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Self-Promotion as a Risk Factor for Women: The Costs and Benefits of Counterstereotypical Impression Management
Abstract
Three experiments tested and extended recent theory regarding motivational influences on impression formation (S. T. Fiske & S. L. Neuberg, 1990; J. L. Hilton & J. M. Darley, 1991) in the context of an impression management dilemma that women face: Self-promotion may be instrumental for managing a competent impression, yet women who self-promote may suffer social reprisals for violating gender prescriptions to be modest. Experiment 1 investigated the influence of perceivers' goals on processes that inhibit stereotypical thinking, and reactions to counterstereotypical behavior. Experiments 2-3 extended these findings by including male targets. For female targets, self-promotion led to higher competence ratings but incurred social attraction and hireability costs unless perceivers were outcome-dependent males. For male targets, self-effacement decreased competence and hireability ratings, though its effects on social attraction were inconsistent.
... • Self-promotion and female modesty One aspect that socially identifies women as more 'feminine' is modesty in their achievements (Daubman et al., 1992;Rudman, 1998) and a genuine concern for and commitment to the harmony and wellbeing of others and groups, emphasizing similarities and connections (Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998;Spence & Buckner, 2000). In other words, women are prone to cooperatives and communalism (Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998), while men culturally and traditionally have been focused on agentic values such as individuality, leadership, hierarchy, achievement, and self-promotion (Daubman et al., 1992;Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998;Spence & Buckner, 2000). ...
... • Self-promotion and female modesty One aspect that socially identifies women as more 'feminine' is modesty in their achievements (Daubman et al., 1992;Rudman, 1998) and a genuine concern for and commitment to the harmony and wellbeing of others and groups, emphasizing similarities and connections (Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998;Spence & Buckner, 2000). In other words, women are prone to cooperatives and communalism (Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998), while men culturally and traditionally have been focused on agentic values such as individuality, leadership, hierarchy, achievement, and self-promotion (Daubman et al., 1992;Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998;Spence & Buckner, 2000). ...
... • Self-promotion and female modesty One aspect that socially identifies women as more 'feminine' is modesty in their achievements (Daubman et al., 1992;Rudman, 1998) and a genuine concern for and commitment to the harmony and wellbeing of others and groups, emphasizing similarities and connections (Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998;Spence & Buckner, 2000). In other words, women are prone to cooperatives and communalism (Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998), while men culturally and traditionally have been focused on agentic values such as individuality, leadership, hierarchy, achievement, and self-promotion (Daubman et al., 1992;Hentschel, 2019;Rudman, 1998;Spence & Buckner, 2000). In this scenario, women, to increase the other's liking for them, to avoid an interpersonally uncomfortable situation, and to protect the other's feelings about themselves, may be limited when it comes to presenting their abilities, achievements, status, and attractiveness (Daubman et al., 1992;Daubman & Sigall, 1997). ...
There is a significant gender gap in accounting academia that places women at a disadvantage in terms of recruitment, hiring, promotion, tenure, status, high-level areas or positions (both research and administrative), burden distribution of work, and remuneration. Women are disproportionately represented in part-time or non-tenure tracks, such as lecturers, instructors, and assistant professors. They experience a slower rate of advancement and have lower pay and prestige. Given that various authors attribute this situation to the level of research and production of papers in top-tier scientific journals, this article aims to describe women's participation as authors in cost and management accounting to contribute to clarifying possible causes of gender disparity in the accounting case.
... Presenting yourself to potential networking contacts, interviewing successfully, and negotiating promotions all aid career advancement, but require a person to promote themselves to others. In professional contexts, research has shown that women consistently underperform when asked to self-promote, both in self-assessment and when judged anonymously by others (Moss-Racusin and Rudman 2010; Smith and Huntoon 2013;Rudman 1998). The gendered expectation that women will act modestly has been shown to drive this underperformance (Rudman 1998), with women altering behaviour to avoid backlash from others who may derogate them for bragging (Lindeman, Durik, and Dooley 2018). ...
... In professional contexts, research has shown that women consistently underperform when asked to self-promote, both in self-assessment and when judged anonymously by others (Moss-Racusin and Rudman 2010; Smith and Huntoon 2013;Rudman 1998). The gendered expectation that women will act modestly has been shown to drive this underperformance (Rudman 1998), with women altering behaviour to avoid backlash from others who may derogate them for bragging (Lindeman, Durik, and Dooley 2018). These studies suggest that women's career progression is disfavoured in traditional network-based professional contexts. ...
