership positions (Rhode and Kellerman 2007: 8;Diehl and Dzubinski 2017: 281). ...
This volume is the first comprehensive analysis of women’s ascendance to leadership positions in the European Union (EU) as well as their performance in such positions. It provides a new theoretical and analytical framework capturing both positional and behavioral leadership and the specific hurdles that women encounter on their path to and when exercising leadership. The volume encompasses a detailed set of single and comparative case studies, analyzing women’s representation and performance in the core EU institutions and their individual pathways to and exercise of power in top-level functions, as well as comparative analyses regarding the position and behavior of women in relation to men. On the basis of these individual studies, the volume draws overarching conclusions about women’s leadership in the EU. Regarding positional leadership, women continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions, they more often hold less prestigious portfolios in such positions, and manifold structural hurdles hamper their access to power. Furthermore, huge variations exist across EU institutions, with the intergovernmental bodies being the hardest to access. Regarding behavioral leadership, women acting in powerful EU positions generally perform excellently. They successfully exercise a combined leadership style that integrates attributes of leadership considered to be “masculine” and “feminine.” This is not to argue that women per se are the better leaders. Yet more often than men they are exposed to stronger selection processes and their prevalent practice of a combined leadership style tends to best meet the requirements of modern democratic systems and particularly those of the highly fragmented EU.
... Globally, women's labor force participation rate is 26.5 percentage points below that of men, with some regions facing a gap of more than 50 percentage points (Kuhn, Milasi, and Yoon 2018). Furthermore, since women are commonly associated with familial and social roles rather than business or entrepreneurial roles (Eagly, Wood, and Diekman 2000;Eagly and Karau 2002), they tend to be overrepresented in certain types of jobs perceived as unskilled and low-value, such as in care jobs. Furthermore, women are often considered to possess less managerial and leadership ability than men and this reduces their opportunities to working at well-paid jobs or on their own. ...
Gender in financial inclusion is an evolving field of research. This study uses the World Bank’s Global Findex database, along with probit models, to investigate the presence of gender inequality on financial inclusion and its causes. In the Middle East and North Africa samples, we present new evidence of lower women’s financial inclusion. Being a man, older, well-educated and with a high-income increases the likelihood of being financially included. The findings of this study support policymaker in defining policies to promote financial inclusion in the Middle East and North Africa. Increasing the level of financial inclusion enhances the level of official savings in countries, which in turn promotes development.
... Van der Pas and Aaldering (2020, 117) explain this as resulting from stereotypes, the main idea being that stereotypical representations of men are more closely linked to stereotypical representations of politics. Men are associated with public (as opposed to private) life (O'Neill, Savigny, and Cann 2016) and with qualities often deemed important to politics and political positions such as leadership, ambition, aggression, independence, and selfconfidence (Brescoll 2016;Eagly and Karau 2002;Lawless 2004). Consequently, the argument is that journalists are programmed to think more often (and differently) of male politicians when reporting on politics. ...
Research continues to find gender inequality in politics and political communication, but our understanding of the variation in the degree of bias across systems is limited. A recent meta-analysis reveals how, in countries with proportional representation (PR), the media pay considerably more attention to men politicians. In plurality systems, this bias is absent. The present study proposes a new explanation for this finding, emphasizing how the size of electoral districts moderates both the demand for and supply of women politicians in news reporting. Analyzing more than 600,000 news appearances made by Norwegian and British MPs from 2000 to 2016, we produce a detailed picture of gender biases in news visibility that speaks in favor of single-member districts in plurality systems. Although PR is generally recognized as advantageous for the political representation of women, our findings call for a more nuanced understanding of the link between electoral systems and gender equality.
... Much of the difficulty that women face in terms of claiming their status as authoritative experts lies within the stereotyped traits and societal roles for both men and women. Role Congruency Theory dictates that stereotypical traits assigned to women and men are born out of their separate historical societal roles (Eagly and Karau 2002). Women and femininity are stereotyped as nurturing and compassionate, with women placed into more supportive societal roles. ...
Widely held gender stereotypes present obstacles for women experts, who are generally evaluated less positively than equally qualified men across a range of fields. While audiences may view women as better equipped to handle certain feminine-stereotyped issues, Role Congruency Theory suggests that expert authority in politics may be incongruent with traditional feminine gender roles, leading to a subsequent backlash. Building upon the latter theory, I hypothesize that when cued to consider the expertise of a news source, the (in)congruency of gender-stereotyped roles will activate gender biases which increase the gap in evaluations and trust of women and men. Using selection experiments, I assess the relationship between domain-relevant expertise and gender biases across a range of gender-stereotyped issues. I find that women experts are rewarded less for additional expertise and punished more severely for a lack of expertise, exacerbating gender-based biases relative to the control. I find that this pattern is consistent across both masculine and feminine-stereotyped issues, including issues that disproportionately impact women, such as women's health care and the gender wage gap. The addition of competing partisan cues, however, overwhelms the influence of gender. The normative implications suggest women in the media often face an uphill battle to advocate for their interests on key issues that affect them, even when they may have more direct relevant experience in addition to their qualifications.
Despite progress made over the past decade, women are under-represented in positions of leadership in academic medicine. Women physicians face numerous challenges throughout their careers. Despite achieving leadership positions, women in leadership continue to experience the impact of those challenges. In this review, we describe four misconceptions about women in leadership, along with their impact and recommendations. First, we describe differences between mentorship and sponsorship, as well as their impact on attaining leadership positions. Second, the gender pay gap persists throughout women's careers, regardless of leadership positions. Third, we explore the role of self-efficacy in leadership in the context of stereotype threats. Fourth, gendered expectations of leadership characteristics place an undue burden on women, detracting from their leadership effectiveness. Organizations can address the challenges women face by creating robust mentorship and sponsorship networks, establishing transparent and equitable pay policies, promoting and normalizing a broader range of leadership styles, and improving work flexibility and support structure. Ultimately, such changes serve all members of the organization through increased retention and engagement.
