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Development and Validation of the Masculinity Contest Culture Scale
... Berdahl et al. (2018), argumentam que uma cultura com estas caraterísticas perpetua desigualdades de poder e cria desafios para a criação de ambientes mais inclusivos e colaborativos. Estudos empíricos mostraram que as "culturas de competição masculina" se correlacionam com aspetos negativos das vivências no contexto de trabalho que vão desde perceções e comportamentos ao nível organizacional (por exemplo, menor segurança psicológica, mais intimidação e assédio) até atitudes e resultados ao nível individual (por exemplo, esgotamento, intenções de rotatividade) (Glick et al., 2018;Rawski & Workman-Stark, 2018). Segundo Glick et al. (2018), o contexto social e económico atual leva a que as organizações desenvolvam este tipo de cultura que se traduz em "climas organizacionais disfuncionais", orientados para regras e o seu cumprimento, valorizando-se a competição, a imagem de que o trabalho deve estar sempre primeiro, gerando-se efeitos negativos nos trabalhadores dos quais se destacam o burnout, a fraca dedicação ao trabalho e níveis baixos de bem-estar individual. ...
... Estudos empíricos mostraram que as "culturas de competição masculina" se correlacionam com aspetos negativos das vivências no contexto de trabalho que vão desde perceções e comportamentos ao nível organizacional (por exemplo, menor segurança psicológica, mais intimidação e assédio) até atitudes e resultados ao nível individual (por exemplo, esgotamento, intenções de rotatividade) (Glick et al., 2018;Rawski & Workman-Stark, 2018). Segundo Glick et al. (2018), o contexto social e económico atual leva a que as organizações desenvolvam este tipo de cultura que se traduz em "climas organizacionais disfuncionais", orientados para regras e o seu cumprimento, valorizando-se a competição, a imagem de que o trabalho deve estar sempre primeiro, gerando-se efeitos negativos nos trabalhadores dos quais se destacam o burnout, a fraca dedicação ao trabalho e níveis baixos de bem-estar individual. Para além disso Glick et al. referem também que, na atualidade, as organizações estruturam-se entre "vencedores e vencidos" sendo considerados vencedores aqueles que aceitam, cumprem as normas e se adaptam a esta orientação de cumprimento de regras, de competição e de ajustamento a contextos de priorização do trabalho sobre os demais papéis de vida. ...
... O questionário foi constituído, numa primeira parte por questões relativas a dados sociodemográficos que incluíram a idade, sexo, número de filhos menores de 18 anos, estatuto profissional (exercício de função de chefia/coordenação de equipa ou não). A segunda parte do questionário foi constituída pela escala de Bern Illegitimate Scale (Semmer et al. 2006(Semmer et al. , 2015, na adaptação para a população portuguesa (Neves et al. 2023), a escala de Work-Family Conflict Scale (Mathews, et al., 2011), adaptada para português, que avalia o conflito baseado no tempo e pressão, e a Masculinity Contest Culture Scale (Glick, et al., 2018). Considerando que a Masculinity Contest Culture Scale de Glick, et al. (2018) não se encontra adaptada para amostras portuguesas, optou-se por efetuar uma análise fatorial exploratória para confirmar a unidimensionalidade da cada escala. ...
... Notably, perceived threat to personal status is a predictor of emotional exhaustion (Glaser & Hecht, 2013), supporting our expectations. Moreover, early examinations of MCC indicate working within an organization defined by these masculine ideals is associated with negative attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Glick et al., 2018;Koc et al., 2021;Rawski & Workman-Stark, 2018) providing additional evidence for the expected stressor-strain relationships of MCC. While such relationships are backed by the existent literature, research has yet to consider the role gender and competitiveness play in such relationships. ...
... The objective of the present study is to advance the existing MCC literature in line with the above expectations with hypotheses informed by the job demands-resources model (JDRM; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) and by social role theory (Eagly, 1987). We posit MCC is a competition-driven stressor that relates to greater strain in line with JDRM, building on past research (e.g., Glick et al., 2018;Rawski & Workman-Stark, 2018). We also hypothesize relationships from MCC to strain vary between individuals with hypotheses further informed by social role theory. ...
... Moreover, research also supports MCC can be conceptualized as a higher order single-factor construct or as having four lower level facets worthy of individual consideration. Specifically, Glick et al. (2018) conceptualized MCC as consisting of four distinct but highly correlated masculine workplace norms: "show no weakness," "strength and stamina," "put work first," and "dog eat dog." "Show no weakness" refers to perceptions that doubts, humility, and any displays of feminine emotions must be stifled within the workplace; "strength and stamina" refers to perceptions that physical gifts (i.e., size, strength, stamina) are key for workplace respect and status; "put work first" refers to the notion that family and nonwork activities should not interfere with work; last, "dog eat dog" refers to the characterization of the workplace as a hypercompetitive environment wherein coworkers are competitors who must be defeated rather than colleagues . ...
The relationship between masculinity contest culture (MCC) and emotional exhaustion was examined with hypotheses informed by the job demands-resources model. Additionally, trait competitiveness and gender were considered as predictors within a three-way interaction model informed by social role theory. Hypotheses were tested using a two-timepoint survey with a sample of 494 full-time employed adults. Results indicate MCC relates to emotional exhaustion. Support is also provided for a three-way interaction between overall MCC, trait competitiveness, and gender with men with lower trait competitiveness displaying the strongest positive relationship. Overall, results suggest MCC operates as a stressor with the potential to harm psychological well-being and that the strength of this relationship varied based on gender and trait competitiveness. Specifically, higher trait competitiveness buffered relationships between MCC and exhaustion for men but intensified this relationship for women. Implications for employee well-being and disparate health outcomes across groups are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... A related issue is that men and women might have different views of organizational context factors. For example, Glick et al. (2018) found that women evidenced somewhat lower ratings of MCC Norms than men. Clearly, many past surveys have consistently found that women were more likely to report experiencing sexually harassing behavior when they perceived permissive workplace norms Drawing measures about organizational contexts from multiple informants would also address the more general problems inherent in drawing data from single source self-reports (Fitzgerald et al., 1997;Pryor et al., 1995). ...
... Some interesting questions for future research concern whether training moderates the relationship of personality factors with sexually harassing behaviors and whether training can alter organizational cultures.While organizational contexts might be difficult to change, the incentives to change them are legion. In addition to the individual costs associated with sexual harassment in the workplace,Glick et al. (2018) point out that endemic organizational dysfunction associated with contexts such as MCCs. So far, the promise of changing organizational contexts through more effective leadership and policy reforms remains elusive. ...
This research examined the roles of organization contexts factors and dark personality traits in men's ( N = 600) self‐reports of sexually harassing behaviors toward women in the workplace. Four organization context factors (a permissive climate, a masculinized job/gender context, male/female contact, and Masculinity Contest Culture [MCC] Norms) and four dark personality traits (psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism) were examined. While only one organizational context factor, MCC Norms correlated with men's admissions of sexually harassing behaviors at work, all four dark personality traits evidenced significant correlations. In a multiple regression analysis, MCC Norms emerged again as the single organizational context predictor and psychopathy as the single personality predictor of men's admissions of sexually harassing behaviors at work. Moderation analyses showed that a masculinized job/gender context interacted with psychopathy to produce more admissions of sexually harassing behaviors. Mediation analyses showed that psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism had indirect relationships with admissions of sexually harassing behaviors through MCC Norms. Higher levels on these traits were related to higher levels of these workplace norms which, in turn, predicted more admissions of sexually harassing behavior. This research sheds new light on how both organizational contexts and enduring personal characteristics of men are related to sexual harassment in the workplace.
... However, this is costly for both employees and the organization. MCC has been associated with several negative work-related outcomes (e.g., burnout, turnover intentions, decreased job satisfaction and work performance, and lower levels of organizational identity) and lower psychological and physical well-being for employees (Berdahl & Bhattacharyya, 2021;Glick et al., 2018;Koc et al., 2021). Furthermore, work environments characterized by MCC have significantly higher rates of sexual harassment and bullying . ...
... Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among all variables are presented in Table 1. Consistent with previous research (Dionisi et al., 2012;Glick et al., 2018), sexual harassment and bullying were strongly correlated (r = .70, p < .001). ...
Masculinity contest culture (MCC), which refers to a dysfunctional organizational culture, is correlated with more frequent interpersonal mistreatment (e.g., sexual harassment and bullying) and lower levels of occupational and psychological well-being. The present cross-sectional study using a convenience sample of Chinese working women (N = 694) investigated the mediating role of interpersonal mistreatment in the association between MCC and psychological well-being, as well as potential individual and organizational moderators. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that organizational tolerance for sexual harassment (OTSH) and targets’ position in the organization moderated the links between MCC and interpersonal mistreatment. Specifically, the association between MCC and sexual harassment experiences was stronger when women held higher positions in organizations with greater OTSH. While OTSH also strengthened the association between MCC and bullying, position in the organization was not correlated with bullying and did not moderate the link between MCC and bullying. The results also provided evidence for the indirect effects of MCC on psychological well-being via sexual harassment and bullying; these indirect effects were larger via bullying than sexual harassment. Our findings demonstrate the importance of organizational culture and climate for women’s well-being and may inform recommendations for promoting a climate of respect and justice in the workplace.
... The third aspect of Kuper's (2005b) definition of toxic masculinity is zero-sum competitiveness. This aspect of masculinity is characterized by fixation on one's own success, particularly at the expense of others (Glick et al., 2018;Kupers, 2005b). Zero-sum thinking has been tied to masculinity across myriad studies (Glick et al., 2018;Kuchynka et al., 2018). ...
... This aspect of masculinity is characterized by fixation on one's own success, particularly at the expense of others (Glick et al., 2018;Kupers, 2005b). Zero-sum thinking has been tied to masculinity across myriad studies (Glick et al., 2018;Kuchynka et al., 2018). In the case of bodybuilding, zero-sum competitiveness could emerge backstage in the form of an absence of helping behaviors or the presence of intentionally negative behaviors intended to "psych out" or otherwise disturb one's competitors. ...
Bodybuilding is an increasingly popular sport in the United States. Across fields of psychology, history, sociology, and anthropology, bodybuilding has been examined as being related to, or as manifestly being, a pathology. Extant work on men who are bodybuilders are often built on the assumption that narcissism, self-doubt, and insecurity are the driving forces for men’s involvement. The present study sought to examine the experiences of eleven men who have competed in bodybuilding competitions. In contrast to the dominant academic discourse on bodybuilding as an embodiment of toxic masculinity or as a reaction to underlying feelings of inferiority, the study participants described friendly, supportive competition contexts. That such feelings were found backstage, as opposed to in a gym, strengthens the need for a more nuanced distinction between bodybuilding as a culture, and bodybuilding as a sport. This study disrupts dominant narratives of bodybuilding as pathological and contributes to work on the construction of gender and masculinity in sport. The present work suggests a scholarly approach to men’s bodybuilding in an open and nuanced manner that does not focus on pathologizing bodybuilding or competition.
