She could win
Do Women Prefer Female Bosses?
Benjamin Artz & Sarinda Taengnoi
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The participation of women in the labor force has grown significantly over the past 50 years, and with this, women are increasingly holding managerial and supervisory positions. Yet little is known about how female supervisors impact employee well-being. Using two distinct datasets of US workers, we provide previously undocumented evidence that women are less satisfied with their jobs when they have a female boss. Male job satisfaction, by contrast, is unaffected. Crucially our study is able to control for individual worker fixed effects and to identify the impact of a change in supervisor gender on worker well-being without other alterations in the worker's job.
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Benjamin Artz, Amanda Goodall & Andrew Oswald
University of Wisconsin Working Paper, September 2016
Abstract:
Women typically earn less than men. The reasons are not fully understood. Previous studies argue that this may be because (i) women 'don't ask' and (ii) the reason they fail to ask is out of concern for the quality of their relationships at work. This account is difficult to assess with standard labor-economics data sets. Hence we examine direct survey evidence. Using matched employer-employee data from 2013-14, the paper finds that the women-don't-ask account is incorrect. Once an hours-of-work variable is included in 'asking' equations, hypotheses (i) and (ii) can be rejected. Women do ask. However, women do not get.
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Male Immorality: An Evolutionary Account of Sex Differences in Unethical Negotiation Behavior
Margaret Lee et al.
Academy of Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Past research finds that men negotiate more unethically than women, although many studies report comparable rates of unethical negotiation behaviors. Based on evolutionary psychology, we predict conditions under which sex differences in unethical negotiation behavior are more versus less pronounced. We theorize that greater levels of unethical behavior among men occur as a consequence of greater male intrasexual competition for mates. This suggests that more male unethical negotiation behavior should primarily emerge in situations associated with intrasexual competition. Using a two-wave survey design, Study 1 found a positive relationship between mating motivation and unethical negotiation behavior for male, but not female employees. Study 2 was a controlled experiment, replicating this effect and showing that the gender difference was most pronounced when negotiating with same-sex, attractive opponents. Study 3 used a similar experimental design and found support for another implication of evolutionary theory — that mating motivation would prompt unethical behavior in both men and women when the behavior constitutes a less severe norm violation. We discuss contributions to the literature on unethical behavior at work, negotiations, and the role of attractiveness in organizations.
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Zoe Kinias & Jessica Sim
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two field experiments examined if and how values affirmations can ameliorate stereotype threat-induced gender performance gaps in an international competitive business environment. Based on self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988), we predicted that writing about personal values unrelated to the perceived threat would attenuate the gender performance gap. Study 1 found that an online assignment to write about one’s personal values (but not a similar writing assignment including organizational values) closed the gender gap in course grades by 89.0% among 423 Masters of Business Administration students (MBAs) at an international business school. Study 2 replicated this effect among 396 MBAs in a different cohort with random assignment and tested 3 related mediators (self-efficacy, self-doubt, and self-criticism). Personal values reflection (but not reflecting on values including those of the organization or writing about others’ values) reduced the gender gap by 66.5%, and there was a significant indirect effect through reduced self-doubt. These findings show that a brief personal values writing exercise can dramatically improve women’s performance in competitive environments where they are negatively stereotyped. The results also demonstrate that stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995) can occur within a largely non-American population with work experience and that affirming one’s core personal values (without organizational values) can ameliorate the threat.
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Andreas Pondorfer, Toman Barsbai & Ulrich Schmidt
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We use a controlled experiment to analyze gender differences in stereotypes about risk preferences of men and women across two distinct island societies in the Pacific: the patrilineal Palawan in the Philippines and the matrilineal Teop in Papua New Guinea. We find no gender differences in actual risk preferences, but we find evidence for culture-specific stereotypes. Like men in Western societies, Palawan men overestimate women’s actual risk aversion. By contrast, Teop men underestimate women’s actual risk aversion. We argue that the observed differences in stereotypes between the two societies are determined by the different social status of women.
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Are Organizational Justice Rules Gendered? Reactions to Men’s and Women’s Justice Violations
Suzette Caleo
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research has shown that gender role prescriptions can bias reactions to men’s and women’s work behaviors. The current work draws upon this idea and extends it to consider violations of procedural and interactional justice rules. The results of four experimental studies demonstrate that men and women receive differential performance evaluation ratings and reward recommendations when they violate those organizational justice rules that coincide with the content of prescriptive gender stereotypes. Specifically, women were rated less favorably than men when they exhibited interactional injustice (Study 1 and Study 4), but not when they engaged in procedural injustice (Study 2). Findings also indicate that interactional justice violations (e.g., being impolite, not caring about the well-being of subordinates), but not procedural justice violations, are deemed less acceptable for female managers than male managers (Study 3). Overall, the findings suggest that reactions to injustice can be influenced by expectations of how men and women should behave.