Many researchers from robotics, machine ethics, and adjacent fields seem to assume that norms represent good behavior that social robots should learn to benefit their users and society. We would like to complicate this view and present seven key troubles with norm-compliant robots: (1) norm biases, (2) paternalism (3) tyrannies of the majority, (4) pluralistic ignorance, (5) paths of least resistance, (6) outdated norms, and (7) technologically-induced norm change. Because discussions of why norm-compliant robots can be problematic are noticeably absent from the robot and machine ethics literature, this paper fills an important research gap. We argue that it is critical for researchers to take these issues into account if they wish to make norm-compliant robots.
The United Nations and major humanitarian organizations have made policy commitments to promote gender equality and empower women and girls. This study assesses the extent to which humanitarian responses have met these commitments based on reviews of gender mainstreaming, textual analysis of policy and program cycle documents, and interviews with humanitarian actors. The analysis reveals that while gender mainstreaming may raise awareness and make fixes at the margins, its focus has been limited to altering internal processes rather than emphasizing results for women and men and girls and boys. Our study also analyzes the cultural and institutional context in which gender mainstreaming takes place. The culture of humanitarian organizations has been characterized as hierarchical and driven by a short-term crisis response with a distinctly macho style of functioning, which is misaligned with gender mainstreaming. We propose replacing gender mainstreaming with a results-focused approach rooted in behavioral science that uses evidence of the conscious and non-conscious drivers of human behavior to address problems, alongside other efforts to change the internal culture of humanitarian organizations.
The study investigates reflections, obstacles, and repercussions of women's participation at top management levels in Egyptian Corporations. The study used the panel data method for sixty-six Egyptian corporations during the period 2018-2021 in addition to 395 employees of Egyptian corporations for the assessment of the current situation and obstacles of women empowerment at the top management levels. The study concluded, at the level of financial analysis, there is an impact of the role of women on the corporation's returns and risks. but according to the questionnaire analysis, that what has already been achieved in the field of economic empowerment of women still appears to be less than the capabilities of Egyptian women, which paves the way for further progress in this field. Although the organizational environment may seem like a possible environment for women, the organizational culture and the resulting misperceptions of women is the real challenge. Finally, the presence of women on boards is becoming increasingly important for corporations looking to remain competitive in today's business environment. Women bring unique perspectives and experiences that can benefit corporations in numerous ways, including increased creativity and innovation, better decision-making processes, improved risk management practices, greater customer satisfaction, improved corporate governance practices, and increased trust between shareholders and management.
Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is widely used to assess teaching effectiveness in higher education and can significantly influence professors’ career outcomes. Although earlier evidence suggests SET may suffer from biases due to the gender of professors, there is a lack of large-scale examination to understand how and why gender disparities occur in SET. This study aims to address this gap in SET by analyzing approximately 9 million SET reviews from RateMyProfessors.com under the theoretical frameworks of role congruity theory and shifting standards theory. Our multiple linear regression analysis of the SET numerical ratings confirms that women professors are generally rated lower than men in many fields. Using the Dunning log-likelihood test, we show that words used in student comments vary by the gender of professors. We then use BERTopic to extract the most frequent topics from one- and five-star reviews. Our regression analysis based on the topics reveals that the probabilities of specific topics appearing in SET comments are significantly associated with professors’ genders, which aligns with gender role expectations. Furtherly, sentiment analysis indicates that women professors’ comments are more positively or negatively polarized than men’s across most extracted topics, suggesting students’ evaluative standards are subject to professors’ gender. These findings contextualize the gender gap in SET ratings and caution the usage of SET in related decision-making to avoid potential systematic biases towards women professors.
This study examines the success and role of African women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In the absence of significant research on women’s STEM leadership, the success and roles of others could motivate an aspiring African woman to pursue a career in STEM. A qualitative approach was sought using open online questions and narratives from African women leaders about their roles and career success in STEM. Data were collected from the western, eastern, northern, and southern regions of Africa from participants who held STEM leadership positions, such as directors, deans, and chief officers. The participants were 42 women representing 12 African nations. The narratives of these women leaders’ tones and life experiences were analyzed through content analysis. The narratives of these women leaders’ tones and life experiences were analyzed in search of recurring patterns and themes. Successful leadership in STEM requires balancing career and family life, setting goals, solving problems, being open to innovative ideas, embracing diversity, collaborating, and having knowledge of STEM research and mentoring skills. Using the achievements and roles of others could inspire future African women to pursue careers in STEM.
Objectives
The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate how intensified job demands (job-related planning demands, career-related planning demands, and learning demands) are associated with burnout. We explored whether affective-identity motivation to lead moderates this association and, thus, functions as a personal resource regardless of leadership status. We further investigated whether the possible buffering effect is stronger for those professionals who became leaders during the follow-up.Methods
Our sample consisted of highly educated Finnish professionals (n = 372): part of them (n = 63, 17%) occupied a leadership position during the 2-year follow-up while the rest maintained their position without formal leadership duties.ResultsThe results of hierarchical linear modeling indicated that intensified learning demands were associated with later burnout. High affective-identity motivation to lead was not found to buffer against the negative effects of intensified job demands - instead, it strengthened the connection of intensified job- and career-related demands to burnout. Nevertheless, among the whole sample, professionals with high affective-identity motivation to lead reported lower burnout when job demands were not highly intensified. The leadership status also played a role: High affective-identity motivation to lead strengthened the connection of career-related demands to burnout in those professionals who became leaders during the follow-up.Conclusions
Altogether, we propose that in certain circumstances, affective-identity motivation to lead might help professionals, with and without formal leadership duties, to be more ready to lead their own work and well-being. However, in order to promote sustainable careers, the vulnerability role of high affective-identity motivation to lead should be considered as well.