... Such pressures to "do whatever it takes" to succeed are consistent with a masculinity contest culture, a culture in which ambition, independence, and assertiveness (characteristics of agency and dominance) are valued, and sensitivity and vulnerability (characteristics of communality) are disparaged Glick et al., 2018). If social science research has become a masculinity contest culture, as some have suggested about academia more broadly (Kaeppel et al., 2020), then researchers of all genders are at greater risk of burnout, job dissatisfaction, and experiences with harassment . ...
... These findings suggest that the replication movement need not be a masculinity contest culture, where showing signs of weakness is proscribed . In light of the robust effects we observed with regard to the impact of a single failed replication on perceptions of the researcher, websites or other media that serve to raise doubts about individual researchers' scientific integrity may contribute-even if unintentionally-to a masculine contest culture, where doubts are viewed as weak, as illustrated by items on the validated measure of masculinity contest culture (e.g., "In my work environment, admitting you do not know the answer looks weak"; Glick et al., 2018). Although we did not manipulate the researcher's reactions to the failed replication in our experiments, participants perceived those researchers as less competent and knowledgeable, effectively admitting they did not have the "right" answers. ...
The reproducibility movement in psychology has resulted in numerous highly publicized instances of replication failures. The goal of the present work was to investigate people’s reactions to a psychology replication failure vs. success, and to test whether a failure elicits harsher reactions when the researcher is a woman vs. a man. We examined these questions in a pre-registered experiment with a working adult sample, a conceptual replication of that experiment with a student sample, and an analysis of data compiled and posted by a psychology researcher on their public weblog with the stated goal to improve research replicability by rank-ordering psychology researchers by their “estimated false discovery risk.” Participants in the experiments were randomly assigned to read a news article describing a successful vs. failed replication attempt of original work from a male vs. female psychological scientist, and then completed measures of researcher competence, likability, integrity, perceptions of the research, and behavioral intentions for future interactions with the researcher. In both working adult and student samples, analyses consistently yielded large main effects of replication outcome, but no interaction with researcher gender. Likewise, the coding of weblog data posted in July 2021 indicated that 66.3% of the researchers scrutinized were men and 33.8% were women, and their rank-ordering was not correlated with researcher gender. The lack of support for our pre-registered gender-replication hypothesis is, at first glance, encouraging for women researchers’ careers; however, the substantial effect sizes we observed for replication outcome underscore the tremendous negative impact the reproducibility movement can have on psychologists’ careers. We discuss the implications of such negative perceptions and the possible downstream consequences for women in the field that are essential for future study.
... Hegemonic masculinity refers to the normative image of manhood produced by cultural and institutional processes and performed, achieved, or aspired to (West & Zimmerman, 1987) by men at an interactional level. Hegemonic masculinity is often marked by features and values such as a preoccupation with status and dominance; exhibiting toughness; avoiding soft emotions and behaviors; self-reliance; aggressiveness; risk-taking behaviors; and hyper-competitiveness (Dellinger, 2004;Martin, 2001;Glick et al., 2018). While previous research has suggested that different contextual factors hegemonize different forms of masculinity, hegemonic masculinity is always constructed around an -active struggle over dominance‖ (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005); it ties in the achievement of masculinity with one's ability to express dominance over the surrounding people (women or men) or conditions. ...
... While previous research has suggested that different contextual factors hegemonize different forms of masculinity, hegemonic masculinity is always constructed around an -active struggle over dominance‖ (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005); it ties in the achievement of masculinity with one's ability to express dominance over the surrounding people (women or men) or conditions. Workplaces with highly masculine cultures enforce men to not only engage in practices and behaviors that are culturally understood as masculine as an integral part of their careers, but also to seek to outperform others in masculine performances (Ely & Kimmel, 2017;Glick et al., 2018). Research suggests that such cultures make men vulnerable to the precariousness of masculinity by creating an environment where men are pressured to constantly prove characteristics that speak to the hegemonic constructions of masculinity or otherwise face the social and psychological insecurities of failing to feed the normative images of manhood and thus professional success (Ely & Kimmel, 2018;Acker, 1990;Eagly & Carli, 2007;Kolb et al., 2003;Martin, 2003). ...
... In their study of 8th Circuit Federal Court employees, Lim and Cortina (2005) document significant correlations between sexualized harassment and incivility, and even stronger correlations between incivility and the construct of gender harassment, the most frequent sub-type of sexualized harassment which reflects sex-related put-downs and sexism. Others have widened the window of discourse to include toxic leadership, bullying, and harassment, and to distinguish behaviors oriented toward expressing dominance over others from strictly sexually oriented behavior Berdahl and Bhattacharyya, 2021;Glick et al., 2018). Many of these authors have noted that disrespectful, hostile, and intimidating behavior may be targeted toward numerous groups of organizational members based on multiple dimensions of their identities, often intersectionally. ...
Background
This research describes the development and validation of the CARES Climate Survey, a 22-item measure designed to assess interpersonal dimensions of work-unit climates. Dimensions of work-unit climates are identified through work-unit member perceptions and include civility, interpersonal accountability, conflict resolution, and institutional harassment responsiveness.
Methods
Two samples ( N = 1,384; N = 868) of academic researchers, including one from the North American membership of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and one from a large research-intensive university, responded to the CARES and additional measures via an online survey.
Results
We demonstrate content validity of the CARES measure and confirm structural validity through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses which yielded four dimensions of interpersonal climate. In addition, we confirm the CARES internal reliability, construct validity, and excellent sub-group invariance.
Conclusions
The CARES is a brief, psychometrically sound instrument that can be used by researchers, institutional leaders, and other practitioners to assess interpersonal climates in organizational work-units.
Originality/value
This is the first study to develop and validate such a measure of interpersonal climates specifically in research-intensive organizations, using rigorous psychometric methods, grounded in both theory and prior research on work-unit climates.
... Perceived mistreatment tolerance climate captures meaning related to mistreatment in the organization, such as whether mistreatment within the organization is perceived to be a rare occurrence or a systemic issue (e.g., Yang et al. 2014). In the latter case (i.e., high mistreatment tolerance climate), organizational members may perceive mistreatment as normal or even expected (e.g., Glick, Berdahl, and Alonso 2018), likely to go unpunished (e.g., Chang et al. 2012), and not taken seriously by the organization (e.g., Inness, LeBlanc, and Barling 2008). ...
System justification theory posits that individuals tend to justify and maintain the status quo. For workplace mistreatment, we argue this tendency can elicit psychological processes in observers that may further disadvantage targets of mistreatment. We propose that organizational climates that are perceived to tolerate mistreatment increase the likelihood that observers perceive specific instances of mistreatment as inevitable. This can activate system justification tendencies in which observers evaluate the mistreatment incident as more legitimate and the target as less legitimate, prompting harmful observer reactions (e.g., minimizing the incident, negatively gossiping about the target). To investigate system justification in observer reactions, we validate a measure of perceived mistreatment inevitability and conduct a multiwave survey to test our hypotheses. Our findings indicate that organizational climates that tolerate mistreatment increase observers' perceptions that specific instances of mistreatment are inevitable, thereby activating processes that prompt observers to justify and maintain the status quo. Theoretical implications include identifying what activates system justification, why observers justify mistreatment, and how these tendencies elicit harmful reactions further disadvantaging targets. Practically, our findings highlight the importance of addressing organizational climates that tolerate mistreatment, avoiding reliance on observers to intervene constructively, and effectively addressing mistreatment to prevent further harm to targets.
... Importantly, more substantial support for women's careers as well as significant cultural and normative changes are needed to help them succeed (Zhang, 2020). Namely, the work on masculinity contest cultures Glick et al., 2018) suggests that men-dominated occupations have toxic cultures exemplified with overwork and cutthroat competition. It appears that offering parental leave benefits on its own will not support women's careers and success in such cultures. ...
Organizations have started more progressively using and offering family benefits including parental leaves to address the issues of balancing work and family life. Although such leaves are fundamental for supporting, attracting, and retaining women, we examine whether such leaves may also inadvertently affect women’s careers in occupations that overly value masculine traits, unless managed carefully. Drawing on the literature on gender stereotypes (micro factors) and occupation gender type (macro factors), we argue that longer (vs. shorter) parental leaves negatively affect women’s work outcomes (i.e., annual income, salary recommendation, hireability, and leadership effectiveness) in men-dominated but not in women-dominated occupations because it lowers perceptions of women’s agency. We find support for our hypotheses across three studies in the Australian context with an archival data set and two experiments. Our work shows that men-dominated organizational structures reinforce traditional gender stereotypes, whereas such reinforcement does not happen in women-dominated organizational structures. Our research equips leaders and organizations with insights into the unintended negative consequences of parental leave for women. This understanding serves as a crucial first step in developing strategies and programs to mitigate these effects, thereby supporting women in men-dominated occupations and fostering more inclusive and healthy workplaces.
... The Dog-Eat-Dog characterisation of prison governors' working experiences is engrained in the cultural norms of working practice. While challenging and changing cultural norms in any working environment is no small feat, Glick et al. (2018) propose that Dog-Eat-Dog competition can be mitigated through the creation of policies that do not tolerate or reward bullying, harassment or sabotage. Berdahl et al.'s (2018) MCC concept has thus provided a useful framework for articulating the working culture of prison governors. ...
The wellbeing of prison governors has received little attention in penological research to date. The findings of this research reveal that governors’ wellbeing is negatively impacted by a dominant Masculinity Contest Culture (MCC) permeating through the organisation. While MCC negatively contributes to governors’ wellbeing, they continue to engage in hegemonic masculine performances to show no weakness to cope with the pressures of working life. This has led to the emergence of a ‘hyper-MCC’ which we define as an overperformance of the MCC social script that is seen as a requirement to cope within an increasingly challenging workplace. The implications of hyper-MCC are a perpetuation of a toxic working culture and a reduced likelihood of engaging with wellbeing services. The response needs to be developing the right types of support that can attempt to re-frame dominant masculine working cultures, challenge hyper-MCC performances and remove the individualised responsibility of wellbeing away from the workforce themselves. However, this cultural shift will only be effective if coupled with a meaningful reconsideration of working conditions, which have resulted in the intensification of workloads and practices.
... Such masculinity contest and work devotion norms may detrimentally affect employees' wellbeing. For example, masculinity contest at work are related to lower general and psychological health (e.g., increased stress levels and burnout; Glick et al., 2018;Matos et al., 2018;Rawski and Workman-Stark, 2018;Workman-Stark, 2021). In addition, organizational cultures characterized by masculinity contests are related to increased imposter feelings and lower belonging (Vial et al., 2022), increased turnover intentions Matos et al., 2018;Rawski and Workman-Stark, 2018;Workman-Stark, 2021), and poorer work-life balance Matos et al., 2018). ...
While much progress has been made towards gender equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, education and society, recent years have also revealed continuing challenges that slow or halt this progress. To date, the majority of gender equality action has tended to approach gender equality from one side: being focused on the need to remove barriers for girls and women. We argue that this is only half the battle, and that a focus on men is MANdatory, highlighting three key areas: First, we review men’s privileged status as being potentially threatened by progress in gender equality, and the effects of these threats for how men engage in gender-equality progress. Second, we highlight how men themselves are victims of restrictive gender roles, and the consequences of this for men’s physical and mental health, and for their engagement at work and at home. Third, we review the role of men as allies in the fight for gender equality, and on the factors that impede and may aid in increasing men’s involvement. We end with recommendations for work organizations, educational institutions and society at large to reach and involve men as positive agents of social change.
