Reigning men
Women’s Bragging Rights: Overcoming Modesty Norms to Facilitate Women’s Self-Promotion
Jessi Smith & Meghan Huntoon
Psychology of Women Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Within American gender norms is the expectation that women should be modest. We argue that violating this “modesty norm” by boasting about one’s accomplishments causes women to experience uncomfortable situational arousal that leads to lower motivation for and performance on a self-promotion task. We hypothesized that such negative effects could be offset when an external source for their situational arousal was made available. To test hypotheses, 78 women students from a U.S. Northwestern university wrote a scholarship application essay to promote the merits of either the self (modesty norm violated) or another person as a letter of reference (modesty norm not violated). Half were randomly assigned to hear information about a (fake) subliminal noise generator in the room that might cause “discomfort” (misattribution available) and half were told nothing about the generator (normal condition: misattribution not available). Participants rated the task and 44 new naive participants judged how much scholarship money to award each essay. Results confirmed predictions: under normal conditions, violating the modesty norm led to decreased motivation and performance. However, those who violated the modesty norm with a misattribution source reported increased interest, adopted fewer performance-avoidance goals, perceived their own work to be of higher quality, and produced higher quality work. Results suggest that when a situation helps women to escape the discomfort of defying the modesty norm, self-promotion motivation and performance improve. Further implications for enhancing women’s academic and workplace experiences are discussed.
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The Menstrual Cycle and Performance Feedback Alter Gender Differences in Competitive Choices
David Wozniak, William Harbaugh & Ulrich Mayr
Journal of Labor Economics, January 2014, Pages 161-198
Abstract:
We use a within-subjects experiment with math and word tasks to show that relative performance feedback moves high-ability females toward more competitive forms of compensation, moves low-ability men toward less competitive forms, and eliminates gender differences in choices. We also examine females across the menstrual cycle and find that women in the high-hormone phase are more willing to compete than women in the low-hormone phase. There are no significant differences between choices after subjects receive feedback. Thus, biological differences lead to economically significant differences, but the impact of those differences can be lowered through relative performance information.
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A naturalistic study of stereotype threat in young female chess players
Hank Rothgerber & Katie Wolsiefer
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, January 2014, Pages 79-90
Abstract:
The present research sought to determine whether young female chess players would demonstrate stereotype threat susceptibility in a naturalistic environment. Data from 12 scholastic chess tournaments indicated that females performed worse than expected when playing against a male opponent, achieving 83% of the expected success based on their own and their opponent’s prerating. These effects were strongest for the youngest players in lower elementary school but also present for those in upper elementary. Stereotype threat susceptibility was most pronounced in contexts that could be considered challenging: when playing a strong or moderate opponent and when playing someone in a higher or the same grade. As evidence of disengagement, those most vulnerable to stereotype threat were less likely to continue playing in future chess tournaments. These results were not found in a matched comparison male group suggesting the outcomes were unique to stereotype threat and not universal to young chess players.
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Does mandatory gender balance work? Changing organizational form to avoid board upheaval
Øyvind Bøhren & Siv Staubo
Journal of Corporate Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
Norway is the first, and so far only, country to mandate a minimum fraction of female and male directors on corporate boards. We find that after a new gender balance law surprisingly stipulated that the firm must be liquidated unless at least 40% of its directors are of each gender, half the firms exit to an organizational form not exposed to the law. This response suggests that forced gender balance is costly. The costs are also firm-specific, because exit is more common when the firm is non-listed, successful, small, young, has powerful owners, no dominating family owner, and few female directors. These characteristics reflect high costs of involuntary board restructuring and low costs of abandoning the exposed organizational form. Correspondingly, certain unexposed firms hesitate to become exposed. Overall, we find that mandatory gender balance may produce firms with inefficient organizational forms or inefficient boards.