It is without a doubt that acceptance of sexual minorities is growing across the globe. Two major narratives are commonly assumed to be true about this increased acceptance. First, this acceptance is increased by proximity to the stigmatized. Second, this acceptance is enduring. These might not be entirely true as multiple attitudinal datasets frequently show a diversity among the accepting population, especially for those who express full acceptance of the stigmatized while refusing neighboring proximity to them. This inconsistency in acceptance is the main focus of this study. Using rejection of neighboring proximity to sexual minorities as a case for stigma and data from the Integrated Values Surveys (n = 52,796; 48.15% male), this study explores the similarities and differences between those who fully accept sexual minorities and those who express heightened sexual prejudice when rejecting neighboring proximity to sexual minorities. Logistic regression models show those in the accepting population who reject neighboring proximity to sexual minorities are more likely to be men, lower educated, highly religious, hold a traditional gender-related belief, and are attracted to right-wing political ideologies. While those with extreme sexual prejudice share sex, age, and traditional gender-related beliefs in rejecting neighboring proximity to sexual minorities, no effects for educational attainment and political ideology were discovered. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Stereotypes about women's workplace behaviours result in their contributions either being ignored and not rewarded to the same extent as their male counterparts. In this novel series of studies, we show that team member adaptivity - adaptation that occurs within the context of interdependence (e.g., change effecting how we work with others) is a stereotype consistent behaviour for women and women are both recognised and rewarded for this behaviour. This is a notable shift in the general narrative about how stereotypes play out in the workplace.
**This article is available OPEN ACESS from the Journal of Organizational Behavior website**
Even though the majority of psychologists are women, they are outnumbered by men in senior academic ranks. One reason for this representation bias in academia is that men favor other men in decision-making, especially when the stakes are high. We tested the possibility of such bias in a bibliometric analysis, in which we coded editors' and authors' gender in regular and special issues, the latter considered of higher scientific prominence. We examined all special issues from five prominent scientific outlets in the fields of personality and social psychology published in the twenty-first century. Altogether, we analyzed 1911 articles nested in 93 sets comprising a special issue and a neighboring regular issue treated as a control condition. For articles published in special (but not regular) issues, when there were more men editors, more men first-authored and co-authored the work. This pattern suggests how gender bias can be perpetuated within academia and calls for revising the editorial policies of leading psychology journals.
We examine the effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on faculty using survey data. First, we uncover heterogeneity in the immediate effects on research productivity and burnout. Three groups emerged (Career Accelerated, Career Insulated, and Career Headwinds) with female faculty disproportionately represented in Career Headwinds, experiencing both high burnout and declines in research productivity. Second, we examine how greater caregiving demands at home and at work—in the form of institutional service—contribute to gender differences. We find female faculty reported greater increases in service demands, and these exerted greater drag on their careers through a larger crowd out of research time.
The paper investigated gender inequalities in the accounting profession in the specific context of an eastern European country, in the past heavily dominated by men, but now with a substantial number of women. Thus, we used a questionnaire survey explored the relationship between women’s perception of discrimination and institutional and individual characteristics. Institutional factors such as rewards practices, opportunities, and access to top positions in organisations influence women's perception of gender discrimination. Concerning the intersectionality of individual characteristics interaction, our results revealed that women professionals with higher academic achievement and children are more likely to report discrimination. In contrast, women professionals with a higher-ranking position in organisations and those working in the public sector are less likely to report it compared with those from the private sector. These findings are of interest from a theoretical perspective to those who explore gender-related issues in general and in the case of accounting organisations. They are also helpful from a practical standpoint regarding the management of these accounting organisations, which should ensure gender-equitable policies for employees.
Virtues and character strengths are often assumed to be universal, considered equally important to individuals across cultures, religions, racial-ethnic groups, and genders. The results of our surveys and laboratory studies, however, bring to light subtle yet consistent gender differences in the importance attributed to character in leadership: women considered character to be more important to successful leadership in business than did men, and women had higher expectations that individuals should demonstrate character in a new leadership role. Further, the gender of the research participant affected character ratings such that male respondents viewed a female leader who exhibited agentic behaviors in a professionally challenging situation less positively than a male leader who displayed the same agentic behaviors. The data also showed that male participants rated almost every dimension of character displayed by the female leader lower than did female participants. Our findings suggest that the question as to what extent gender differences may bias the assessment of virtues and character strengths is an important one, and one for which the practical implications for individuals in organizations need to be studied in more detail.
The underrepresentation of women in leadership positions in the Metro Police Departments (MDPs) continues to be a matter of some concern, particularly in a traditionally male-dominated industry such as law enforcement. Research on gender and leadership has revealed that women continue to face challenges in advancing into leadership positions. Democracy, changes in law, and societal beliefs opened policing as a career to women and various legal frameworks provide for gender equality, therefore equal gender representation in the workplace is a developmental goal in South Africa. The objective of this study is to provide strategies for breaking barriers for women in leadership positions in law enforcement using qualitative analysis. 25 South African women from the Gauteng Province from Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, and Johannesburg MPDs were interviewed. The participants recommended that the South African MPDs review human resource practices and policies to promote a positive and constructive work environment for all employees. Keywords: leadership, women in leadership, gender, gender equality, Metropolitan police department, law enforcement
In the United States, women compose a larger share of elected Democrats than of elected Republicans at every level of government. Drawing together literature on the gender-gap in office, on voters’ use of gender stereotypes, and on women’s descriptive representation, we propose a set of hypotheses about the role of voter bias in this partisan disparity. We show that, in addition to the pipeline effects documented in the literature, voters themselves likely contribute to the partisan imbalance of women’s representation in the U.S. Using two implicit mediation experiments, we investigate the mechanism behind the partisan difference in candidate-gender preferences, providing evidence that these biases stem at least in part from stereotype-based inferences about candidate political beliefs. However, even with clear information about which candidate offers greater policy congruence, evidence of gender bias remains among both Democratic and Republican voters.