... First, they show the potential drawbacks of a competitive (vs. more collaborative) work climate for feedback quality, thereby fitting into the larger literature showing negative consequences of competitive work climates both for interpersonal dynamics Cheryan & Markus, 2020;Glick et al., 2018;Koc et al., 2021) and for individual employees (Babalola et al., 2022;Rai et al., 2022;Vial et al., 2022). Of course, given that the current data is strictly correlational, we cannot draw firm conclusions about whether a competitive work climate is the root cause of people perceiving feedback as more inaccurate and dishonest or whether other variables not measured here could explain this finding (such as people in these climates somehow being more distrustful of others in general, causing them to both perceive the environment as more competitive, and the information they receive from others as more false and dishonest). ...
Having a clear and stable sense of how one performs in a field is a key contributor to goal pursuit. Performance feedback is often considered a crucial resource for developing this clear and stable self-knowledge but may be less optimally integrated when feedback is considered inaccurate or dishonest. The current paper investigates how such feedback perceptions may limit the development of people’s ability self-concept, and how workplace contexts can restrict communication. A 2-week daily diary study among 197 junior researchers working in STEM-fields (N = 1,353 data points) showed that those in more competitive (vs. more collaborative) work environments overall perceived feedback as more inaccurate and dishonest (but not as more positively inflated). These results did not differ for men and women, showing that both face negative consequences of working in a more competitive context in terms of their ability to get high-quality feedback. On the daily level, results showed that days on which people received more inaccurate and dishonest (but not positively inflated) feedback were also days on which they reported higher imposter feelings, and lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability. In turn, days on which people felt more like an imposter and reported lower ability self-esteem, self-concept clarity, and self-concept stability, were also days on which motivation was lower. Ability self-esteem and self-concept clarity (but not imposter feelings and self-concept stability) were also related to lower daily risk-taking tendencies. Together, these results show that an important contextual factor– the perceived competitiveness of one’s work environment - influences feedback inaccuracy and dishonesty, with consequences for the ability to develop a clear, stable and certain ability self-concept.
... A male-dominated workgroup, on the other hand, represents a lack of gender diversity. Such contexts may signal that gender diversity is counter-normative and even indicate tensions between men and women (e.g., Glick et al., 2018). Indeed, previous research has demonstrated that maledominated workplaces tend to be hostile to women (Alonso & O'Neill, 2022;Berdahl et al., 2018;Cheryan & Markus, 2020), as they often marginalize women by valorizing masculinity and devaluing femininity (Rimalt, 2007). ...
Leader allyship can be an important tool for advancing workplace gender equality; however, its ultimate effectiveness may depend on the reactions of those who witness it. Specifically, male observers can enhance allyship efforts by emulating their leader’s allyship or, conversely, undermine them by decreasing their allyship emulation. Across four studies, we explore why, when, and how ally leaders may encourage rather than discourage such allyship emulation. We find that observers’ identification with the leader drives their allyship emulation. Yet, this identification is contingent on the gender demography of the workgroup, as witnessing leader allyship lowers identification with the leader in male-dominated contexts. Further, how leaders engage in allyship matters for observers’ identification. Performative allyship lowers identification across both gender-balanced and male-dominated contexts, while authentic allyship increases identification and subsequent allyship emulation only in gender-balanced contexts. Finally, leaders can increase allyship emulation through identification in male-dominated workplaces with allyship-related storytelling.
... Organizational culture: Shared values, norms, and beliefs, including cultural artifacts with strong symbolic meaning (e.g., language) that drive behavior in organizations (Deshpandé & Webster, 1989) • In historical male-dominated functions, masculine norms become organizational norms, defining what it takes to succeed (e.g., be aggressive, put work above family; Glick et al., 2018) • Performance expectations (e.g., quota pressure), pay structures (e.g., commissions), and constant client interaction create a unique culture in sales ...
Sales faces the second-largest gender gap of any corporate function, with women’s underrepresentation even more pronounced in business-to-business (B2B) sales and at higher hierarchical levels. Concurrently, the call for a more gender-diverse sales force is gaining momentum for social and economic reasons, moving the question of how to attract and promote women in B2B sales to the top of sales managers’ agenda. Using an inductive approach, we uncover male-centricity of communication and job structures in B2B sales as the underlying reasons deterring women from entering and advancing in B2B sales. Specifically, male-centricity implies a misfit between B2B sales and women’s self-conception and needs. By deriving contingencies of these relationships, we offer solutions to women’s underrepresentation in B2B sales by showing, for example, which sales positions are less prone to signal or create a misfit to women and what gender-inclusive resources sales departments can provide and saleswomen can build.
... A male-dominated workgroup, on the other hand, represents a lack of gender diversity. Such contexts may signal that gender diversity is counter-normative and even indicate tensions between men and women (e.g., Glick et al., 2018). Indeed, previous research has demonstrated that maledominated workplaces tend to be hostile to women (Alonso & O'Neill, 2022;Berdahl et al., 2018;Cheryan & Markus, 2020), as they often marginalize women by valorizing masculinity and devaluing femininity (Rimalt, 2007). ...
... Indeed, since the rise of the #metoo movements, started by Tarana Burke in 2006 and reinvigorated in 2017, individuals have engaged in a broader cultural discussion about negative aspects of masculinity. For example, some work indicates that perceptions that men should be strong, stoic, and domineering may result in bullying and abuse at work that negatively affects both men and women (Berdahl, Cooper, Glick, Livingston, & Williams, 2018;Glick, Berdahl, & Alonso, 2018). Thus, recognition of the negative elements of masculinity may explain participants' particularly negative responses to men in masculine roles. ...
We present two studies examining the valence of gender stereotypes using linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs) to demonstrate how they can advance stereotyping research. Although LMEMs are common in some domains of psychology (e.g., developmental and cognitive psychology), they are much less commonly used in research on stereotyping. And yet, concerns about the generalizability of results, inflation of type I errors, and ease of handling missing data are equally relevant to work on ste-reotyping. In this paper, we first summarize what LMEMs are and how they might be applied to work on stereotyping. We then show how LMEMs can be used to analyze data from studies with researcher-generated attributes (Study 1) and participant-generated attributes (Study 2). We also show that LMEMs are particularly appropriate for designs that employ planned missingness (Study 2). Finally, we discuss how LMEMs may allow researchers to resolve conflicting findings in gender stereotype re-search and how designs with planned missingness allow researchers more flexibility in answering their research questions.
... Alternatively, when leaders engage in sexually harassing behaviors, they establish social norms that suggest that it is permissible, and as a result, others are more likely to engage in similar behavior (Pryor et al., 1993). Although the case is often made that leaders shape work climates that have implications for sexual harassment, little research has directly assessed this (Glick et al., 2018;Perry et al., 2021). However, some have suggested that leadership development programs that foster leadership styles (e.g., inclusive leadership) that are incompatible with sexual harassment may be a longer-term strategy for reducing sexual harassment in part through the more positive climates these leaders foster (Perry et al., 2021). ...
This paper provides a qualitative review of research related to sexual harassment interventions employed in institutions of higher education (IHEs) and introduces a needs assessment process that IHE administrators can use to inform their choice of intervention. Additionally, this paper provides direction regarding how to assess the impact of sexual harassment interventions as prevention programs can only be effective if they are continuously evaluated. This review may help researchers identify under researched sexual harassment related topics in higher education and IHE administrators make evidence-based decisions related to the choice, implementation, and assessment of sexual harassment interventions.
... Berdahl dan Aquino (2009) menyatakan dalam penelitiannya bahwa 57% karyawan lakilaki merasa tidak nyaman dengan perilaku kontes maskulinitas, begitu pula persentase karyawan perempuan yang sama. Selanjutnya, Glick et al. (2018) Tema pemimpin menampilkan sisi humanis dibangun antara lain oleh subtema interaksi bersahabat dan hubungan timbal balik antara pemimpin dan bawahan. Subtema tersebut mengedepankan bahwa diharapkan pemimpin dan bawahan dapat berinteraksi layaknya sahabat, saling membangun kepercayaan dalam pelaksanaan tugas dan berlaku sebagai partner sehingga dapat saling membantu dan memberikan masukan dalam melaksanakan pekerjaan. ...
Kepemimpinan adalah salah satu faktor penentu bagi organisasi sektor publik untuk mencapai target dan tujuannya. Dasar utama efektifitas kepemimpinan bukanlah pengangkatan tetapi penerimaan orang lain atas kepemimpinan yang bersangkutan. Studi tentang kepemimpinan telah banyak dilakukan, namun penelitian yang mengeksplorasi kepemimpinan dari perspektif emic yaitu anggota atau komunitas yang menjadi subjek penelitian masih terbatas. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi makna kepemimpinan pada Instansi Pemerintah dari sudut pandang PNS sebagai objek yang dipimpin. Menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif interpretivis, wawancara mendalam semi-terstruktur dilakukan kepada 27 pegawai negeri sipil dari instansi pemerintah pusat, dan data dianalisis menggunakan analisis tematik. Penelitian ini menghasilkan tiga gagasan kepemimpinan yang beragam dari sudut pandang PNS yaitu: (1) PNS merindukan pemimpin yang humanis, (2) PNS merindukan pemimpin yang terlibat langsung dalam pelaksanaan tugas, serta (3) PNS merindukan pemimpin lintas generasi. Studi ini menawarkan panduan bagi organisasi sektor publik para pemimpin di sektor publik di Indonesia dengan mengidentifikasi gagasan kepemimpinan pada Instansi Pemerintah dari sudut pandang PNS. Kontribusi utama penelitian ini, yaitu memperkaya kajian literatur tentang gagasan kepemimpinan di sektor publik dengan pendekatan eksploratori para objek yang dipimpin di lingkungan Instansi Pemerintah.
... Gender Data Gap on women, not only in terms of their reaching top management positions but also regarding their health and wellbeing, shall bring important lessons for theory and practice. For instance, research shows a strong correlation between organisations espousing masculine norms and members reporting that they are being bullied and harassed and that their leaders are abusive (Glick, Berdahl, & Alonso, 2018;Matos, O'Neill, & Lei, 2018;cf. Cortina & Areguin, 2021). ...
As data increasingly inform every aspect of our lives, gender discrimination in the collection and application of female-based data has also risen. Because data are primarily sourced from (white) men, the solutions we design to address global problems are also primarily based on men, i.e. male bodies, male preferences and prototypical male life choices. The Gender Data Gap – referring to the circumstance that most data on which organisational decisions are based appear to be biased in favour of (white) men – describes this very absence of information about aspects of women's lives. In this article, we not only demonstrate how the Gender Data Gap (negatively) impacts society and management science, but also highlight how the gap can be overcome in the long run. Further, we showcase several initiatives, particularly European ones, that suggest opportunities to gradually close the Gender Data Gap.