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Elizabeth Parks-Stamm & Chanda Grey
Social Psychology, September 2016, Pages 281–287
Abstract:
Past experimental research has shown that women are penalized with harsh evaluations when they violate gender prescriptions to be nurturing and helpful. Instructor participation in an asynchronous online discussion forum and end-of-class evaluation data from 360 courses was used to test the hypothesis that students would penalize female, but not male, online instructors based on their classroom engagement. Results showed a penalties effect in student ratings for low-participating female, but not male, instructors in gender-balanced courses. The results demonstrate the differential impact of instructor engagement on male and female evaluations, shedding light on when and why gender bias is found in student evaluations. Implications for the use of student evaluations of faculty are discussed.
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The Persistence of Extreme Gender Segregation in the Twenty-first Century
Asaf Levanon & David Grusky
American Journal of Sociology, September 2016, Pages 573-619
Abstract:
Why is there so much occupational sex segregation in the 21st century? The authors cast light on this question by using the O*NET archive of occupation traits to operationalize the concepts of essentialism and vertical inequality more exhaustively than in past research. When the new model is applied to recent U.S. Census data, the results show that much vertical segregation remains even after the physical, analytic, and interactional forms of essentialism are controlled; that essentialism nonetheless accounts for much more of total segregation than does vertical inequality; that the physical and interactional forms of segregation are especially strong; that the physical form of essentialism is one of the few examples of female-advantaging segregation; and that essentialism takes on a fractal structure that generates much finely detailed segregation at detailed occupational levels. The authors conclude by discussing how essentialist processes partly account for the intransigence of occupational sex segregation.
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A Tale of Two Types of Perspective Taking: Sex Differences in Spatial Ability
Margaret Tarampi, Nahal Heydari & Mary Hegarty
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sex differences in favor of males have been documented in measures of spatial perspective taking. In this research, we examined whether social factors (i.e., stereotype threat and the inclusion of human figures in tasks) account for these differences. In Experiment 1, we evaluated performance when perspective-taking tests were framed as measuring either spatial or social (empathetic) perspective-taking abilities. In the spatial condition, tasks were framed as measures of spatial ability on which males have an advantage. In the social condition, modified tasks contained human figures and were framed as measures of empathy on which females have an advantage. Results showed a sex difference in favor of males in the spatial condition but not the social condition. Experiments 2 and 3 indicated that both stereotype threat and including human figures contributed to these effects. Results suggest that females may underperform on spatial tests in part because of negative performance expectations and the character of the spatial tests rather than because of actual lack of abilities.
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Title IX and the Spatial Content of Female Employment--Out of the Lab and into the Labor Market
Michael Baker & Kirsten Cornelson
NBER Working Paper, September 2016
Abstract:
Sports participation is a leading environmental explanation of the male advantage in some spatial skills. We exploit the large increase in females’ high school sports participation due to Title IX to test this hypothesis. We relate Title IX induced increases in females’ sport participation to the spatial content of their occupational employment as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles codes, and a test of three dimensional spatial rotation. We find little evidence that this increase in sports participation had an impact on either of these measures.
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Do Men Matter to Female Competition Even When They Don't?
Erica Birk, Logan Lee & Glen Waddell
University of Oregon Working Paper, September 2016
Abstract:
A large literature attempts to identify factors that contribute to gender differences in performance and in the decision to compete. We exploit a highly competitive environment in which elite-female athletes are exposed to the presence of men without the element of direct competition, which allows for the identification of psychological effects of competition. Our results suggest that the presence of men affects the performance of female runners differentially across ability, with negative performance effects being concentrated among lower-ability runners.
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When men lean out: Subtle reminders of child-raising intentions and men and women's career interests
Jennifer Gutsell & Jessica Remedios
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2016, Pages 28–33
Abstract:
Female-dominated occupations tend to be lower paying, but also less time-consuming and more flexible than male-dominated occupations. Women may pursue occupations with short, flexible workweeks because they expect to be primary caretakers of future children. In a pre-registered study we investigated how subtle reminders of child-raising intentions shape college students' occupational interests. We hypothesized that priming women with child-raising intentions reminds them of future caregiving responsibilities and decreases their interest in high-hour, low-flexibility (HH/LF) occupations. However, women reported less interest than men in HH/LF careers regardless of prime (intentions to raise kids versus have pets). Reminding men of child-raising intentions decreased their interest in family-unfriendly HH/LF occupations, particularly among men low in hostile sexism. The results suggest that, whereas women may link child-raising intentions to occupational pursuits regardless of whether such intentions are made salient, reminders of child-raising intentions raise the awareness of non-sexist men of their future family responsibilities.
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Executive gender, competitive pressures, and corporate performance
Mario Daniele Amore & Orsola Garofalo
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate whether the gender of top executives influences a firm’s reaction to competitive pressures. Our empirical approach is based on policy changes that varied the exposure of US banks to competition during the late 1990s. Results suggest that while banks with female executives experience significantly higher financial performance under low competition, they tend to underperform when competition increases. At the same time, we find that the presence of female leaders improves the capital stability of banks subject to greater competition. Overall, our study highlights strong interactions between executive gender and market structures in the determination of business outcomes.