(1) Background: Women have become more influential and powerful; however, implicit bias continues to plague organizations when it comes to women in leadership positions. This study examines the implicit and explicit biases that favor men as leaders among Saudi Arabian primary healthcare professionals. (2) Methods: A secure, web-based survey was administered to primary healthcare professionals. The survey included questions about leadership as well as an Implicit Association Test (IAT) for implicit gender bias. (3) Results: Out of 690 eligible, 448 respondents completed the survey, representing a response rate of 65%. Male residents had a mean IAT score of 0.27 (SD 0.31) and females 0.12 (SD 0.29), both favoring males in leadership roles, and the difference was statistically significant. There was a significant association between gender and gender IAT. In the explicit bias, gender, education, gender of the current manager, and being manager were associated with the gender explicit bias. Explicit bias favoring males in leadership roles was associated with increased implicit bias favoring males in leadership roles. (4) Conclusions: This study found that explicit and implicit gender bias is present among primary healthcare professionals favoring men in leadership positions held by both men and women.
Religious leaders face unique vocational challenges that place their mental health at risk. As the clergy as a profession has traditionally been male‐dominated, clergywoman experience greater occupational stress than their clergymen colleagues, putting their mental health at additional risk. However, past research offers varied evidence on the gendered nature of clergy health, suggesting that clergywomen may be especially resilient to some difficulties of clergy work. Using panel data from the Clergy Health Initiative, a sample of United Methodist pastors from 2010 to 2021, this study examines clergy‐specific occupational stress and its gendered relationship with depression. I find that, while clergywomen experience higher levels of occupational stress, the relationship between occupational stress and depression is weaker for clergywomen as compared to clergymen. This study thus offers a new perspective on the gendered nature of the pastorate: that clergywomen may be able to more effectively cope with vocational difficulties than clergymen.
The lower female competitiveness often found in economic experiments presents a puzzle. If accumulating wealth and reaching high status affords women essential benefits for themselves and their children, why do women appear less competitive? By looking at behavioural strategies from a cooperative breeding perspective, we propose that women may have evolved an adaptation to strategically suppress competitiveness to elicit cooperation for the benefit of raising offspring. To support this idea, we review the literature that shows that women's behaviour is, in general, more reactive than men's to the social conditions of the different games. In particular, we focus on our experimental work where we show that women are not less competitive than men once the games evoke a parenting frame (by substituting cash with rewards that could benefit the participants' offspring), a gender-typical one (by using vouchers for prizes acceptable as domain of female interests), or include a prosocial option (by allowing winners to share some of the gains with losers). We conclude that, for women, nurturing the potential for cooperation intertwines with competitiveness to produce a complex, adaptive female social strategy.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cooperation among women: evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives’.
We apply a theory of stereotype subtypes and subgroups from social psychology to clarify whether there is a uniform “women of color” stereotype and whether there are differences in the stereotypes ascribed to women across different racial and ethnic backgrounds. We test the extent to which positive feminine and positive masculine stereotypes comprise the stereotype content of not only Latinas and Black women but also Asian women, Native American women, and Muslim women vying for political leadership roles. Using three empirical tests, we test for the presence of a unique women of color stereotype category that fits into a subtype that differs from the stereotypes of female politicians more generally. We also test for whether subgroups defined by a woman’s race and/or ethnicity exist within the broader women of color stereotype category. We find limited evidence of a unique women of color subtype or subgroup stereotypes as individuals make few distinctions between women belonging to different racial and ethnic categories. These results have implications for the abilities of Latinas, Black women, Asian women, Native American women, and Muslim women to run for and win political office.
We explored the relationship between parenting practices and the experience of subjective authenticity in the parenting role. Based on work showing that authenticity responds to violations of broad social expectations, we predicted that mothers would feel more authentic than fathers. We also predicted, however, that parenting practices that conflicted with broad gender norms would differentially predict authenticity for mothers and fathers. We tested this prediction in a single study of U.S. parents recruited from an internet research panel service (N = 529). Parents completed online measures of authenticity and parenting practices on three separate occasions. We assessed the within-person association between parenting practices and parent-role authenticity. Authoritarian parenting practices negatively predicted parent-role authenticity for mothers, whereas permissive practices negatively predicted parent-role authenticity for fathers. Authoritative practices positively predicted authenticity regardless of parent gender, and, overall, women felt more authentic in the parenting role than men. These findings contribute to emerging theoretical perspectives on authenticity and gender role congruence and highlight how different parenting practices relate to the well-being of mothers and fathers.
Navigating a career while raising a family can be challenging, especially for women in academia. In this study, we examine the ways in which professional life interruptions due to child caregiving (e.g., opportunities not offered, professional travel curtailed) affect pre- and post-tenure faculty members’ career satisfaction and retention. We also examine whether sharing caregiving responsibilities with a partner affected faculty members’ (particularly women’s) career outcomes. In a sample of 753 tenure track faculty parents employed at a large research-intensive university, results showed that as the number of professional life interruptions due to caregiving increased, faculty members experienced less career satisfaction and greater desire to leave their job. Pre-tenure women’s, but not pre-tenure men’s, career satisfaction and intention to stay were negatively affected when they experienced at least one professional life interference. Pre-tenure men’s desire to stay in their job and career satisfaction remained high, regardless of the number of professional life interferences they experienced. Sharing parenting responsibilities with a partner did not buffer the demands of caregiving on pre-tenure women’s career outcomes. Our work highlights the need to consider the varied ways in which caregiving affects faculty members’ careers, beyond markers such as publications, and how institutions can support early career stage women with family-friendly practices.