Online professional social networking platforms provide opportunities to expand networks strategically for job opportunities and career advancement. A large body of research shows that women's offline networks are less advantageous than men's. How online platforms such as LinkedIn may reflect or reproduce gendered networking behaviours, or how online social connectivity may affect outcomes differentially by gender is not well understood. This paper analyses aggregate, anonymised data from almost 10 million LinkedIn users in the UK and US information technology (IT) sector collected from the site's advertising platform to explore how being connected to Big Tech companies ('social connectivity') varies by gender, and how gender, age, seniority and social connectivity shape the propensity to report job promotions or relocations. Consistent with previous studies, we find there are fewer women compared to men on LinkedIn in IT. Furthermore, female users are less likely to be connected to Big Tech companies than men. However, when we further analyse recent promotion or relocation reports, we find women are more likely than men to have reported a recent promotion at work, suggesting high-achieving women may be self-selecting onto LinkedIn. Even among this positively selected group, though, we find men are more likely to report a recent relocation. Social connectivity emerges as a significant predictor of promotion and relocation reports, with an interaction effect between gender and social connectivity indicating the payoffs to social connectivity for promotion and relocation reports are larger for women. This suggests that online networking has the potential for larger impacts for women, who experience greater disadvantage in traditional networking contexts, and calls for further research to understand differential impacts of online networking for socially disadvantaged groups.
... Sociological studies have repeatedly shown that women are evaluated more harshly than men especially in recruitment (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012;Neumark, 2010;Riach and Rich, 2006). Men tend to be assessed for their competence, while women are assessed based on characteristics ('likeability'), even when they demonstrate the same levels of qualifications, experience and education (Rudman, 1998;Phelan et al., 2008). Gaucher et al. (2011) studied the impact of "gendered wording" in job advertisements on gender inequality in traditionally male-dominated occupations via content analysis, while De-Arteaga et al. (2019) showed how gender signal in online biographies lead to disparate performance in the task of occupation classification. ...
... This data set allowed us to inspect features of men-and women-specific language in CVs, while controlling for the confounding factor of occupation: most occupations are heavily gender-skewed. This paper connects the concept of framing, i.e., influencing readers of a document through careful choice of words (Entman, 2007), with existing power discrepancies between men and women in western society in general, and the job market specifically (Rudman, 1998). We showed that women use verbs that imply lower power significantly more often than men, even after controlling for occupation. ...
... Similarly, men defying prototypical masculinity are often the targets of SH (Alonso, 2018). Overall, research shows backlash against individuals who deviate from gender stereotypes (Rudman, 1998;Heilman & Okimoto, 2007;Kark & Eagly, 2010;Ferguson, 2018;Gupta et al., 2018;Wang et al., 2019). This may be especially true during SH training, which makes gender highly salient and threatens gendered workgroup norms (Tinkler, 2012;Rawski & Workman-Stark, 2018;Rawski et al., 2022). ...
... Finally, our results extend the application of role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002;Eagly & Diekman, 2005). Previous research has already determined that gender role stereotypes affect social interactions (Rudman, 1998;Heilman & Okimoto, 2007;Kark & Eagly, 2010). Our study extends the reach of gender role stereotypes to e-learning contexts. ...
While training design choices seem amoral, they interact to determine training (in)effectiveness, potentially harming/benefiting trainees and organizations. These moral implications intensify when training is administered at scale (e.g., e-training) and focuses on social issues like sexual harassment (hereafter, SH). In fact, research on SH training shows it can elicit trainees’ gender-based biases against content messengers. We suggest that one such bias, resulting from messenger gender-occupation incongruence and influencing training effectiveness, is lowered perceptions of the messenger’s integrity. We also investigate whether rich media will increase or decrease this perceived integrity penalty. Using an excerpt from real SH e-training and a sample [N = 210] consistent with the targeted training audience, we conducted a 2 × 2 × 2 relative comparison experiment (messenger gender x messenger occupation x media richness) and tested a moderated mediation model of the interactive effects of messenger gender-occupation incongruence and media richness on trainees’ perceptions of messenger integrity and training outcomes. Results suggest that trainees’ perceptions of messenger integrity decrease when the messenger’s gender is incongruent with their occupation, leading to worse outcomes in text-based training. These effects, however, are mitigated by increased media richness, providing support for media richness theory. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.