... MCC comprises four dimensions: "show no weakness," "strength and stamina," "put work first," and "dog eat dog". The "show no weakness" norm requires employees to avoid vulnerable emotions or uncertainty, "strength and stamina" equates physical size and strength with status, "put work first" expects workers to prioritize work over all other domains of life, and "dog eat dog" encourages fierce zero-sum competition among coworkers Glick et al., 2018). ...
Masculinity contest culture (MCC) is a dysfunctional organizational climate in which stereotypically masculine characteristics are honored and rewarded. Previous research found that MCC was positively related to turnover intentions, but potential individual differences in this association are unknown. We filled this gap by conducting a cross-sectional study among a convenience sample of Chinese working women and men (n = 687). The results showed that MCC was significantly associated with greater work stress. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses further revealed that work stress and emotion-focused coping (EFC) positively predicted turnover intentions, whereas problem-focused coping (PFC) negatively predicted it. Furthermore, PFC moderated the association between MCC and intention to leave. That is, for employees with stronger PFC, the positive link between MCC and turnover intentions weakened. Moreover, when work stress, coping strategy, age, and gender were included, MCC was no longer linked to turnover intentions; work stress and coping styles explained the largest amount of variance in turnover intentions. In summary, our study indicated that PFC is more adaptive to MCC than EFC. Thus, we suggest that organizations take measures to promote a healthy working climate, and provide training for managers and employees in optimal coping strategies.
... These norms have shaped how underrepresented individuals respond to their work obligations and interpersonal work processes. In a "masculinity contest culture" that reinforces competition ( Glick at al., 2018 ) and where inequality regimes perpetuate gender-based inequality ( Acker, 2006 ), selective disclosure is an approach that underrepresented groups employ in order to be included ( Phillips et al., 2009 ). In such organizational cultures, employees feel they cannot show weakness or lack of dedication to work. ...
We study shifts in the ideal worker culture as experienced by working mothers across organizations in the United States during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Experiences of 53 interviewees who attended to increased responsibilities across both work and family domains revealed an entrenchment of the ideal worker culture across nearly all organizations and professions. This manifested in three levels: as (1) a reinforced ideal worker culture in the workplace through work intensification, increased competitiveness, and surface‐level support; (2) the reinforcing of organizations' ideal worker norms at home, with gendered division of space and labor; and (3) experienced internalized ideal worker norms in the expectations working mothers maintained for themselves. These findings offer insight into the lives of working mothers during the COVID‐19 pandemic and the challenges which have pushed many mothers to reduce work hours or leave the workforce. Highlighting the intricate nature of the entrenchment of the ideal worker culture informs implications for theory of gendered organizations and for organizational practice.
... Second, we seek contributions on the effects of the Gender Data Gap on women's careers and on their health and wellbeing. For instance, in organisations that espouse masculine norms, members report more bullying, harassment and abusive leadership (Glick, Berdahl, & Alonso, 2018;Matos, O'Neill, & Lei, 2018;cf. Cortina & Areguin, 2021, p. 296). ...
This special issue seeks to attract new research that sheds light on the causes and consequences of the ‘Gender Data Gap’ in organisation and management theories.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2022.04.005
Every manuscript submitted to this special issue must provide both
theoretical/conceptual and practical contributions. Conceptual, review
and empirical papers will all be considered. All submissions are subject to the European Management Journal's double-blind peer review process, should respect the journal's general publication guidelines and should be submitted through https://www.editorialmanager.com/eumj/default1.aspx
between 1st August and 18th September, 2023.
The special issue will be published in 2025. To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for consideration for this special issue, it is important that authors select ‘SI: Gender Data Gap’ as the paper type.
Please direct any questions about the special issue to Dr Sonja Sperber (sonja.sperber@wu.ac.at).
Purpose
This paper investigates gender disparities, daily repercussions, and organizational implications related to customer sexual harassment (CSH) of service workers.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed an experience sampling method across 10 days involving 71 call center employees in South Korea.
Findings
Women encountered significantly more instances of daily CSH, which eroded their daily job satisfaction and work engagement. Perceived organizational support and effective customer-service training mitigated the within-person relationship between CSH and job satisfaction, though not work engagement.
Practical implications
Female service employees are more susceptible to daily CSH, likely due to gender-role spillover. They require more robust organizational support and effective customer-service training to buffer the detrimental impacts of CSH on their daily job satisfaction.
Originality/value
In an attempt to understand sexual harassment as a daily experience, this research highlights gender differences in exposure to sexual harassment in workplaces no longer dominated by men and emphasizes the role of organizational resources in alleviating the adverse effects of daily CSH on service employees' well-being.
Traditional gendered arrangements—norms, roles, prejudices, and hierarchies—shape every human life. Associated harms are primarily framed as women’s issues due to more severe consequences women face. Yet, gendered arrangements also shape men ’s relationships, career paths, and health. Current work on gender equity overlooks men’s perspectives. Despite benefits they gain from out-ranking women, men’s position paradoxically entraps them in restrictive roles, compelling them to prioritize dominance. An inclusive framework challenges prevailing narratives by considering personal costs borne by men. Identifying with a man’s traditional role is a mixed privilege, as five gendered arrangements show for men who subscribe to them: 1. Masculine norms can restrict men’s choices and are associated with adverse health trajectories; 2. Some men’s disengagement from communal roles denies them positive outcomes associated with caring for others; 3. Hostile sexism fosters antipathy, fueling tension in some men’s interactions with women; 4. Benevolent sexism forces some men into scripted interactions, preventing genuine connections and burdening them with unrealistic breadwinner and protector roles; 5. Societal shifts in gender hierarchies can elicit threat responses in men, depending on intersections with social class and racial identities. Understanding costs to men calls for more empirical research. Gender equity for men, whose circumstances differ from those of women, would enable men to make informed choices and achieve better outcomes for themselves—paralleling the progress women have made in many areas of life. Striving for equity for all genders can ultimately enhance overall human well-being.
It is frequently reported that the environments within tech startups are characterized by the celebration of masculine norms and competitive behaviors, which ultimately affect an inclusive work environment and employee well-being. However, there is a lack of sound empirical evidence, including startups in other industries, to substantiate these claims. This study investigates the prevalence of masculinity contest culture (MCC) within German startups through a quantitative analysis involving 101 participants. The Masculinity Contest Culture scale was employed to assess the manifestations of traditional masculine norms related to emotional resilience, physical superiority, workaholism, and aggressive competitiveness. Results show an overall low prevalence of MCC, with no significant differences based on gender perceptions, contradicting previous studies suggesting entrenched masculinity in startups. “Put Work First” emerged as the most prominent dimension, reflecting a persistent culture of work prioritization. This study challenges the stereotype of startup environments as bastions of toxic masculinity. The findings underscore the need for further research to understand cultural factors influencing startup ecosystems and to foster healthier work environments. Future studies should expand sample sizes to validate these findings and enhance generalizability.
As a male-dominated occupation that has historically valued strength, risk-taking, and control, policing may be particularly susceptible to masculinity contest cultures (MCC), characterized by social norms that valorize physical ability, avoid weakness, prioritize work, and promote dominance. Through surveys of patrol officers from five Canadian police agencies (n = 238), this study explored the existence of MCCs and their relationship with organizational outcomes. The study suggested that an officer’s perception of their work within an MCC can predict job engagement (b = −0.48, P < .001), work meaning (b = −0.35, P < .001), self-reported performance (b = −0.07, P < .001), and turnover intention (b = 0.07, P < .001) when controlling for gender, supervisory status, years of police service, and university education. Additionally, university degrees were a significant positive predictor of MCC scores (b = 2.40, P < .01), indicating that university-educated police officers perceive their workplace cultures as more masculine. As the first study that related MCCs to university education, job engagement, and work meaning in policing, it advances our understanding and provides insights into how these cultures relate to organizational outcomes. The results also have implications for policy and police administration.
Gender identity, or people's deeply felt, internal sense of their gender, plays an important role in aggression perpetration and victimization. In this article, I review and organize the psychological research literatures on gender identity–based aggression. I first discuss the need to move beyond binary, cisgender understandings of gender by embracing expansive definitions that more fully capture people's experiences and identities. Next, I summarize relevant research indicating two paths from gender identity to aggression. In one path, individuals with a more masculine (i.e., dominant, agentic) gender identity use aggression proactively, motivated by pursuit of social dominance. In another path, individuals with a more uncertain (i.e., insecure, precarious) gender identity use aggression defensively—and often toward vulnerable, gender nonconforming targets—as a means of protecting their gender identity against threats. I end by identifying important areas for future research and considering how interventions might best mitigate gender identity–based aggression.
Although (cisgender, heterosexual) men are generally seen as the advantaged group compared to other genders, research has documented health and well‐being disadvantages specific to men. We present an integrative model of social identity mechanisms for (cisgender) men's health and well‐being. We integrate research on men and masculinities with research on group memberships as “cures” and “curses,” outlining social psychological mechanisms that may account for beneficial and adverse health and well‐being outcomes in men through cure and curse pathways. We focus on the roles of gender norms, social support, stigma, and social identity threats resulting from men's precarious personal manhood status and their declining societal status. We present a framework of theory‐based tools for turning curses into cures by using existing gender norms, cha(lle)nging gender norms, increasing social support, and reducing social identity threats, providing concrete recommendations for policy and practice.
This thesis expands existing scholarship on Harold Pinter by integrating perspectives from gender studies, sociolinguistics, and performance analysis. It investigates how Pinter's characters contribute to and perpetuate hegemonic masculinities, exploring the consequences of challenging or maintaining gender hierarchies. Through the lens of prototypicality threats in Pinter's text, the analysis reveals specific linguistic tools characters employ to reinforce gender hegemonies.
In performance, Pinter’s depiction of gender inequality becomes much more overt, and this thesis aims to recognise how contemporary audiences perceive gender and hegemony in productions of Pinter's plays. Utilising semiotics, this study identifies dominant characteristics of Pinter's dramatic language and how they are realised on stage. The spectator's role in meaning production is emphasised, acknowledging the impact of a political unconscious on the reception of hegemonic masculinity in contemporary productions.
This thesis presents an original and provocative examination of Pinter's work, contributing to previous research on gender, language, and performance. I identify distinct hegemonies in each play and highlight consistent behaviours across Pinter's work. The exploration of prototypicality offers an original lens for understanding gender and power dynamics in Pinter's plays. Additionally, the study engages with contemporary productions and their reception, shedding light on how British theatre contributes to perceptions of gender inequality, violence, and misogyny.
Reflecting on the impact of this research, the thesis has taken Pinter scholarship in a new direction, critically examining hegemonic masculinity and its portrayal of female oppression. Future scholars are encouraged to maintain a critical perspective, addressing the problematic aspects of gender hegemony in Pinter's work and exploring the intersections with racial and xenophobic prejudice. The identification of prototypicality threats is proposed as a valuable tool for analysing Pinter's text and aiding scholars in understanding fluid gendered power dynamics between characters.