In the present study, we complement role congruity theory with insights from the Social Identity Model of Leadership. We propose that especially female leaders benefit from team prototypicality, i.e., being representative of the group they are leading. We assume that team prototypicality shifts the comparative frame away from higher-order categories like gender and leader roles to more concrete team-related properties and thereby reduces disadvantages for female leader that stem from the incongruity between the leader role and the female gender role stereotypes. Further, this effect should affect both (female) leaders themselves and their perception by their followers. Building on previous research, we predict, first, lower authentic leadership behavior for female than male leaders. Second, that team prototypicality positively relates to authentic leadership and trust in leader. Third, that team prototypicality has stronger relations to authentic leadership and trust in leader for female compared to male leaders. We tested assumptions in a randomized online experiment (Study 1, N = 315) and a cross-sectional survey study (Study 2, N = 300). We did not find consistent support for the assumed gender differences in authentic leadership. But our results (both in manifest and in latent analyses) show that team prototypicality-both self-perceived (Study 1) and as perceived by employees (Study 2)-is related to more authentic leadership and more trust in leader (Study 2) and that these relations are stronger for female than for male leaders. Furthermore, we tested in Study 2 an extended model including follower's job satisfaction as the final follower outcome affected via team prototypicality, leader gender, authentic leadership, and trust in leader. Thereby, we found that team prototypicality has direct and indirect effects on job satisfaction as carried through authentic leadership and trust in leader, respectively. Together, the results of both studies support our assumptions and show that female leaders can reduce role incongruity barriers through high team prototypicality. Implications for future research and practical implications of these results for gender equality are discussed.
هدف البحث إلى تناول وضع المرأة في المناصب الإدارية بوحدات الأعمال المصرية وذلك من خلال إستخدام أسلوب المسح المستندي لتشكيلات مجالس الإدارات لـعدد (20) وحدة من وحدات الأعمال المصرية خلال الفترة من 2018 إلى2020، وقد خلص المسح إلى أن أكبر معدل تمثيل للمرأة فى مجالس إدارة تلك الوحدات بلغ 40% وهو الأمر الذى تكرر فى وحدتين من عينة وحدات الأعمال محل البحث، بينما بلغ متوسط التمثيل للمرأة 15,15% مقابل 84,85% متوسط تمثيل للرجل ، وفي ضوء ذلك قد خلص التحليل الإحصائي بهذا البحث إلى أن هناك إختلاف معنوي لمعدلات التمثيل النسبي لكل من المرأة والرجل في مجالس الإدارة بوحدات الأعمال المصرية عند مستوى 1%. وقدم البحث عدداً من التوصيات على كل من المستوى المهني والتشريعي والإعلامي والثقافي التي تدعم فرص تولي المرأة المناصب القيادية بوحدات الأعمال المصرية.
الكلمات الدالة: التمكين الإداري للمرأة، المساواة بين الجنسين، مصر.
Gender plays an important role in various aspects of second language acquisition, including lexicon learning. Many studies have suggested that compared to males, females are less likely to experience boredom, one of the frequently experienced deactivating negative emotions that may impair language learning. However, the contribution of boredom to gender-related differences in lexicon learning remains unclear. To address this question, here we conducted two experiments with a large sample of over 1,000 college students to explore the relationships between gender differences in boredom and lexicon learning. In Experiment 1, a cohort of 527 participants (238 males) completed the trait and state boredom scales as well as a novel lexicon learning task without awareness of the testing process. In Experiment 2, an independent cohort of 506 participants (228 males) completed the same novel lexicon learning task with prior knowledge of the testing procedure. Results from both experiments consistently showed significant differences between female and male participants in the rate of forgetting words and the state boredom scores, with female participants performing better than male participants. Furthermore, differences in state boredom scores partially explained differences in the rate of forgetting words between female and male participants. These findings demonstrate a novel contribution of state boredom to gender differences in lexicon learning, which provides new insights into better language-learning ability in females.
Women use power in more prosocial ways than men and they also engage in more emotional labor (i.e., self-regulate their emotions to respond and attend to the needs and emotions of other people in a way that advances organizational goals). However, these two constructs have not been previously connected. We propose that gendered emotional labor practices and pressures result in gender differences in the prosocial use of power. We integrate the literature on emotional labor with research on the psychology of power to articulate three routes through which this happens. First, women may be more adept than men at the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes entailed in emotional labor practices—a skill that they can apply at all hierarchical levels. Second, given women’s stronger internal motivation to perform emotional labor, they construe power in a more interdependent manner than men, which promotes a more prosocial use of power. As a result, female powerholders tend to behave in more prosocial ways. Third, when they have power, women encounter stronger external motivation to engage in emotional labor, which effectively constrains powerful women’s behaviors in a way that fosters a more prosocial use of power. We discuss how, by promoting prosocial behavior among powerholders, emotional labor can be beneficial for subordinates and organizations (e.g., increase employee well-being and organizational trust), while simultaneously creating costs for individual powerholders, which may reduce women’s likelihood of actually attaining and retaining power by (a) making high-power roles less appealing, (b) guiding women toward less prestigious and (c) more precarious leadership roles, (d) draining powerful women’s time and resources without equitable rewards, and (e) making it difficult for women to legitimize their power in the eyes of subordinates (especially men). Thus, emotional labor practices can help explain the underrepresentation of women in top leadership positions.
A prevailing idea in the organizational context is that men and women differ in personality traits and leadership styles. Few studies, however, have examined gender differences in managerial behavior. The aim of the present study was to explore the presence of such differences in a sample of public sector employees (N = 678), focusing on personality and two key human resources constructs, namely organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and adaptive performance. We also compared gender differences among managers with those observed among employees without managerial responsibilities. Finally, we examined whether the attributes that distinguish managers from non-managers are the same for men and women. Mean comparison strategies and the Cohen’s d effect size index were used. The results suggest that male and female public managers have similar leadership profiles in terms of personality, OCBs and adaptive performance. In addition, and despite small gender differences in this respect, it appears that communal traits, such as Creativity or interpersonal OCBs, are becoming increasingly relevant to managerial positions in the public sector, which implies complementarity in the gender roles linked with the behaviors associated with leadership and access to management positions. Our results support both the gender-invariant role demands and the changing leadership roles perspectives and may have implications for selection and promotion policies in public sector organizations.
Domestic politics around the globe have become increasingly polarized along secular-religious lines. Recent literature suggests that one way to ease secular-religious tension and gridlock is for religious leaders to offer progressive reinterpretations of religious texts, that might convince religious conservatives to compromise from their seemingly-fixed policy positions. But can everyday citizens deploy religious reinterpretations themselves? We examine this question through a series of citizen debates in Tunisia, in which 602 participants attempted to reach a compromise over two ‘culture wars’ issues. Across both experiments, we find that having secular liberals engage religious conservatives with religious reinterpretations backfired, nearly halving the rate of compromise. Religious reinterpretations produced both defensive conservatives and emboldened liberals, obstructing compromise between them. While scholarship suggests that religious leaders may be able to deploy reinterpretations effectively, our results caution that everyday citizens may not.