... Of course, it is possible that curiosity that is considered misguided could lead to both perceptions of insubordination and likability. However, we theorize that insubordination precedes evaluations of likability based on prior research suggesting that people often comply and conform in order to gain social approval and be seen as more socially attractive (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004); further, whereas deviants tend to be viewed as less warm and more dislikable, people who conform their behaviors or opinions to those of a target or group, or behave normatively rather than counter-normatively, tend to be seen as warmer, more socially attractive, and more likable (e.g., Feldman, 1984;Hollander, 1958;Jones, 1964;Rudman, 1998;Sommer et al., 2012). As such, we argue that it is behaving in a way that is seen as disobedient or insubordinate (i.e., rather than compliant) is what is likely to make people less likable. ...
... Moreover, a strong commitment is likely to support the entrepreneurial passion of women for a project and to encourage their persistence to implement it (Cardon and Kirk, 2015;Drnovsek et al., 2016). In addition, motivational and contextual factors can shape the capacities and perceptions of women entrepreneurs in the pursuit of business activities still exclusive to men (Rudman, 1998). According to Brahem and Boussema (2022): "Enterprising and innovative spirit and above all the ideas, the passion and dreams of women encouraged to make a career change and to undertake business ventures thanks to available business platforms such as Facebook" (p. ...
Purpose
This study examines the role of passion in gender-specific entrepreneurial responses in times of crises and how passion manifests itself in a digital environment. Entrepreneurial passion feeds energy, tenacity, self-confidence and momentum, creating added value for a given economy.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was used to conduct semi-structured interviews. To reach the research objectives, the author examined a sample of 22 female entrepreneurs and 19 male entrepreneurs in a comparative design.
Findings
The results obtained through a qualitative study prove that entrepreneurial passion is a driver of self-confidence for entrepreneurs. Moreover, the nature of entrepreneurial passion differs across gender in times of crises. Indeed, female entrepreneurs try to take their lives into their own hands by creating their own destinies. They have seized opportunities arising from purely technological progress to create their own businesses on social networks and solve the unemployment problem. Meanwhile, male entrepreneurs pursue opportunities based on market supply and demand to increase their market share and face a crisis.
Practical implications
These findings offer novel insights into research on social media entrepreneurs. This study could help new entrepreneurs highlight their abilities, particularly those that are most salient and central.
Originality/value
This study adds a new dimension to the literature on the role and nature of entrepreneurial passion in times of crises.
... Behaviors that go against gender norms are then especially salient during this time, and have repercussions (Gordon et al., 2018;Navarro et al., 2015). A line of research that has extensively studied the phenomenon of reactions to gender norm violations is research on the backlash effect (Rudman, 1998), which describes how individuals sanction those who deviate from stereotypes as a way to preserve existing social hierarchies (Rudman et al., 2012a). ...
Research on the backlash effect has long studied the social sanctions that individuals impose on those who do not conform to stereotypical expectations. Specifically, research has focused on reactions to gender stereotype violations. Studies have shown that adults, adolescents, and even children will sanction others when they fail to conform to gender stereotypes. The present pre-registered research (https://tinyurl.com/4epypv3a) studied this gender backlash among adolescents in French middle and high-schools. For this study, we were also interested in exploring the moderating role of participants’ socioeconomic status in their expression of backlash. We created four profiles of adolescents presenting their candidacy for a school representative role. The profiles varied in the personality traits and behaviors they contained (stereotypically feminine vs. masculine) and the gender of the target (boy vs. girl). A sample of 840 participants between the ages of 13 and 18 rated the target adolescent on measures intended to capture backlash, as well as gender stereotypicality items. Using multilevel models to analyze our data, we did not find evidence of backlash as hypothesized. However, unexpectedly, on a measure of perception of arrogance, we found that participants judged a counter-stereotypical target more positively than a stereotypical target. Furthermore, we also found evidence that, compared to stereotypical targets, counter-stereotypical targets were judged more competent, mostly by high SES adolescents. Possible methodological and theoretical explanations for these results are discussed, as well as implications for future research on the backlash effect, particularly among adolescents.
... Self-promotion refers to the act of promoting or advertising oneself or one's accomplishments, skills, or personal brand to gain visibility, recognition, or opportunities. It involves actively highlighting one's positive qualities, achievements, or talents in order to create a favorable impression on others and increase one's chances of success in various domains, such as career, business, or social interactions (Rudman, (1998). ...