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Females and Precarious Board Positions: Further Evidence of the Glass Cliff
Mark Mulcahy & Carol Linehan
British Journal of Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
The ‘glass cliff’ posits that when women achieve high profile roles, these are at firms in precarious positions. Previous research analysed appointments (male/female), estimated the precariousness of firms involved and drew inferences about the glass cliff. This study is different as it directly tests the relationship between a precarious situation and changes in board gender diversity. The sample is companies listed on the UK stock exchange reporting an initial loss in the years 2004–2006. A matched control sample is used in a difference-in-differences analysis to avoid inadvertently attributing improvements arising from societal/regulatory changes in gender diversity to the loss event. Findings suggest that when the loss is ‘big’ there is a difference in the increase in gender diversity versus both the control and the ‘small’ loss subsamples, i.e. compelling evidence of the glass cliff. In the context of ongoing political and social debates about women on boards our work (i) identifies continuing structural barriers for women ascending to board level in that women are more likely to be over-represented on boards of companies that are more precarious and (ii) sounds a note of caution about celebrating increased gender diversity on boards without considering the precariousness of the company involved.
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The Ripple Effects of Stranger Harassment on Objectification of Self and Others
Meghan Davidson, Sarah Gervais & Lindsey Sherd
Psychology of Women Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite the frequency and negative consequences of stranger harassment, only a scant number of studies have explicitly examined stranger harassment and its consequences through the lens of objectification theory. The current study introduced and tested a mediation model in which women’s experiences of stranger harassment may lead to self-objectification, which in turn may lead to objectification of other people. To examine this model, undergraduate women (N = 501) completed measures of stranger harassment (including the verbal harassment and sexual pressure subscales of the Stranger Harassment Index), body surveillance, and objectification of other women and men. Consistent with hypotheses, significant positive correlations emerged among total stranger harassment, verbal harassment, sexual pressure, body surveillance, and other-objectification of women. Other-objectification of men showed a similar pattern of results, with the exception of being unrelated to total stranger harassment and sexual pressure. Consistent with the proposed model, body surveillance was a significant mediator of the relation between total stranger harassment and other-objectification of both women and men, as well as the relation between verbal harassment and other-objectification of both women and men. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as future directions for research on stranger harassment, are discussed.
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A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter
Claudia Goldin
American Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
The converging roles of men and women are among the grandest advances in society and the economy in the last century. These aspects of the grand gender convergence are figurative chapters in a history of gender roles. But what must the “last” chapter contain for there to be equality in the labor market? The answer may come as a surprise. The solution does not (necessarily) have to involve government intervention and it need not make men more responsible in the home (although that wouldn’t hurt). But it must involve changes in the labor market, in particular how jobs are structured and remunerated to enhance temporal flexibility. The gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long hours and worked particular hours. Such change has taken off in various sectors, such as technology, science and health, but is less apparent in the corporate, financial and legal worlds.
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Mary Ann Bronson
University of California Working Paper, November 2013
Abstract:
Women attend college today at much higher rates than men. They also select disproportionately into low-paying majors, with almost no gender convergence along this margin since the mid-1980s. In this paper, I explain the dynamics of the gender differences in college attendance and choice of major from 1960 to 2010. I document first that changes in returns to skill over time and gender differences in wage premiums across majors cannot explain the observed gender gaps in educational choices. I then provide reduced-form evidence that two factors help explain the observed gender gaps:
rst, college degrees provide insurance against very low income for women, especially in case of divorce; second, majors differ substantially in the degree of "work-family flexibility" they offer, such as the size of wage penalties for temporary reductions in labor supply. Based on the reduced-form evidence, I construct and estimate a dynamic structural model of marriage, educational choices, and lifetime labor supply. I use the model to analyze the contribution of changes in wages and changes in the marriage market to the observed educational investment patterns over time. I estimate that the insurance value of the college degree for women in case of divorce is equivalent to about 31% of the college wage premium. I also estimate that the share of women choosing high-return science and business majors would increase from 34% to 45% if wage penalties for labor supply reductions were equalized across occupations. Finally, I test the effects of two sets of policies on individuals' choice of major: a di erential tuition policy that charges less for science and technical majors, as has been proposed in some states; and interventions intended to improve work-family flexibility. My results show that some family-friendly policies increase the share of women in science and business majors substantially, while others further widen both college gender gaps.