Despite the introduction of anti-discrimination legislation and significant changes in the nature of gender relations throughout the 20th century, men and women continue to be segregated into different kinds of jobs within the UK labour market. This book provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the ways in which sex discrimination can be reproduced within the recruitment process. It also examines the rationalization provided by those who perpetrate these unlawful practices and some of the forms of resistance which can be mobilized in order to challenge and even eliminate sex discrimination. "Managing to Discriminate" is a theoretical development of a research project sponsored by the Equal Opportunities Commission designed to examine whether, and if so, how, the recruitment process can contribute to the continuation of gender divisions and inequalities in employment. The EOC was acutely aware of the absence of evidence concerning the specific methods and procedures or organizational recruitment and of the particular ways in which sex discrimination could characterize this process. The recruitment process is especially vague, nebulous, and indeterminate and can be shrouded in secrecy. Equally, since sex discrimination is illegal, its observation can be very difficult. By examining particular recruitment exercises as they actually happened, and at every stage of their process, this book presents rich, detailed qualitative material that makes it a landmark in the
research of the recruitment process and sex discrimination in employment.
(21) Managing to Discriminate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318430718_Managing_to_Discriminate [accessed Feb 17 2018].
In this article, we review evidence showing that both the activation and the application of stereotypes may be influenced by motivation. When an applicable stereotype supports their desired impression of an individual, motivation can lead people to activate this stereotype, if they have not already activated it spontaneously. Motivation can also lead people to apply this stereotype to individuals to whom they might not have applied it otherwise. On the other hand, when an applicable stereotype casts doubt over their desired impression of an individual, motivation can lead people to inhibit the activation of this stereotype. Even if people are unable to inhibit its activation, motivation may still lead them to inhibit its application to this individual. People pick and choose among the many stereotypes applicable to an individual, activating those that support their desired impression of this individual and inhibiting those that interfere with it.
Etude meta-analytique des recherches ayant utilise le paradigme experimental de Goldberg (1968), dans le but d'un examen critique des conclusions sur l'evaluation plus favorable, chez les femmes, des auteurs de sexe masculin
Each of 72 professional personnel consultants rated the suitability of one bogus applicant for selected masculine, feminine, and neuter jobs, and for alternatives to employment. Each resume was identical with the exception of the systematic variation of the applicant's sex and the omission or inclusion of a photo depicting the applicant as physically attractive or unattractive. As predicted, personnel decisions strongly reflected the operation of sex-role stereotypes as well as sex-relevant and sex-irrelevant attractiveness stereotypes. These factors similarly affected consultants' recommendations of alternatives to employment and consultants' causal attributions of applicants' projected occupational successes and failures. Sex-role typing provides a significant example of the powerful effects of stereotypes in the expansion and restriction of alternatives of expression and action available to men and to women in our society (Bern, 197S; Block, von der Lippe, & Block, 1973; Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972). The influence of sex-role stereotypes on both access and employee treatment is centrally important to sex discrimination in employment, a practice prohibited by Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, The social sciences have begun to systematically examine sex discrimination in a number of settings, both naturalistic and experimental. The greatest amount of research has assessed discrimination against females in traditionally masculine, that is, male-dominated, occupations. Men have been evaluated more favorably than women for writing journal articles (Goldberg, 1968), for painting pictures (Pheterson, Kiesler, & Goldberg, 1971), and for
Only a small proportion of the leadership positions in society are held by women. This applies to women in academic careers at universities, in managerial and executive positions, and in professional fields, as well as in the political realm and in public service. Although women make up about 40% of the work force in countries like West Germany and more than 50% in the United States, they do not hold more than 2% to 4% of the top positions in management. Even in middle-management positions, one finds that no more than about 15% are women. In general, women in professional fields are still concentrated in lower job status categories. Women are consistently paid lower salaries than men, and despite a number of antidiscrimination laws presently in effect, the salary gap is widening rather than decreasing.
The concept of social power has, at its core, the ability of one person to influence one or more others or to control the outcomes of others (Ellyson & Dovidio, 1985). Social power may stem from the information a person possesses (informational power), the position that a person occupies (legitimate power), the ability to administer favorable outcomes (reward power) or unfavorable outcomes (coercive power), or from the perception of being knowledgeable in the topic at hand (expert power) (French & Raven, 1959; Raven, 1974). These sources of social power may also be referred to as structural power (see Molm & Hedley, Chapter 1 in this volume). Sex is a characteristic that has traditionally been related to actual and perceived social power. In the United States, men disproportionately occupy positions of social, political, and economic power relative to women (Basow, 1986). In addition, gender stereotypes, in the United States and cross-culturally, characterize men as having greater potency, competence, and strength and associate men with higher status and more instrumental roles (Deaux, 1984; Williams & Best, 1986). This chapter examines the relationships among social power, gender, and human nonverbal power displays, particularly involving visual behavior.
A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. This paper discusses the essentials of building a learning organization. It also suggests that beyond high philosophy and grand themes, building a learning organization requires the gritty details of practice.
The United States has a large number of well-educated, experienced professional women ready, willing, and able to move into the boardrooms and executive suites of corporate America. They represent a great, untapped economic resource and this book argues that this is America's competitive secret. Drawing on in-depth interviews with top executives and middle managers, and the latest research on working women and organizational change, the author describes the unique contribution of female professionals. Her profiles of top women managers reveal that they cope well with ambiguity, are comfortable sharing power, and tend to empower others' leadership traits that lead to increased employee productivity, innovation, and profits. The book offers evidence that the changes that help organizations more fully utilize the talents of women are the same changes that will give them an important edge in today's global workplace. The author explains why the glass ceiling still prevents many competent women from reaching the upper echelons of management. She analyses why women and men are perceived and evaluated differently at work, and provides new insight into the feelings of men who are asked to interact with women in new roles when there are few new rules. The book shows that removing the glass ceiling can no longer be viewed solely in terms of social equity-it is now an economic imperative.