The purpose of this study was to examine how a particular cohort of applicants, who were seeking teaching positions in an international school were working with students experiencing learning difficulties, responded to the job interview question "why should we hire you." By analyzing their responses, the aim was to understand how these teachers engaged in self-promotion to create a favorable impression of the interviewer. A qualitative research approach was utilised to analyse the data collected, which consisted of interviews conducted with five successful candidates. The findings of this study indicated that these candidates encountered challenges in effectively demonstrating self-promotion during their job interviews, despite being ultimately successful in obtaining positions. Furthermore, the results revealed a lack of confidence among the candidates, potentially stemming from their limited proficiency in employing appropriate vocabulary to convey their goals and strategies effectively. Based on these findings, it is recommended that the teaching curriculum incorporate self-promotion techniques to better equip undergraduate students for job interviews and enable them to effectively respond to standard interview questions, thus allowing them to showcase their capabilities more confidently and successfully.
Organizations are increasingly engaging in concerted efforts to mitigate bias in processes such as performance evaluations. However, little research examines what makes bias easier for organizations to address through formal initiatives and what makes bias more resistant to such change. When organizations shed light on the biases embedded in a particular organizational process, where are interventions successful, and where do they fall short? Using a longitudinal sample of performance evaluations from an elite professional services firm, we find that managers have an easier time reducing gender differences in the way they view employees’ behaviors, as compared to the way managers value those behaviors. Managers successfully decreased gendered descriptions of personality and communication style. However, when we examine the relationship between language patterns and rating, we find that the same behaviors correspond with a different payoff for women and men. Our findings add to the literature on organizational change by identifying the successes and challenges of bias mitigation efforts aimed at training managers, and we contribute to research on status and stereotypes by identifying new pathways through which cultural ideas about gender impact the evaluation of employees.
Research on gender and nonverbal behavior has often focused on sex differences in using nonverbal cues. A conclusion one might draw is that if women would simply adopt the culturally recognized male patterns, they would reap the same rewards. But would they? In this chapter we look at men and women presenting the same nonverbal authority signal, and examine its power to confer leadership status on the two sexes equally.
Two issues were explored: (a) which impression management (IM) tactics applicants use during actual interviews and (b) whether there is a relationship between applicants' IM tactics and their interview outcomes. The study also examined convergence across different methods and raters when measuring IM. Postinterview survey measures were obtained from applicants and interviewers regarding applicant IM behavior during a specific interview; in addition, a subset (n = 24) of interviews was audiotaped and analyzed for the presence of IM. Analyses revealed low to moderate convergence across methods and raters, suggesting that IM tactics may be multidimensional constructs. Across methods and raters, there was consistent evidence of greater applicant self-promotion than ingratiation. Similarly, IM tactics significantly predicted interviewers' evaluations and whether applicants later obtained site visits. Implications for future research are discussed.
This chapter presents an integrated understanding of various impression formation processes. The chapter introduces a model of impression formation that integrates social cognition research on stereotyping with traditional research on person perception. According to this model, people form impressions of others through a variety of processes that lie on a continuum reflecting the extent to that the perceiver utilizes a target's particular attributes. The continuum implies that the distinctions among these processes are matters of degree, rather than discrete shifts. The chapter examines the evidence for the five main premises of the model, it is helpful to discuss some related models that raise issues for additional consideration. The chapter discusses the research that supports each of the five basic premises, competing models, and hypotheses for further research. The chapter concludes that one of the model's fundamental purposes is to integrate diverse perspectives on impression formation, as indicated by the opening quotation. It is also designed to generate predictions about basic impression formation processes and to help generate interventions that can reduce the impact of stereotypes on impression formation.
This paper examines the impact of women's proportional representation in the upper echelons of organizations on hierarchical and peer relationships among professional women at work. I propose that social identity is the principal mechanism through which the representation of women influences their relationships. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of interview and questionnaire data are used to compare women's same-sex relationships in firms with relatively low and high proportions of senior women. Compared with women in firms with many senior women, women in firms with few senior women were less likely to experience common gender as a positive basis for identification with women, less likely to perceive senior women as role models with legitimate authority, more likely to perceive competition in relationships with women peers, and less likely to find support in these relationships. These results challenge person-centered views about the psychology of women's same-sex work relationships and suggest that social identity may link an organization's demographic composition with individuals' workplace experiences.