Purpose
Multinational corporations encounter numerous challenges in making ethical decisions as they navigate diverse factors in every country where they conduct business. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research has been committed to investigating the effects of one’s cultural perspectives and moral virtue. Building on a theoretical foundation recently laid out in the literature (i.e. the culture-influenced value-specific model), this study aims to investigate the relationship between components of national culture (i.e. power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity) and the moral virtue of integrity.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a quantitative analysis methodology conducted among 160 US-based workers to test a direct effect model of the relationship between national culture and integrity. The hypothesized relationships are examined using linear regression. Additional analysis includes reliability and representativeness analyses.
Findings
Direct effects support the hypotheses that a worker’s cultural perspectives affect integrity. Specifically, this study found that a worker’s cultural aspects of power distance, individualism and masculinity are negatively and significantly related to an individual’s level of integrity. Additionally, an individual’s level of uncertainty avoidance is positively related to integrity.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature and practice by demonstrating how the culture in which one resides has an impact on the level of integrity one holds and potentially exhibits in the workplace. These findings are significant in that they are among the first to consider culture and moral virtue in an ethical decision-making model. Furthermore, these findings open an additional pathway for research concerning ethical behavior in the workplace.
Businesses often attempt to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by showcasing women in their leadership ranks, most of whom are white. Yet research has shown that organizations confer status and power to women who engage in sexist behavior, which undermines DEI efforts. We sought to examine whether women who engage in racist behavior are also conferred relative status at work. Drawing on theory and research on organizational culture and intersectionality, we predicted that a white woman who expresses anti-Black racism is conferred more status in the workplace than a white woman who does not. A pilot study (N = 30) confirmed that making an anti-Black racist comment at work was judged to be more offensive than making no comment, but only for a white man, not a white woman. Study 1 (N = 330) found that a white woman who made an anti-Black racist comment at work was conferred higher status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man, with perceived offensiveness mediating these effects. Study 2 (N = 235) revealed that a white woman who made an anti-racist/pro-Black Lives Matter comment was conferred lower status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man. Finally, Study 3 (N = 295) showed that people who endorse racist and sexist beliefs confer more status to a white man than to a white woman regardless of speech, but that people low in racism and sexism confer the highest status to a white woman who engages in anti-Black racist speech. These studies suggest that white women are rewarded for expressing support for beliefs that mirror systemic inequality in the corporate world. We discuss implications for business ethics and directions for future research.
Research clearly shows that increasing the number of women in leadership positions yields financial benefits for the organization. Despite this, there has been limited upward movement in the percentage of women in senior leadership positions. Few studies have examined the linkage between masculine culture and the implications for men. Using a mixed methods approach with two studies, this research focused on four aspects of masculine contest cultural norms and how they impact male identity and perceptions of career advancement. Study 1 used a qualitative interview study of 10 male executives and found that masculine contest culture norms were evident but were being perpetuated and reinforced by organizational culture instead of individual masculine identities. In addition, Study 1 demonstrated a shift in masculine contest culture norms reducing the emphasis on the strong male archetype. Study 2 examines the relationship between masculine contest culture attributes impacting perceived opportunities for career development and promotion. We evaluated these relationships through a large‐scale survey study and found that at higher levels of masculine contest culture norms, men's perceptions of procedural justice for career development and promotion were lower compared with women. Broadly, the findings suggest that masculine archetypes of leadership negatively affect men and women.
Fieldwork is a critical tool for scientific research, particularly in applied disciplines. Yet fieldwork is often unsafe, especially for members of historically marginalized groups and people whose presence in scientific spaces threatens traditional hierarchies of power, authority, and legitimacy. Research is needed to identify interventions that prevent sexual harassment and assault from occurring in the first place. We conducted a quasi-experiment assessing the impacts of a 90-min interactive training on field-based staff in a United States state government agency. We hypothesized that the knowledge-based interventions, social modeling, and mastery experiences included in the training would increase participants’ sexual harassment and assault prevention knowledge, self-efficacy, behavioural intention, and behaviour after the training compared to a control group of their peers. Treatment–control and pre-post training survey data indicate that the training increased participants’ sexual harassment and assault prevention knowledge and prevention self-efficacy, and, to a lesser extent, behavioural intention. These increases persisted several months after the training for knowledge and self-efficacy. While we did not detect differences in the effect of the training for different groups, interestingly, post-hoc tests indicated that women and members of underrepresented racial groups generally scored lower compared to male and white respondents, suggesting that these groups self-assess their own capabilities differently. Finally, participants’ likelihood to report incidents increased after the training but institutional reports remained low, emphasizing the importance of efforts to transform reporting systems and develop better methods to measure bystander actions. These results support the utility of a peer-led interactive intervention for improving workplace culture and safety in scientific fieldwork settings.
Protocol registration
"The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on August 24, 2022. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21770165.
Workplace sexual harassment remains an insidious yet pervasive component of organizational life. Building on research that has established that leaders play an important role in condoning or revoking sexual harassment, we theorize that a CEO’s appearance—specifically, the extent to which their face is prototypically masculine—can influence employee assumptions about the patriarchal nature of organizational hierarchy, which, in turn, influences their perceptions of the degree to which sexual harassment will be tolerated. We test these ideas in three complementary studies. Study 1 observes that employees in large organizations headed by a CEO with a more masculine face report more instances of sexual harassment. Study 2 uses an experiment to show that CEO facial masculinity drives followers’ perceptions that sexual harassment is tolerated in an organization by increasing the presumption that the organization is patriarchal. Study 3 affirms these results with a sample of new employees both before and after their first day on the job. Together, these studies provide evidence that a presumption of patriarchy increases the perceived tolerance for sexual harassment, which yields more observations of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Developing research indicates a relationship between hegemonic masculinity and adverse mental health outcomes. This link is particularly important for police officers who work in a male-dominated occupation with significant exposure to trauma and greater rates of mental health disorders than the general population. Through surveys with patrol officers from five Canadian police agencies (n = 238), this study explored the relationship between masculinity contest cultures (MCCs) and well-being outcomes. The study suggested that MCCs could be damaging to well-being through work-life balance (rs = -.25, p < .001), stress (r = .31, p < .001), psychological well-being (r = -.43, p < .001), and PTSD symptoms (rs = .23, p < .001). Further, these relationships were amplified for female officers, suggesting that MCCs are more connected to diminished well-being for females. Overall, this study highlights the close relationship between problematic cultures and well-being and provides insights to enhance police wellness.
Although scholars across fields have studied threats to individuals’ identities for their impact and ubiquity, the absence of standard scales has hindered the advancement of this research. Due to the lack of identity threat measures, the myriad existing propositions and models remain untested which may generate skepticism of the field. In the comparatively rare instances where deductive models have been tested, studies often suffer from methodological shortcomings related to the absence of a standard measure (e.g., the use of scales that tap into adjacent constructs) or an assumption of unidimensionality, despite recognition that identity threat can take various forms. Such shortcomings can yield inaccurate conclusions and threaten content validity. In response to these issues, we followed recommended steps to develop three measures capturing threats to identity value, meanings, and enactment. We rigorously validated these measures across different contexts: threats to teachers’ work-related identity, to pregnant women’s leader identity, and to organizational members’ lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning identities. Our results provide evidence of the psychometric validity of the three measures and their applicability to different types of identities individuals hold. Using our measures, scholars will be able to further explore identity threat triggers and outcomes, the mechanisms underlying the effects of the three different types of threat on outcomes, and temporal dynamics. Researchers can also use our measures in designing interventions. Ultimately, this will allow management and applied psychology scholars to develop better guidance for organizations and employees dealing with the commonplace, yet difficult experience of identity threat.
While the workforce is becoming increasingly more modernized and diverse, masculine norms are prevalent among certain organizations that remain male-dominated. Namely, the military is an institution that promotes masculine stereotypes and a culture where such stereotypes form a normative system of hierarchy. This study, surveying 145 military cadets at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), found that social dominance orientation, or preference for in-group superiority and out-group inequality, was associated with higher conformity to masculine norms. Moreover, higher levels of social dominance explained the relationship between masculine conformity and less acceptance toward cultural reforms in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). These findings suggest that achieving true organizational culture change in the military involves challenging not only masculine norms but, more importantly, the dominant and nonegalitarian attitudes of social dominance.
The lack of representation of Black women in leadership across levels and industries of U.S. organizations reflects not only a business failure to leverage critical human capital but also a moral one. To effectively develop more Black women into leadership roles, intersectional research is needed to better understand their developmental experiences. Applying an intersectional lens, we sought to understand the phenomenological experience of Black women participating in a common leader-development approach, multisource feedback (MSF). MSF includes reporting quantitative ratings and written feedback from members of the leader’s work circle about their leadership. As a developmental and awareness-raising tool, MSF should provide aspiring leaders with task-specific information on their leadership strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to target their development activities to improve key leadership behaviors. Through semistructured interviews with 24 Black women leaders about their experience with MSF, we identified three major themes: the (a) enabling nature of anonymity and selection of multiple raters, (b) racialized and gendered content of feedback, and (c) beneficial use of feedback to navigate racial and gendered organizational politics. We discuss the juxtaposition between providing good feedback (i.e., task-specific, behavioral, accountable raters, absent of bias) that Black women can use and apply in their leadership versus racialized feedback (i.e., personal/trait-based, biased) that Black women can use to navigate the racialized, political context in their organization. Finally, we provide practical suggestions on how organizations can ensure Black women receive access to unbiased feedback without depriving them of the insight needed to navigate organizational politics.
Purpose
This study aims to analyse the position of women in public relations (PR), using Bourdieu's habitus. The study also draws from works on women in journalism on the ‘bloke-ification’ or a situation where women have to behave like men to succeed, thus becoming one of the boys due to masculine habitus in mass communications organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative interviews were conducted with 26 women practitioners asking questions about their experiences of working in the PR industry. The triple coding was conducted holistically and cross-referencing against answers on early socialisation of interviewed women. Thematic analysis was used to analyse and present data.
Findings
The findings show acceptance of masculine habitus with women not always challenging the usual order of things and recognising only direct sexism but not every day (masculine) practices. Women who demonstrate feminine behavioural styles are more likely to have negative working experiences than women who demonstrate masculine behavioural styles. Findings show a link between early socialisation and organisational behaviour with women who were socialised with boys reporting more masculine behavioural traits as expected for career progression as opposed to women socialised with girls who report feminine characteristics. The findings also signal that women work in a masculine culture in which they are often ostracised, and the profession as a whole is ridiculed by male managers and senior officials despite women being the majority of the workforce in the PR industry, thus showing that women also work in what Bourdieu calls a (masculine) habitus.
Research limitations/implications
This study remains limited regarding its qualitative aspect of 26 interviewed women. Whilst this is a relatively large sample for a qualitative study, these findings show trends in data that can be explored in further research but cannot be generalised. In addition to that, phone interviewing presents a limitation of the study as face-to-face interviews could have enabled a better rapport and a more in-depth conversation as well as an observation of non-verbal communication, which could have led to additional sub-questions. Also, the findings are based on perceptions of interviewed women, which are personal and do not necessarily need to present the reality in the whole of the industry, however, the thematic analysis revealed common patterns which point towards the direction of a wider issue in the industry, which can be explored in further research.