Researchers have long acknowledged the multifaceted nature of intergroup attitudes. However, depending on the theoretical framework in which they were operating, they have tended to focus on either the affective or cognitive underpinnings of these attitudes, rather than on the joint role of affect and cognition. Disparities in the measurement of intergroup attitudes have contributed to this rift. This chapter discusses the problem by providing a framework for thinking about the contribution of both affect and cognition in determining attitudes toward groups. It discusses how previous findings fit within this framework and it describes the recent research designed to examine the interplay between affect and cognition. In parallel with societal trends, research in this area has progressed from a focus on attitudes toward social groups at the level of ethnic groups (especially attitudes toward blacks in the United States) to a broader scope including attitudes toward groups based on such varied characteristics as sex, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and age.
This study used both self-reported and group assessments of leader emergence in conjunction with descriptions of leader behavior to explore the relationship among gender, gender role, attitude, experience, and leader emergence. The results, as expected, indicated nonsignificant biological sex effects. Support was found for masculine and androgynous individuals emerging as leaders with greater frequency than feminine or undifferentiated individuals. Additionally, a masculine gender characteristics measure proved to be a significant predictor for self-reported leader emergence. Attitude toward leadership was a significant predictor for group-assessed leader emergence. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
People today live much of their lives in and through formal organizations. Worshipping, learning to add and subtract, having babies, fighting wars, and making laws are organizational activities. The thesis of this chapter is that formal organizations are highly gendered, in addition to being ubiquitous, and are excellent sites for studying gender interaction and inequality (cf. Acker, 1990; Burrell & Hearn, 1989).
Does gender bias cause differences in pay? The reply necessitates precise measures of pay based on specification of education, experience and occupation. The author presents original analyses of the female/male occupational wage gap in the diverse countries for which adequate data are available in the ILO's 1996 October Earnings Inquiry. Empirical findings cover occupational groups in medicine and in public service, banking and insurance. In addition, some national trends and international differences are indicated. Also presented are major research findings on the female/male wage gap and methodological issues, which advice on the pitfalls to avoid.
Two issues were explored: (a) which impression management (IM) tactics applicants use during actual interviews and (b) whether there is a relationship between applicants' IM tactics and their interview outcomes. The study also examined convergence across different methods and raters when measuring IM. Postinterview survey measures were obtained from applicants and interviewers regarding applicant IM behavior during a specific interview; in addition, a subset (n = 24) of interviews was audiotaped and analyzed for the presence of IM. Analyses revealed low to moderate convergence across methods and raters, suggesting that IM tactics may be multidimensional constructs. Across methods and raters, there was consistent evidence of greater applicant self-promotion than ingratiation. Similarly, IM tactics significantly predicted interviewers' evaluations and whether applicants later obtained site visits. Implications for future research are discussed.
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This chapter discusses the social psychologists study “top of the head” phenomena in their experimental investigations. Attention within the social environment is selective. It is drawn to particular features of the environment either as a function of qualities intrinsic to those features (such as light or movement) or as a function of the perceiver's own dispositions and temporary need states. These conditions are outlined in the chapter. As a result of differential attention to particular features, information about those features is more available to the perceiver. Relative to the quantity of information retained about other features, more is retained about the salient features. When the salient person is the self, the same effects occur, and the individual is also found to show more consistency in attitudes and behaviors. These processes may occur primarily in situations which are redundant, unsurprising, uninvolving, and unarousing. They seem to occur automatically and substantially without awareness, and as such, they differ qualitatively from the intentional, conscious, controlled kind of search which characterizes all the behavior.
This review article posits that the scarcity of women at the upper levels of organizations is a consequence of gender bias in evaluations. It is proposed that gender stereotypes and the expectations they produce about both what women are like (descriptive) and how they should behave (prescriptive) can result in devaluation of their performance, denial of credit to them for their successes, or their penalization for being competent. The processes giving rise to these outcomes are explored, and the procedures that are likely to encourage them are identified. Because of gender bias and the way in which it influences evaluations in work settings, it is argued that being competent does not ensure that a woman will advance to the same organizational level as an equivalently performing man.
In this article, research is reviewed on the emergence of male and female leaders in initially leaderless groups. In these laboratory and field studies, men emerged as leaders to a greater extent than did women. Male leadership was particularly likely in short-term groups and in groups carrying out tasks that did not require complex social interaction. In contrast, women emerged as social leaders slightly more than did men. These and other findings were interpreted in terms of gender role theory, which maintains that societal gender roles influence group behavior. According to this theory, sex differences in emergent leadership are due primarily to role-induced tendencies for men to specialize more than women in behaviors strictly oriented to their group's task and for women to specialize more than men in socially facilitative behaviors.
A general theory of domain identification is used to describe achievement barriers still faced by women in advanced quantitative areas and by African Americans in school. The theory assumes that sustained school success requires identification with school and its subdomains; that societal pressures on these groups (e.g., economic disadvantage, gender roles) can frustrate this identification; and that in school domains where these groups are negatively stereotyped, those who have become domain identified face the further barrier of stereotype threat, the threat that others' judgments or their own actions will negatively stereotype them in the domain. Research shows that this threat dramatically depresses the standardized test performance of women and African Americans who are in the academic vanguard of their groups (offering a new interpretation of group differences in standardized test performance), that it causes disidentification with school, and that practices that reduce this threat can reduce these negative effects.