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Raina Brands & Martin Kilduff
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do women face bias in the social realm in which they are purported to excel? Across two different studies (one organizational and one comprising MBA teams), we examined whether the friendship networks around women tend to be systematically misperceived and whether there were effects of these misperceptions on the women themselves and their teammates. Thus, we investigated the possibility (hitherto neglected in the network literature) that biases in friendship networks are triggered not just by the complexity of social relationships but also by the gender of those being perceived. Study 1 showed that, after controlling for actual network positions, men, relative to women, were perceived to occupy agentic brokerage roles in the friendship network — those roles involving less constraint and higher betweenness and outdegree centrality. Study 2 showed that if a team member misperceived a woman to occupy such roles, the woman was seen as competent but not warm. Furthermore, to the extent that gender stereotypes were endorsed by many individuals in the team, women performed worse on their individual tasks. But teams in which members fell back on well-rehearsed perceptions of gender roles (men rather than women misperceived as brokers) performed better than teams in which members tended toward misperceiving women occupying agentic brokerage roles. Taken together, these results contribute to unlocking the mechanisms by which social networks affect women's progress in organizations.
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The Plateau in U.S. Women's Labor Force Participation: A Cohort Analysis
Jin Young Lee
Industrial Relations, January 2014, Pages 46–71
Abstract:
After going up steadily for the last century, the female labor force participation (FLFP) rate in the United States suddenly leveled off in the early 1990s. Using March Current Population Survey data, I find that the FLFP stopped rising for birth cohorts from the 1950s on. My shift-share analyses show that both the plateau and the earlier upward trend in FLFP appeared within almost every category broken down by education, marital status, and child-rearing.
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Leader self-awareness: An examination and implications of women's under-prediction
Rachel Sturm et al.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Self-awareness represents an important aspect of leadership. However, past research on leader self-awareness has focused on one component of self-awareness, self versus others' ratings, leaving the second component, the ability to anticipate the views of others, largely neglected. We examined this second component of self-awareness by focusing on women leaders who have been found to under-predict how others rate them. In two studies, we measured how women leaders anticipate the views of their bosses in regard to their leadership. In Study 1, 194 leaders rated their leadership, were rated by their bosses, and then predicted how their bosses rated their leadership. While we found that women under-predict their boss ratings compared with men, we did not find that boss gender or feedback played a role in this under-prediction. In Study 2, 76 female leaders identified (via open-ended questions) possible reasons and consequences of under-prediction for women in organizations. Results from Study 2 reveal the following: (1) the reasons for women's under-prediction include a lack of self-confidence, differences in feedback needs, learned gender roles, and self-sexism; and (2) the perceived consequences of under-prediction are negative for both women and the organization.
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When door holding harms: Gender and the consequences of non-normative help
Megan McCarty & Janice Kelly
Social Influence, forthcoming
Abstract:
This work explored the potential negative consequences of unexpected help. A behavioral observation and a survey study found that men are unlikely to have the door held open for them in a chivalrous manner, whereby they walk through the door before the person helping them does. In an experimental field study, passersby were randomly assigned to experience this type of door-holding help or not. Males who had the door held for them in this manner by a male confederate reported lower self-esteem and self-efficacy than males who did not have the door held for them. Females were unaffected by door-holding condition. These results demonstrate negative consequences of seemingly innocuous but unexpected helping behavior that violates gender norms.
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Anita Keller et al.
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
High self-esteem often predicts job-related outcomes, such as high job satisfaction or high status. Theoretically, high quality jobs (HQJs) should be important for self-esteem, as they enable people to use a variety of skills and attribute accomplishments to themselves, but research findings are mixed. We expected reciprocal relationships between self-esteem and HQJ. However, as work often is more important for the status of men, we expected HQJ to have a stronger influence on self-esteem for men as compared to women. Conversely, task-related achievements violate gender stereotypes for women, who may need high self-esteem to obtain HQJs. In a 4-year cross-lagged panel analysis with 325 young workers, self-esteem predicted HQJ; the lagged effect from HQJ on self-esteem was marginally significant. In line with the hypotheses, the multigroup model showed a significant path only from self-esteem to HQJ for women, and from HQJ to self-esteem for men. The reverse effect was not found for women, and only marginally significant for men. Overall, although there were some indications for reciprocal effects, our findings suggest that women need high self-esteem to obtain HQJs to a greater degree than men, and that men base their self-esteem on HQJs to a greater extent than women.