Practical implications
Organisations should implement HR policies that regulate internal office behaviour so that no staff member or department feels unappreciated and has less influence over the organisational work. A greater focus on treating employees fairly is needed, and this change needs to include structural problems that are often hidden, such as remarks in offices and internal practice and the dynamic between different departments bearing attention to departments where senior roles are traditionally given to men (e.g. finance) and those where senior roles also have women managers (e.g. PR).
Originality/value
The paper contributes to studies of cultural masculinities in organisations from a sociological perspective and uses a case study of the PR industry. The paper further extends the bloke-ification framework and contributes towards the conceptualisation of this framework from the PR perspective and using a sociological approach. In addition to that, the paper drew from works conducted in journalism and advertising and showed that issues women face are very similar across industries, thus opening a question of a wider social problem, at least when mass communications industries are in stake.
Expressing intellectual humility-admitting confusion, ignorance, and mistakes-can facilitate learning. We hypothesized that contexts that emphasize the importance of intellectual ability for success discourage the expression of intellectual humility. In Studies 1a and 1b, high school students (combined N = 1,449) reported the most difficulty expressing intellectual humility in math-a subject where success is distinctly associated with intellectual ability. Study 2 (preregistered) revealed that young adults (N = 401) were less comfortable expressing intellectual humility in math classes to the extent that they perceived them to emphasize intellectual ability. Study 3 (preregistered) showed that undergraduates (N = 329) were less willing to express intellectual humility in a hypothetical university that emphasized intellectual ability compared to one that did not. This effect was mediated by the perception that the ability-emphasizing university would have a culture of cutthroat competition (i.e., a "masculinity-contest culture"). To the extent that a context esteems intellectual ability as important for success, expression of intellectual humility will be suppressed.
This article explores police perspectives of sexual harassment on the London Underground. Drawing on 15 semi-structured interviews with the British Transport Police this article demonstrates how the police a) use their ‘situated knowledges’ to make sense of the dynamics of the London Underground and seek out offenders within the network, often without a report of harassment; and b) engage with technologies in order to (re)construct incidents of sexual harassment so that they can be investigated. The article argues that the BTP occupy a ‘soft cyborg ontology’, and claims the implications this has on epistemologies and methods of policing as significant. As well as permitting new insights into the procedures of policing sexual harassment on public transport, it contributes a critical perspective to the role of technology in police culture, practice and methods.
Public mask use has emerged as a key tool in response to COVID-19. We develop a classification of statewide mask mandates that reveals variation in their scope and timing. Some US states quickly mandated wearing of face coverings in most public spaces, whereas others issued narrow mandates or no mandate at all. We consider how differences in COVID-19 epidemiological indicators and partisan politics affect when states adopted broad mask mandates, starting with the earliest mandates in April 2020 and continuing through the end of 2020. The most important predictor is the presence of a Republican governor, delaying statewide indoor mask mandates an estimated 98.0 days on average. COVID-19 indicators such as confirmed case or death rates are much less important predictors. This finding highlights a key challenge to public efforts to increase mask wearing, one of the most effective tools for preventing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 while restoring economic activity.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of masculine eating/drinking beliefs on male consumers’ concern with unhealthy eating/drinking habits and, in turn, with binge drinking. Additionally, this research tests if and how a change in these beliefs influences binge drinking intention and intention to eat unhealthy food.
Design/methodology/approach
Three studies were conducted in Bogotá (Colombian males; convenience sampling). The purpose of Study 1 (N = 209) was to develop a scale to measure masculine eating/drinking beliefs. Study 2 (N = 191) tested the mediating role of concern with unhealthy eating/drinking habits in the relationship of masculine eating/drinking beliefs with binge drinking. Study 3 (N = 179) was an experimental study, which examined the effect of information about some negative consequences of masculine beliefs on the answers to the masculine eating/drinking beliefs inventory and, in turn, on binge drinking intention and intention to eat unhealthy food.
Findings
A one-dimensional (eight-items) scale was developed and validated. The results of this paper show that masculine eating/drinking beliefs are associated with lower concern with unhealthy eating/drinking and, in turn, with higher binge drinking. Information that influences these beliefs leads to lower binge drinking and unhealthy food ingestion intentions.
Research limitations/implications
This research presents the first scale that measures masculine eating/drinking beliefs. It provides initial evidence on how an intervention focused on the negative consequences of sexism can influence these beliefs, affecting binge drinking and overeating intentions.
Practical implications
This research provides new findings on a topic associated with several health problems in many countries, including the effect on consumers’ weight gaining and related illnesses.
Originality/value
This research presents the first scale that measures masculine eating/drinking beliefs. It provides initial evidence about factors (through mediating variables) that link masculine eating/drinking beliefs with some unhealthy eating/drinking habits. In addition, the results show how information about some negative consequences of these beliefs can influence consumers’ binge drinking and unhealthy food ingestion intentions, which leads to key recommendations for future interventions. As a result, this research provides new findings on a topic associated with several health problems in many countries, including the effect on consumers’ weight gaining and related illnesses.
While research has documented positivity biases in workplace feedback to women versus men, this phenomenon is not fully understood. We take a motivational perspective, theorizing that the gender stereotype of warmth shapes feedback givers' goals, amplifying the importance placed on kindness when giving critical feedback to a woman versus a man. We found support for this hypothesis in a survey of professionals giving real developmental feedback (Study 1, N = 4,842 raters evaluating N = 423 individuals) and five experiments with MBA students, lab participants, and managers (Studies 2-5, N = 1,589). Across studies, people prioritized the goal of kindness more when they gave, or anticipated giving, critical feedback to a woman versus a man. Studies 1, 3, and 5 suggest that this kindness bias relates to gendered positivity biases, and Studies 4a and 4b tested potential mechanisms and supported an indirect effect through warmth. We discuss implications for the study of motivation and workplace gender bias.
Stereotypical portrayals of the academy depict a progressive and inclusive institution, particularly in the social sciences, disciplines that engage with social and political topics including inequality. This article, however, details the extent to which the formal structures and informal culture of academic social science continue to reflect men’s bodies and lived experiences. Specifically, I draw on autoethnographic observations and personal reflections to demonstrate the valorization of extreme bodily strength and stamina, principal components of contemporary masculinity seemingly at odds with the scholarly endeavors of the ivory tower. Additionally, I reflect on the harms proliferated in this environment including physical, emotional, and economic violence; trauma; and the persistence of macro-level patterns of inequality.
The authors examined the nature and correlates of ethnic harassment experiences in 4 predominantly Hispanic samples of working men and women (N = 575) using a newly developed scale. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a 2-factor structure for the Ethnic Harassment Experiences scale (i.e., verbal ethnic harassment and exclusion due to ethnicity). Most experiences of ethnic harassment in the workplace during the previous 24 months included verbal ethnic harassment (i.e., ethnic slurs, derogatory ethnic comments, or ethnic jokes). It was also found that participants who experienced verbal ethnic harassment and exclusion reported negative correlates that could not be attributed to affective disposition. For some correlates, those who experienced low levels of verbal harassment and high levels of exclusion were more negatively affected than others, perhaps as a result of the attributional ambiguity of the situation.
We propose that a key reason why the workplace gender revolution has stalled (England, 2010) is that work remains the site of masculinity contests among men. In this article, we outline a theoretical framework for thinking about work as a masculinity contest, beginning with a brief review of scholarship on masculinity and exploring how the workplace is a context in which men feel particular pressure to prove themselves as “real men.” We identify different dimensions of masculinity along which employees may compete and how the competition may differ by work context. We propose that organizations with Masculinity Contest Cultures (MCCs) represent dysfunctional organizational climates (e.g., rife with toxic leadership, bullying, harassment) associated with poor individual outcomes for men as well as women (e.g., burnout, low organizational dedication, lower well‐being). We discuss how papers in this special issue contribute insight into MCCs and end with a discussion of the contributions made by conceptualizing work as a masculinity contest, and directions for future research.
This article describes the construction of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI), and 5 studies that examined its psychometric properties. Factor analysis indicated 11 distinct factors: Winning, Emotional Control, Risk-Taking, Violence, Dominance, Playboy, Self-Reliance, Primacy of Work, Power Over Women, Disdain for Homosexuals, and Pursuit of Status. Results from Studies 2–5 indicated that the CMNI had strong internal consistency estimates and good differential validity comparing men with women and groups of men on health-related questions; all of the CMNI subscales were significantly and positively related to other masculinity-related measures, with several subscales being related significantly and positively to psychological distress, social dominance, aggression, and the desire to be more muscular, and significantly and negatively to attitudes toward psychological help seeking and social desirability; and CMNI scores had high test–retest estimates for a 2–3 week period.
Political will is widely recognized as an important, yet profoundly underinvestigated, construct that lacks conceptual clarity and valid measurement. To address this lack, we conducted four studies encompassing six samples (N = 925) from three countries (United States, Greece, and United Kingdom) that establish the psychometric properties and nomological network of the Political Will Scale. We demonstrate that the scale exhibits both convergent and discriminant validity with several conceptually related constructs while also determining that political will positively relates to influence and work-related behaviors. As an extension of our findings, political will seems to explain variance over and above political skill in relation to influence tactics, status, and career growth potential. The theoretical implications of this new scale are discussed in relation to organizational politics, leadership, and social change.
This article reviews evidence that manhood is seen as a precarious social status that is both difficult to achieve and tenuously held. Compared with womanhood, which is typically viewed as resulting from a natural, permanent, and biological developmental transition, manhood must be earned and maintained through publicly verifiable actions. Because of this, men experience more anxiety over their gender status than women do, particularly when gender status is uncertain or challenged. This can motivate a variety of risky and maladaptive behaviors, as well as the avoidance of behaviors that might otherwise prove adaptive and beneficial. We review research on the implications of men's precarious gender status across the domains of risk-taking, aggression, stress and mental health, and work–life balance. We further consider how work on precarious manhood differs from, and can add to, work on individual differences in men's gender role conflict. In summary, the precarious manhood hypothesis can integrate and explain a wide range of male behaviors and phenomena related to the male gender role. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
Recently the focus of sexual harassment research on the harassment of women by men has been challenged. Treatments of sexual harassment of men, however, have generally ignored power differentials between the genders. Our analysis predicts that behaviors identified as harassing by men stem from negotiations of gender in the workplace that challenge male dominance, whereas behaviors experienced by women as sexually harassing reinforce female subordinance. Consistent with our predictions, results indicated the following: men are considerably less threatened than women are by behaviors that women have found harassing; men find sexual coercion the most threatening form of harassment; men as well as women sexually harass men; and men identify behaviors as harassing that have not been identified for women. Results also showed signs of backlash among men against organizational measures that address sexual harassment and discrimination against women. Implications for psychological and legal definitions of sexual harassment of men are discussed.
This paper presents a model of team learning and tests it in a multimethod field study. It introduces the construct of team psychological safety—a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking—and models the effects of team psychological safety and team efficacy together on learning and performance in organizational work teams. Results of a study of 51 work teams in a manufacturing company, measuring antecedent, process, and outcome variables, show that team psychological safety is associated with learning behavior, but team efficacy is not, when controlling for team psychological safety. As predicted, learning behavior mediates between team psychological safety and team performance. The results support an integrative perspective in which both team structures, such as context support and team leader coaching, and shared beliefs shape team outcomes.