Two experiments tested a form of automatic stereo-typing Subjects saw primes related to gender (e g, mother, father, nurse, doctor) or neutral with respect to gender (e g, parent, student, person) followed by target pronouns (stimulus onset asynchronv = 300 ms) that were gender related (e g, she, he) or neutral (it, me) or followed by nonpronouns (do, all, Experiment 2 only) In Experiment 1, subjects judged whether each pronoun was male or female Automatic gender beliefs (stereotypes) were observed in faster responses to pronouns consistent than inconsistent with the gender component of the prime regardless of subjects' awareness of the prime-target relation, and independently of subjects explicit beliefs about gender stereotypes and language reform In Experiment 2, automatic stereotyping was obtained even though a gender-irrelevant judgment task (pronoun/not pronoun) was used Together, these experiments demonstrate that gender information imparted by words can automatically influence judgment, although the strength of such effects may be moderated by judgment task and prime type
Controversy surrounds the selection of women and men for partnerships in law firms. Two structural theories explain the greater success of men in achieving partnership. Human capital theory emphasizes investment choices and productivity; gender stratification theory highlights institutional constraints and bias. We incorporate Bourdieu's (1984) cultural capital perspective, which emphasizes both tangible structural sources of social capital and less tangible cultural resources and dispositions. We find that measures of social capital and cultural dispositions favorable to a firm's monetary goals explain some of the preference given to men in partnership decisions. Even with these differences controlled, however, women have poorer prospects for partnership. We also consider whether there is a 'kind of woman lawyer,' one with exceptional structural and cultural characteristics, that is given preference relative to other women. While men are valued for traditional corporate family images, women are rewarded for breaking convention in giving priority to work outside the home, bringing in corporate clients, and endorsing the goals of the law-firm culture.
Although a ''glass ceiling'' is said to keep women from the top management levels of organizations, no research has investigated actual decisions about promotions to such positions. This study examined promotion decisions for U.S. federal government Senior Executive Service positions in a cabinet-level department. Contrary to hypotheses, the job-irrelevant variable of gender worked to women's advantage, both directly and indirectly, through job relevant variables. However, an applicant's employment in the hiring department had the greatest effect on promotion decisions.
This study examined how women's proportional representation in the upper echelons of organizations affects professional women's social constructions of gender difference and gender identity at work. qualitative and quantitative data were used. Results suggest that sex roles are more stereotypical and more problematic in firms with relatively low proportions of senior women, This research also found that women responded to these constraints in a range of ways and identifies five response profiles. The study challenges prevailing conceptions of gender as an objective property of individuals synonymous with biological sex and universal across organizational settings; instead, it supports a more complex view of gender as an ongoing social construction, the meaning, significance, and consequences of which vary as a function of the power differences reflected in the sex composition across levels of an organization's hierarchy.
A simulation of workplace conflict examined the effects of a manager's pregnancy on male and female subordinates. Study participants-40 women and 41 men from an MBA program-each took part in two ten-minute long, videotaped, interactive role plays with two women managers (research confederates), one apparently pregnant and the other not. The participants' impressions of the managers were tapped using an author-developed questionnaire and brief interviews. Interactive data were analyzed to determine the nature of the expression of emotion and ideas. The results show that participants had more negative impressions of and lower satisfaction with the pregnant manager than with the manager who was not pregnant, and initiated more social conversations with the former than with the latter. Interview data suggest that participants had expected the pregnant manager to be passive, nice, and giving, and were surprised by her authoritative behavior. Implications for pregnant managers and limitations of the study are discussed.
A new competitive landscape is developing largely based on the technological revolution and increasing globalization. The strategic discontinuities encountered by firms are transforming the nature of competition. To navigate effectively in this new competitive landscape, to build and maintain competitive advantage, requires a new type of organization. Success in the 21st century organization will depend first on building strategic flexibility. To develop strategic flexibility and competitive advantage, requires exercising strategic leadership, building dynamic core competences, focusing and developing human capital, effectively using new manufacturing and information technologies, employing valuable strategies (exploiting global markets and cooperative strategies) and implementing new organization structures and culture (horizontal organization, learning and innovative culture, managing firm as bundles of assets). Thus, the new competitive landscape will require new types of organization and leaders for survival and global market leadership.
Research demonstrates that sex or gender remains a powerful basis of inequality in the expectations and behavior of men and women in mixed-sex task groups. Drawing upon the work of Epstein (1970) and the theoretical apparatus of status characteristics theory (see Berger et al., 1977), we explore one means by which these inequalities may be reduced--the disconfirmation of established gender-based expectations. The results of two experiments--one involving females and one involving males--show that disconfirmation does in fact reduce tasks inequality for both women and men. The results also support predictions based on the combining and attenuation principles of status characteristics theory. We interpret these findings as demonstrating that sex role socialization is (1) a manifestation of a more general status organizing process and (2) more situationally specific than has previously been assumed.
This paper examines the impact of women's proportional representation in the upper echelons of organizations on hierarchical and peer relationships among professional women at work. I propose that social identity is the principal mechanism through which the representation of women influences their relationships. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of interview and questionnaire data are used to compare women's same-sex relationships in firms with relatively low and high proportions of senior women. Compared with women in firms with many senior women, women in firms with few senior women were less likely to experience common gender as a positive basis for identification with women, less likely to perceive senior women as role models with legitimate authority, more likely to perceive competition in relationships with women peers, and less likely to find support in these relationships. These results challenge person-centered views about the psychology of women's same-sex work relationships and suggest that social identity may link an organization's demographic composition with individuals' workplace experiences.
The impact of conformity and nonconformity on influence in task groups is still uncertain. This paper presents a test of the author's recent theory (Ridgeway, 1978) which reconciles the conflicting findings in the area and contrasts it with a test of the currently accepted theory (Hollander, 1958, 1960). Hollander argues that prior conformity enhances status which allows greater influence and nonconformity. The author argues that status and influence result from external status characteristics, task competence, and perceived motivation towards the group. Conformity and nonconformity affect influence through the clues they offer to two of these, motivation and competence. Data from 96 experimental decision groups, each composed of three male subjects and a male or female confederate, failed to confirm Hollander's approach and largely supported the author's. Results indicate that nonconformity which accompanies a task contribution often enhances the influence of an external-status equal, but can have liabilities for members with low external status.