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Tina Forsberg Kankkunen
Gender, Work & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article aims to contribute knowledge on how access to hierarchical networks of communication is constructed through organizational contexts associated with the gendered nature of feminized, caring work and masculinized, technical work, respectively. The article is based on interviews with 43 middle managers. Both men and women in male-dominated technical occupations and female-dominated caring occupations were interviewed. Eight interviews with politicians and strategic managers were also carried out. The results show that middle managers' access to hierarchical networks differs between feminized and masculinized contexts; hierarchical networks between organizational levels are common in male-dominated technical jobs, while such networks are almost non-existent in female-dominated caring occupations. The results illustrate how organizational conditions follow the gender segregation in organizations and the labour market and, further, how these contexts shape men's and women's access to hierarchical networks. The results also illustrate how the patterns of networks create and reproduce inequalities in sex-segregated organizations.
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Gender Distribution of U.S. Medical School Faculty By Academic Track Type
Anita Mayer et al.
Academic Medicine, forthcoming
Purpose: Over the past 30 years, the number and type of academic faculty tracks have increased, and researchers have found differences in promotion rates between track types. The authors studied the gender distribution of medical school faculty on the traditional tenure track (TTT) and clinician-educator track (CET) types.
Method: The authors analyzed gender and academic track type distribution data from the March 31, 2011, snapshot of the Association of American Medical Colleges' Faculty Roster. Their final analysis included data from the 123 medical schools offering the TTT type and the 106 offering the CET type, which excluded any schools with 10 or fewer faculty on each track type.
Results: The original dataset included 134 medical schools representing 138,508 full-time faculty members, 50,376 (36%) of whom were women. Of the 134 medical schools, 128 reported at least one of four track types: TTT, CET, research track, and other. Of the 83 medical schools offering the CET type, 64 (77%) had a higher proportion of female than male faculty on that track type. Of the 102 medical schools offering the TTT type, only 20 (20%) had a higher proportion of female than male faculty on that track type.
Conclusions: Medical schools offering the CET type reported higher proportions of female faculty on that track type. Given that faculty on the CET type lag behind their TTT colleagues in academic promotion, these findings may contribute to continued challenges in gaining academic and leadership parity for women in academic medicine.
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Divergent effects of system justification salience on the academic self-assessments of men and women
Virginie Bonnot & John Jost
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Based on system justification theory, we hypothesized that, when the salience of system justification concerns are high, both men and women would bias estimates of their own and their group’s academic competence so as to make them more congruent with complementary gender stereotypes concerning mathematical and verbal abilities. Results show that, compared to men, women reported lesser competence and recalled lower achievement scores in math following the activation of system justification concerns, while at the same time reporting greater competence in verbal domains, albeit less strongly. Concerning perceptions of their group’s competence, men endorsed complementary gender stereotypes more strongly in the high (vs. low) system justification salience condition. However, women were less prone to endorse abstract gender stereotypes when system justification was made salient, which may suggest reactance rather than acquiescence.
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Support for employment equity policies: A self-enhancement approach
Ivona Hideg & Lance Ferris
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, January 2014, Pages 49–64
Abstract:
The effectiveness of employment equity (EE) policies has been hindered by negative reactions to these policies. We draw on the self-enhancement literature to expand self-interest accounts of reactions to EE policies to explain inconsistent findings showing that both nonbeneficiaries and beneficiaries react negatively to EE policies. Across four studies, we found that self-image threat influences reactions to gender-based EE policies. Studies 1 and 2 established that EE policies threaten the self-images of both men (nonbeneficiaries) and women (beneficiaries). Study 3 found that those least likely to experience self-image threat when faced with a gender-based EE policy are the most likely to show positive reactions to EE policies, while Study 4 showed that both men and women react more favorably to EE policies when self-images threats are mitigated through a self-affirmation task. Implications for our understanding of reactions to EE policies are discussed.
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Feminists who flaunt it: Exploring the enjoyment of sexualization among young feminist women
Mindy Erchull & Miriam Liss
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, December 2013, Pages 2341–2349
Abstract:
The phenomenon of women enjoying sexualized male attention has recently been operationalized and found to be related to primarily traditional and sexist beliefs, but some argue that enjoying sexiness can be a feminist act. This study assessed the extent to which 326 self-identified heterosexual feminist women reported that they enjoyed sexualization and how this related to beliefs about the need for social change. Results indicated that enjoying sexualization was related to a mix of feminist and traditional beliefs. Paradoxically, feminists who enjoyed sexualization felt empowered but were less likely to notice personal social injustice or continued gender inequity. Whether embracing empowered sexuality is related to a more general gender empowerment is discussed.
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Markus Baer et al.
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Building on social role theory, we extend a contingency perspective on intergroup competition proposing that having groups compete against one another is stimulating to the creativity of groups composed largely or exclusively of men but detrimental to the creativity of groups composed largely or exclusively of women. We tested this idea in two separate studies: a laboratory experiment (Study 1) and a field study (Study 2). Study 1 showed that competition had the expected positive effects on the creativity of groups composed mostly or exclusively of men and produced the predicted negative effects on the creativity of groups composed of women, even though the latter effects emerged at the high end of the competition spectrum and for sex-homogeneous groups only. Results of Study 1 also revealed that within-group collaboration mediated the joint effects of competition and sex composition on group creativity. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 in a field setting involving research and development teams. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.
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Anti-feminist backlash: The role of system justification in the rejection of feminism
Amy Yeung, Aaron Kay & Jennifer Peach
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
System justification theory (SJT) posits that people are motivated to believe that the social system they live in is fair, desirable, and how it should be, especially in contexts that heighten the system justification motive. Past researchers have suggested that opposition to feminists may be motivated by the threat that feminism presents to the legitimacy of the status quo, but this hypothesis has not been tested empirically. In this article, we present three studies that directly test the idea that antifeminist backlash can be motivated by system justification. Studies 1 and 2 experimentally manipulated the SJ motive and a female target’s feminist identification (feminist vs. nonfeminist). Study 3 tested the hypothesis by measuring participants’ SJ motivation via an individual difference measure. Participants disagreed more with identical statements about gender issues made by the feminist target than the nonfeminist target, but only when the system justification motive was heightened (Study 2) or chronically high (Study 3).
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Objectifying Media: Their Effect on Gender Role Norms and Sexual Harassment of Women
Silvia Galdi, Anne Maass & Mara Cadinu
Psychology of Women Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across two studies, we investigated the hypothesis that exposure to objectifying television in which women are shown as sexual objects increases the likelihood of harassing conduct. In both studies (Ns = 141; 120), male participants were exposed to one of the three TV clips in which women were portrayed (a) as sexual objects (objectifying TV), (b) in professional roles, or (c) excluded (a nature documentary). Study 1 showed that men exposed to objectifying TV reported greater proclivity to engage in sexual coercion and manifested more gender-harassing behavior than participants in the other conditions. Study 2 further demonstrated that exposure to objectifying TV increased participants’ conformity to masculine gender role norms, which, in turn, mediated the relation between experimental condition and gender harassment. Together, the two studies suggest that media content plays a central role in activating harassment-related social norms, which in turn encourage or inhibit harassing conduct.
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Maria Agthe et al.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Organizational decision-making research demonstrates an abundance of positive biases directed toward attractive individuals. However, recent research suggests that these favorable consequences of attractiveness do not hold when the person being evaluated is of the same sex as the evaluator. In the current study, participants evaluated prospective job candidates and indicated their desire to interact socially with the candidate. Results indicated positive responses toward attractive other-sex targets but not toward attractive same-sex targets. This pattern was moderated by participants' social comparison orientation: People who tended to engage in downward (rather than upward) social comparison displayed stronger reactions to attractive comparison targets. They indicated less desire to interact socially with attractive same-sex job candidates than those who tend to engage in upward social comparison.
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Sex-Based Salary Disparity and the Uses of Multiple Regression for Definition and Remediation
Magdalene Chalikia & Verlin Hinsz
Current Psychology, December 2013, Pages 374-387
Abstract:
Although sex differences in salaries are widely condemned, some organizations tolerate these disparities. When organizations are found to discriminate against women in salaries for the same jobs as men, a number of remedies can be pursued. This study illustrates how a state university responded to demonstrated sex-based salary disparities identified in a class-action lawsuit. In particular, a regression analysis was conducted for male and female faculty members that also included seven other predictors. Statistical differences between male and female faculty members were found. As part of the remediation, the salaries of 39 women faculty members were increased. Subsequent regression analysis indicated that the effect for faculty member sex no longer reached traditional levels of statistical significance. The court-order remediation was deemed to have removed the sex-based salary disparity. Yet, it is not clear that the post-remediation salaries of the women faculty were perceived as fair. This case demonstrates how concepts from regression can be (mis)used in legal cases of salary fairness and disparity.