Employers have experimented with three broad approaches to promoting diversity. Some programs are designed to establish organizational responsibility for diversity, others to moderate managerial bias through training and feedback, and still others to reduce the social isolation of women and minority workers. These approaches find support in academic theories of how organizations achieve goals, how stereotyping shapes hiring and promotion, and how networks influence careers. This is the first systematic analysis of their efficacy. The analyses rely on federal data describing the workforces of 708 private sector establishments from 1971 to 2002, coupled with survey data on their employment practices. Efforts to moderate managerial bias through diversity training and diversity evaluations are least effective at increasing the share of white women, black women, and black men in management. Efforts to attack social isolation through mentoring and networking show modest effects. Efforts to establish responsibility for diversity lead to the broadest increases in managerial diversity. Moreover, organizations that establish responsibility see better effects from diversity training and evaluations, networking, and mentoring. Employers subject to federal affirmative action edicts, who typically assign responsibility for compliance to a manager, also see stronger effects from some programs. This work lays the foundation for an institutional theory of the remediation of workplace inequality.
Studied the structure of norms governing the traditional male sex role, as reflected in the attitudes held by a collegiate sample of 233 males. Ss were asked to agree or disagree with 57 belief statements about men's expected behavior. Traditional attitudes toward sex roles for women were assessed by asking Ss to agree/disagree with a statement advocating the addition of the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution and a statement on the desirability of marrying a virgin. Results indicate that the sample as a group did not fully endorse traditional male role norms. The toughness norm was only slightly supported; the status norm was, on the average, neither supported nor rejected; and the antifemininity norm was slightly rejected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article reports the results of an evaluation of the factor structure, reliability, and construct validity of the Male Role Norms Inventory—Revised (MRNI–R). Results of a principal-axis factor analysis with 593 undergraduate participants (341 men, 251 women, 1 other) support the hypothesized factor dimensionality and, to a lesser extent, item placement. Evidence was found for internal consistency of the MRNI–R total score and the seven factor scores. Analyses of the men’s scores provided evidence for convergent validity through a significant correlation of the MRNI–R with the Male Role Attitudes Scale; for divergent validity, through the nonsignificant correlation with the Personal Attributes Questionnaire; and for concurrent validity, through the significant correlations with the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory, the Gender Role Conflict Scale, and the Normative Male Alexithymia Scale.
This study investigates the psychometric properties, factor structure and validity of the revised Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R), an instrument designed to measure exposure to bullying in the workplace. By reanalyzing data based on a heterogeneous sample of 5288 UK employees, the results show that the 22-item instrument has a high internal stability, with three underlying factors: personal bullying, work-related bullying and physically intimidating forms of bullying, although the instrument may also be used as a single factor measure. Criterion validity was explored by relating the scores on the NAQ-R to a single-item measure of perceived victimization from bullying, showing high correlations with both the total NAQ-R and scores on the three factors. Targets of bullying scored significantly higher on all 22 items compared to non-targets. The NAQ-R correlated as expected with measures of mental health, psychosocial work environment and leadership, indicating a good construct validity of the instrument. Furthermore, a latent class cluster (LCC) analysis showed that the instrument may be used to differentiate between groups of employees with different levels of exposure to bullying, ranging from infrequent exposure to incivility at work to severe victimization from bullying and harassment. The more commonly used operational criteria can also be used to detect targets of bullying. Hence, the NAQ-R is proposed as a standardized and valid instrument for the measurement of workplace bullying.
A scale designed to assess various aspects of the burnout syndrome was administered to a wide range of human services professionals. Three subscales emerged from the data analysis: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Various psychometric analyses showed that the scale has both high reliability and validity as a measure of burnout. Since the publication of this article in 1981, more extensive research was done on the MBI, which resulted in some modifications of the original measure. The present article has been re-edited to reflect those modifications. However, it does not include other new additions (which are contained in the MBI Manual distributed by the publisher, Mind Garden).
The bulk of the extant literature on the psychology of boys, men and masculinity has been focused on the important challenges of: a) creating an awareness about the detrimental effects of constricted forms of masculinity on boys and men and their relationships with others; and b) developing remedial approaches to psychotherapy that are designed to help boys and men recover from dysfunctional masculinity. The purpose of this article is to expand this literature by introducing the positive psychology/positive masculinity (PPPM) framework, which emphasizes male strengths as the starting point for psychotherapy with boys and men. The central principles of the PPPM framework are described, and the application of the PPPM model with an adult man in psychotherapy is presented. The implications of the PPPM model for future practice and research pertaining to boys, men, and masculinity are discussed.
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is a complex, multi-step process. The goal of this paper is to collect, in one article, information that will allow researchers and practitioners to understand the various choices available through popular software packages, and to make decisions about "best practices" in exploratory factor analysis. In particular, this paper provides practical information on making decisions regarding (a) extraction, (b) rotation
Past research suggests that task conflict may improve team performance under certain conditions; however, we know little about these specific conditions. On the basis of prior theory and research on conflict in teams, we argue that a climate of psychological safety is one specific context under which task conflict will improve team performance. Using evidence from 117 project teams, the present research found that psychological safety climate moderates the relationship between task conflict and performance. Specifically, task conflict and team performance were positively associated under conditions of high psychological safety. The results support the conclusion that psychological safety facilitates the performance benefits of task conflict in teams. Theoretical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Due to growing work-family demands, supervisors need to effectively exhibit family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). Drawing on social support theory and using data from two samples of lower wage workers, the authors develop and validate a measure of FSSB, defined as behaviors exhibited by supervisors that are supportive of families. FSSB is conceptualized as a multidimensional superordinate construct with four subordinate dimensions: emotional support, instrumental support, role modeling behaviors, and creative work-family management. Results from multilevel confirmatory factor analyses and multilevel regression analyses provide evidence of construct, criterion-related, and incremental validity. The authors found FSSB to be significantly related to work-family conflict, work-family positive spillover, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions over and above measures of general supervisor support.
Reporting practices in 194 confirmatory factor analysis studies (1,409 factor models) published in American Psychological Association journals from 1998 to 2006 were reviewed and compared with established reporting guidelines. Three research questions were addressed: (a) how do actual reporting practices compare with published guidelines? (b) how do researchers report model fit in light of divergent perspectives on the use of ancillary fit indices (e.g., L.-T. Hu & P. M. Bentler, 1999; H. W. Marsh, K.-T., Hau, & Z. Wen, 2004)? and (c) are fit measures that support hypothesized models reported more often than fit measures that are less favorable? Results indicate some positive findings with respect to reporting practices including proposing multiple models a priori and near universal reporting of the chi-square significance test. However, many deficiencies were found such as lack of information regarding missing data and assessment of normality. Additionally, the authors found increases in reported values of some incremental fit statistics and no statistically significant evidence that researchers selectively report measures of fit that support their preferred model. Recommendations for reporting are summarized and a checklist is provided to help editors, reviewers, and authors improve reporting practices.
The authors report 5 studies that demonstrate that manhood, in contrast to womanhood, is seen as a precarious state requiring continual social proof and validation. Because of this precariousness, they argue that men feel especially threatened by challenges to their masculinity. Certain male-typed behaviors, such as physical aggression, may result from this anxiety. Studies 1-3 document a robust belief in (a) the precarious nature of manhood relative to womanhood and (b) the idea that manhood is defined more by social proof than by biological markers. Study 4 demonstrates that when the precarious nature of manhood is made salient through feedback indicating gender-atypical performance, men experience heightened feelings of threat, whereas similar negative gender feedback has no effect on women. Study 5 suggests that threatening manhood (but not womanhood) activates physically aggressive thoughts.
Research on sexual harassment has recently expanded to include examination of men's experiences. Such research, however, has ignored the power dynamics involved in sexual harassment and typically assumed exclusively heterosexual situations. We examine legal cases illustrating the many forms that male-male harassment may take and the complex array of situations in which such harassment occurs. We then report the frequencies of experiences of harassment in three large samples of working men as well as the sex of the perpetrators of the harassment. Finally, we examine men's evaluations of these situations to determine the degree to which they found them to be harassing in a psychological sense. Our results indicate that men experience potentially sexually harassing behaviors from other men at least as often as they do from women; however, men in all samples reported relatively few negative reactions to these experiences. Future research should examine the predictors and outcomes of such situations to clarify the meaning of such behavior for male targets.
Student athletes vary in how much they view their academic and athletic role identities as separate from and interfering with each other. The authors investigated the relation of these perceptions to psychological well-being in 200 intercollegiate athletes. Measures included role separation, interference, identity, and well-being. Correlations indicated that interference related negatively to well-being, whereas viewing the roles as distinct related positively to well-being. Regression analyses of demographic and role identity variables also showed a positive association between role separation and well-being, and a significant Separation x Interference interaction. Specifically, role interference was negatively related to well-being for those who viewed the two roles as distinct but unrelated for those who did not. The buffering effects of role separation are discussed.
A 16-nation study involving 8,360 participants revealed that hostile and benevolent attitudes toward men, assessed by the Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory (P. Click & S.T. Fiske, 1999), were (a) reliably measured across cultures, (b) positively correlated (for men and women, within samples and across nations) with each other and with hostile and benevolent sexism toward women (Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, P. Click & S.T. Fiske, 1996), and (c) negatively correlated with gender equality in cross-national comparisons. Stereotype measures indicated that men were viewed as having less positively valenced but more powerful traits than women. The authors argue that hostile as well as benevolent attitudes toward men reflect and support gender inequality by characterizing men as being designed for dominance.
We conduct a comparative case analysis of men in three male‐dominated occupations—firefighting, consulting, and business executives—to examine enactments of “masculinity contests,” which include aggressive, competitive struggles for dominance and expectations to prioritize work ahead of other life commitments. We find that these contests are neither inevitable nor experienced uniformly in male‐dominated occupations. Rather, our analysis shows that such contests are shaped and curtailed by three occupational features: the structure and organization of teams within the occupation, the temporal structure of work in the occupation, and the tasks that are core to the occupation's work. Our analysis advances current perspectives on masculinity and work by offering insight into how occupational features interact with social class to shape expectations of appropriate masculine behavior. We find some instances in which teams, time, and tasks operate distinctively by social class and other instances in which these features act similarly, across social class lines, to reduce or exacerbate the salience of masculinity contests.
In the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements, police conduct has been increasingly scrutinized by the public, especially the use of excessive force, fatal shootings of unarmed civilians, and sexual harassment scandals within policing organizations. Through a review of the policing literature and data collected in a Canadian policing organization, we highlight how masculinity contest culture is related to police misconduct. All four masculinity contest culture dimensions can be observed in policing including: (1) “show no weakness,” (2) “strength and stamina,” (3) “put work first,” and (4) “dog‐eat‐dog.” Masculinity contest cultures lead to negative outcomes for both individual officers (e.g., harassment, discrimination, stress), policing organizations (e.g., lawsuits, turnover), and communities (e.g., officers’ use of excessive force). Training interventions are often suggested to prevent or remedy the negative effects of masculinity contest cultures in policing organizations. However, a review of the training literature suggests that training interventions are unlikely to be effective in contexts where organizational norms are at odds with the training content. Our analysis of police data, along with the literature review, conclude with a paradox—the very organizations that need training interventions the most (e.g., policing organizations that often promote and tolerate sexual harassment) are the least likely to benefit from those interventions. To address this paradox, we invoke the theory of social interactionism and reconceptualize training as an organizational sensegiving mechanism. This theoretical foundation offers new directions for future research on training in masculinity contest cultures and insights for practicing police administrators and public policy officials.