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Reading the Face of a Leader: Women with Low Facial Masculinity Are Perceived as Competitive
Raphael Silberzahn & Jochen Menges
Academy of Management Discoveries, September 2016, Pages 272-289
Abstract:
In competitive settings, people prefer leaders with masculine faces. But is facial masculinity a trait that is similarly desired in men and women leaders? Across three studies, we discovered that people indeed prefer men and women leaders who have faces with masculine traits. But surprisingly, we find that people also prefer women with low facial masculinity as leaders in competitive contexts (Study 1). Our findings indicate that low facial masculinity in women, but not in men is perceived to indicate competitiveness (Study 2). Thus, in contrast to men, women leaders who rate high in facial masculinity as well as those low in facial masculinity are both selected as leaders in competitive contexts. Indeed, among CEOs of S&P 500 companies, we find a greater range of facial masculinity among women CEOs than among men CEOs (Study 3). Our results suggest that traits of facial masculinity in men and women are interpreted differently. Low facial masculinity in women is linked to competitiveness and not only to cooperativeness as suggested by prior research.
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Persistence and change in age-specific gender gaps: Hollywood actors from the silent era onward
Robert Fleck & Andrew Hanssen
International Review of Law and Economics, October 2016, Pages 36–49
Abstract:
In this paper, we examine a set of workers for whom age-based and gender-based discrimination has been widely alleged: motion picture actors. We document, measure, and consider possible explanations for age-specific gender gaps among Hollywood actors, using nearly a century’s worth of data on films and film roles. Consistent with reports in the popular press, we find a large and very persistent gender gap: Of the nearly half-million different roles played in more than 50,000 feature films between 1920 and 2011, two-thirds have gone to males, and the average male actor is consistently older (by six to ten years) than the average female actor. Yet the age-based gender differences that we observe cannot be explained by a simple model of discrimination — while there are fewer roles for middle-aged women than for middle-aged men, there are more roles for young women than for young men. The fact that these patterns have held steady through major changes in the film industry – and in society as a whole – suggests that correspondingly stable aspects of moviegoer preferences contribute to the age-specific nature of gender gaps.
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The Effects of a Female Role Model on Academic Performance and Persistence of Women in STEM Courses
Sarah Herrmann et al.
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, September/October 2016, Pages 258-268
Abstract:
Women are more likely to leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics compared to men, in part because they lack similar role models such as peers, teaching assistants, and instructors. We examined the effect of a brief, scalable online intervention that consisted of a letter from a female role model who normalized concerns about belonging, presented time spent on academics as an investment, and exemplified overcoming challenges on academic performance and persistence. The intervention was implemented in introductory psychology (Study 1, N = 258) and chemistry (Study 2, N = 68) courses. Relative to the control group, the intervention group had higher grades and lower failing and withdrawal rates.
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Gender Differences in Response to Big Stakes
Ghazala Azmat, Caterina Calsamiglia & Nagore Iriberri
Journal of the European Economic Association, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is commonly perceived that increasing incentives improves performance. However, the reaction to increased incentives might differ between men and women, leading to gender differences in performance. In a natural experiment, we study the gender difference in performance resulting from changes in stakes. We use detailed information on the performance of high-school students and exploit the variation in the stakes of tests, which range from 5% to 27% of the final grade. We find that female students outperform male students in all tests — but to a relatively larger degree when the stakes are low. The gender gap disappears in tests taken at the end of high school, which count for 50% of the university entry grade.
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Toward a Mechanistic Account of Gender Differences in Reward-Based Decision-Making
Kaileigh Byrne & Darrell Worthy
Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Gender differences in reward-based decision-making have been extensively researched, yet the mechanisms underlying these differences remain poorly understood. We sought to develop a mechanistic account of how men and women differ in their decision-making strategies. We examined gender differences in performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Experiment 1) as well as the Soochow Gambling Task (SGT; Experiment 2). Expectancy valence and prospect valence learning computational models were fit to the data for both tasks to assess specific strategies that men and women utilized during the decision-making process. Our results replicated the behavioral gender difference finding on the IGT. Women selected the disadvantageous Deck B more than did men. We extended these findings to the SGT. Modeling results revealed that women’s data were best fit by higher recency, or learning rate, parameter values than were men’s data in the IGT and SGT. This suggests that women gave greater weight to recent events than did men and that they tended to ignore large, infrequent losses in both experiments. Overall, our results suggest that the mechanism accounting for how men and women differ in reward-based decision-making is that women tend to focus on the relative frequency of gains and losses and attend to recent reward outcomes, whereas men focus more on the extreme gains and losses associated with each alternative and attend to long-term decision outcomes. Implications for these gender differences in reward-based decision-making strategies are discussed.
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Pricing competition: A new laboratory measure of gender differences in the willingness to compete
John Ifcher & Homa Zarghamee
Experimental Economics, September 2016, Pages 642-662
Abstract:
Experiments have demonstrated that men are more willing to compete than women. We develop a new instrument to “price” willingness to compete. We find that men value a $2.00 winner-take-all payment significantly more (about $0.28 more) than women; and that women require a premium (about 40 %) to compete. Our new instrument is more sensitive than the traditional binary-choice instrument, and thus, enables us to identify relationships that are not identifiable using the traditional binary-choice instrument. We find that subjects who are the most willing to compete have high ability, higher GPA’s (men), and take more STEM courses (women).