Workplaces characterized by masculinity contests equate masculinity with status, making it especially critical to prove masculinity and defend against threats to this identity. Past scholarship has explained male–female sex‐based harassment (MF‐SBH) as a strategy for defending threatened masculinity and the gender hierarchy more broadly. The current research examines whether male–male SBH (MM‐SBH) is also triggered by a desire to reassert a threatened sense of masculinity. Specifically, I explore the effects of two forms of masculinity threat on men's propensity to harass another man: prototypicality threat (suggesting one is gender atypical) and distinctiveness threat (suggesting the sexes are more similar than they are different). An online experiment and a lab study indicated that prototypicality threat, but not distinctiveness threat, leads to greater MM‐SBH. I suggest that masculinity contest workplaces, which especially highly prize masculinity, likely exacerbate this effect.
Recent years have witnessed an increase in scholarly and practitioner interest in the effects of toxic forms of leadership and “win or die” organizational cultures in which employees seek to maintain their own status at all costs, yet there is little research examining the interaction of this type of leadership style and organizational culture. In this survey study of working adults, we demonstrate an association between perceptions of toxic leadership and “masculinity contest cultures” (Berdahl, Cooper, Glick, Livingston, & Williams, 2018).norms, rituals, and belief systems valorizing social dominance, work above other parts of life, physical strength, and the avoidance of weakness. Independently, masculinity contest cultures were associated with higher stress, work/life conflict, intention to job search, work engagement and job meaning, while toxic leadership was associated with lower work engagement and job meaning and higher intention to job search. However, results show a slight increase in work engagement and meaningfulness among men (but not women) who viewed their workplace as a masculinity contest and who reported having a toxic leader. These surprising results provide important insights into how toxic cultures retain employees despite their largely detrimental effects on job attitudes and well‐being.
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.
How do cultural meanings influence how people experience work-life demands? Much research, especially quantitative research, on the effects of structural work and family conditions does not account for employees’ cultural beliefs about the meaning of work in their lives. This article uses unique survey data to investigate the effects of employee embrace of elements of the “work devotion schema”—a cultural model that valorizes intense career commitment and organizational dedication—on their sense of “overload,” an experience that includes feeling exhausted and overloaded by all one's roles, net of actual hours on the paid job and family responsibilities. We argue that by cognitively, morally, and emotionally framing work as a valued end, the work devotion schema reduces feelings of overload. Using a case of senior women researchers and professional service providers in science and technology industries, we find that those who embrace work devotion feel less overloaded than those who reject it, net of work and family conditions. However, this effect is curtailed for mothers of young and school-aged children. We end by discussing implications for flexibility stigma and gender inequality.
A few years ago the concept of corporate or organizational culture was hardly mentioned by anyone but a few social scientists. Today it is one of the hottest topics around because, it is alleged, a better understanding of how to build the “right” kind of culture or a “strong” culture will solve some of our productivity problems. Several recent books, most notably the Peters and Waterman (1982) report on the McKinsey study of excellent American companies, emphasize that “strong cultures” are a necessary ingredient of excellence. So the hunt is on to find strong cultures, and thereby fix our problem.
My aim in this paper is to analyze men’s power from the perspective afforded by the emerging antisexist men’s movement. In the last several years, an antisexist men’s movement has appeared in North America and in the Western European countries. While it is not so widely known as the women’s movement, the men’s movement has generated a variety of books, publications, and organizations* and is now an established presence. The present and future political relationship between the women’s movement and the men’s movement raises complex questions which I do not deal with here, though they are clearly important ones. Instead, here I present my own view of the contribution which the men’s movement and men’s analysis make to a feminist understanding of men and power, and of men’s power over women, particularly in relation to the power that men often perceive women have over them. Then I will analyze two other power relationships men are implicated in—men’s power with other men, and men’s power in society generally—and suggest how these two other power relationships interact with men’s power over women.
In this chapter, the authors share their conceptualization of inclusive climates as well as their thoughts on how one might design organizational change efforts for enhancing inclusion. Their focus is on the inclusiveness of work environments, with the assumption that people experience more personal inclusion when they work in an inclusive climate. There are three primary dimensions that constitute inclusive climates. Consistent with a long tradition of research on climate, the authors conceptualize climate as emerging from: (1) organizational practices; (2) interactions among employees; and (3) objective characteristics of the work setting. They show how their framework of organizational inclusion and companion assessment tool, combined with participatory action research (PAR) methods, has been used to assist organizations in improving their climates for inclusion.
The concept of organizational culture has received increasing attention in recent years both from academics and practitioners. This article presents the author's view of how culture should be defined and analyzed if it is to be of use in the field of organizational psychology. Other concepts are reviewed, a brief history is provided, and case materials are presented to illustrate how to analyze culture and how to think about culture change.
Part I. From There to Here - Theoretical Background: 1. From visiousness to viciousness: theories of intergroup relations 2. Social dominance theory as a new synthesis Part II. Oppression and its Psycho-Ideological Elements: 3. The psychology of group dominance: social dominance orientation 4. Let's both agree that you're really stupid: the power of consensual ideology Part III. The Circle of Oppression - The Myriad Expressions of Institutional Discrimination: 5. You stay in your part of town and I'll stay in mine: discrimination in the housing and retail markets 6. They're just too lazy to work: discrimination in the labor market 7. They're just mentally and physically unfit: discrimination in education and health care 8. The more of 'them' in prison, the better: institutional terror, social control and the dynamics of the criminal justice system Part IV. Oppression as a Cooperative Game: 9. Social hierarchy and asymmetrical group behavior: social hierarchy and group difference in behavior 10. Sex and power: the intersecting political psychologies of patriarchy and empty-set hierarchy 11. Epilogue.
This article presents a historical analysis of the history of work/home separation in the United States. With the growth of markets and technology, work and home (which had been mixed) became separate and gendered. Early 20th-century offices adapted productivity standards from factories into the new white-collar "ideal worker" norm. By the 1950s, the office culture familiar today was well established-movies, television, and novels glorified the gendered system of professional work while also cautioning men to reserve time for family. Although the workforce has transformed since the 1950s, an ideology that naturalizes work/home separation persists. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.
The concept of hegemonic masculinity has influenced gender studies across many academic fields but has also attracted serious criticism. The authors trace the origin of the concept in a convergence of ideas in the early 1980s and map the ways it was applied when research on men and masculinities expanded. Evaluating the principal criticisms, the authors defend the underlying concept of masculinity, which in most research use is neither reified nor essentialist. However, the criticism of trait models of gender and rigid typologies is sound. The treatment of the subject in research on hegemonic masculinity can be improved with the aid of recent psychological models, although limits to discursive flexibility must be recognized. The concept of hegemonic masculinity does not equate to a model of social reproduction; we need to recognize social struggles in which subordinated masculinities influence dominant forms. Finally, the authors review what has been confirmed from early formulations (the idea of multiple masculinities, the concept of hegemony, and the emphasis on change) and what needs to be discarded (onedimensional treatment of hierarchy and trait conceptions of gender). The authors suggest reformulation of the concept in four areas: a more complex model of gender hierarchy, emphasizing the agency of women; explicit recognition of the geography of masculinities, emphasizing the interplay among local, regional, and global levels; a more specific treatment of embodiment in contexts of privilege and power; and a stronger emphasis on the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity, recognizing internal contradictions and the possibilities of movement toward gender democracy.
A general model for estimating the organizational costs of sexual harassment in the workplace is proposed along with model-specific costing formulas. A partial implementation of the model is applied to sexual harassment incidence data for the Army gathered as part of a large-scale survey of the U.S. military services. Results indicate that the total annual cost of sexual harassment in the U.S. Army in 1988 was over $250,000,000. Organizational implications are discussed.
This article draws on data gathered through participant observation with preadolescent children in and outside elementary schools to focus on the role of popularity in gender socialization. Within their gendered peer subcultures, boys and girls constructed idealized images of masculinity and femininity on which they modeled their behavior. These images were reflected in the composite of factors affecting children's popularity among their peers. Boys achieved high status on the basis of their athletic ability, coolness, toughness, social skills, and success in cross-gender relationships. Girls gained popularity because of their parents' socioeconomic status and their own physical appearance, social skills, and academic success. Although boys' gender images embody more active and achieved features than girls', which are comparatively passive and ascribed, these roles embody complex integrations of oppositional elements that expand and androgenize them. The research illustrates subtle changes in children's, especially girls', gender roles, resulting from historical changes in society.
This article presents a four-category framework to characterize the contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. The framework distinguishes between prescriptions and proscriptions that are intensified by virtue of one's gender, and those that are relaxed by virtue of one's gender. Two studies examined the utility of this framework for characterizing prescriptive gender stereotypes in American society (Study 1) and in the highly masculine context of Princeton University (Study 2). The results demonstrated the persistence of traditional gender prescriptions in both contexts, but also revealed distinct areas of societal vigilance and leeway for each gender. In addition, they showed that women are seen more positively, relative to societal standards, than are men. We consider the implications of this framework for research on reactions to gender stereotype deviants and sex discrimination.
In spite of feminist recognition that hierarchical organizations are an important location of male dominance, most feminists writing about organizations assume that organizational structure is gender neutral. This article argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them. Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work. Abstract jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational thinking, assume a disembodies and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. The positing of gender-neutral and disembodied organizational structures and work relations is part of the larger strategy of control in industrial capitalist societies, which, at least partly, are built upon a deeply embedded substructure of gender difference.
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.
This case study of two offshore oil platforms illustrates how an organizational initiative designed to enhance safety and effectiveness created a culture that unintentionally released men from societal imperatives for “manly” behavior, prompting them to let go of masculine-image concerns and to behave instead in counter-stereotypical ways. Rather than proving how tough, proficient, and cool-headed they were, as was typical of men in other dangerous workplaces, platform workers readily acknowledged their physical limitations, publicly admitted their mistakes, and openly attended to their own and others’ feelings. Importantly, platform workers did not replace a conventional image of masculinity with an unconventional one and then set out to prove the new image—revealing mistakes strategically, for example, or competing in displays of sensitivity. Instead, the goal of proving one's masculine credentials, conventional or otherwise, appeared to no longer hold sway in men's workplace interactions. Building on West and Zimmerman's (1987: 129) now classic articulation of gender as “the product of social doings,” we describe this organizationally induced behavior as “undoing” gender. We use this case, together with secondary case data drawn from 10 published field studies of men doing dangerous work, to induce a model of how organizational cultures equip men to “do” and “undo” gender at work.
This chapter contains section titled:
