Stereotype, Attitudes, and Identity

This chapter aims to: look at gendered expectations and stereotypes; identify what is viewed as gender appropriate behaviour that contributes to the barriers women face in terms of their careers; consider how an individual’s gender role attitude can influence career choice; discuss the dominant theory in the area, social role theory, and how this is an important theory when looking at women’s roles within the workplace especially women working in gender incongruent occupations and industries, as the theory is concerned with gender stereotypes and gender role expectations; and discuss the role identity plays in career development and choice.

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 1849-1867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea Stahel ◽  
Constantin Schoen

The literature on public figures attacked by their audiences is unclear why female and male figures react differently to attacks. This study examines why female journalists are more likely than male journalists to use avoidance strategies as a reaction to online attacks. Avoidance includes limiting audience engagement, adapting reporting behavior, and thinking about quitting journalism. Drawing on social role theory and gender stereotypes, this study contrasts two explanatory hypotheses. The results, based on mediation analyses of online survey data of 637 journalists representative of Switzerland, show that women are more likely than men to use avoidance strategies because women are more stressed by attacks. This heightened stress is argued to result from differences in gender role socialization. In contrast, while women are somewhat more severely attacked than men, this cannot explain their greater probability of avoidance. Results contribute a theoretically and empirically rich explanation of gendered reactions to attacks.


Businesses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-213
Author(s):  
Katrin Zulauf ◽  
Ralf Wagner

This study focuses on the intersection of power and gender in negotiations, which is seldom challenged in previous research. In an experiment with 72 negotiators, we consider issue authority as a proxy of power in negotiations and investigate how different power allocations affect the negotiation success. We learn that an increase in issue authority for one of the two parties does not necessarily lead to an increase in success. Especially, female negotiators rely on their negotiation power, rather than systematically improving mutual utilities. This article contributes to Emerson’s power-dependence theory, social role theory, role congruity theory, and gender role conflict theory by combining analyzing the impact of gender differences and power on the success. This study attempts to close the gap in the literature by focusing on the prospective function of gender role orientation in explaining gender differences in negotiation. The theoretical contribution is that females are not per se inferior in negotiations, but their performance decreases in scenarios of power asymmetries. On the contrary, unbalanced power decreases the likelihood of success. Negotiators cannot rely on a power advantage to increase their success.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuvana Rua ◽  
Zeynep Aytug ◽  
Nastaran Simarasl ◽  
Lianlian Lin

Purpose Based on the social role theory, role congruity theory and gender role conflict theory, this paper aims to investigate the mediating role of “relationship conflict” in the association between traditional gender role (TGR) endorsement and objective and subjective negotiation outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Two experimental negotiation studies (n1 = 138, n2 = 128) were conducted at a US university. Findings This paper presents three original and noteworthy findings: One, in mixed-gender negotiations, as a dyad’s TGR endorsement increases, final agreements become significantly more likely to favor men than women. Two, in mixed-gender negotiations, TGR endorsement is significantly associated with a decreased ability to establish a pleasant, mutually satisfactory and successful business relationship, resulting in a possible future economic cost due to lost opportunity. Three, the heightened relationship conflict during the negotiation mediates the negative association between TGR endorsement and women’s economic outcomes. Research limitations/implications Empirical findings support social role theory, role congruity theory and gender role conflict theory. The use of a distributive negotiation case and laboratory research methodology may limit the generalizability of findings. Practical implications Findings about the detrimental effects of TGR in mixed-gender negotiations magnify the importance of becoming aware of our TGR orientations and their potential negative consequences on our long-term collaborations. Also, it is necessary to provide negotiation trainings to both genders with regard to gender-driven conflicts and offer tools to prevent or tackle such conflicts. Social implications Negotiations are among the most consequential of social interactions as their results have a substantial impact on individuals’ careers and financial outcomes. Understanding the effect of TGRs is paramount to improve female representation, participation and effectiveness in management and leadership. Mixed-gender negotiations such as collective equality bargaining, workplace social interactions, work-life balance discourse are critical to establishing gender equality and fairness in organizations and societies. Originality/value Understanding how gender influences negotiation processes and outcomes and using the findings to improve both genders’ negotiation success are crucial to establishing fairness and equity in society and business. This research attempts to close a gap in the literature by focusing on the potential function of gender role orientation in explaining gender differences in negotiation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-231
Author(s):  
Sina Otten ◽  
Dorothea Alewell

We analyze the effects of deviation from gender stereotypes on job satisfaction for male and female employees in general and for employees in leadership positions. Based on social role theory, backlash mechanisms owing to the violation of gender norms and role incongruity theory, we expect that deviating from gender stereotypes negatively affects job satisfaction. We test our hypotheses by hierarchically applying multiple linear regressions to German employee data. Results show a stable negative effect of deviation from gender stereotypes on job satisfaction for women only. Our findings are consistent with recent studies that confirm traditional gender structures on the labor market and expand our knowledge about backlash effects, since they indicate that deviation from gender norms not only affects objective career indicators but also subjective ones. As job satisfaction is a predictor of organizational success, we discuss ways for organizations to reduce the harmful effects of persistent traditional gender stereotypes in workplaces.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhvani Patel

The present study is an attempt to study the attribution patterns of employees toward descriptions of leaders in a female congenial workplace. 100 preschool teachers employed at various playschools located in Vadodara city served as sample for the study. The sample respondents completed a questionnaire that comprised of preliminary information and the Indian Gender Role Identity Scale (IGRIS) by Basu (2010). The data thus generated was subjected to ascending means to find out the frequency with which adjectives were chosen from the Scale. The results revealed that a leader in a female congenial workplace is largely described with masculine adjectives and lesser with feminine adjectives.


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ho Kwan Cheung ◽  
Alex Lindsey ◽  
Eden King ◽  
Michelle R Hebl

Purpose – Influence tactics are prevalent in the workplace and are linked to crucial outcomes such as career success and helping behaviours. The authors argue that sex role identity affects women’s choice of influence tactics in the workplace, but they only receive positive performance ratings when their behaviours are congruent with gender role expectation. Furthermore, the authors hypothesize that these relationships may be moderated by occupational continuance commitment. Results suggest that femininity is negatively related to the use of influence tactics overall, and this relationship is moderated by occupational continuance commitment. Design/methodology/approach – In all, 657 women working in the construction industry were surveyed for their continuance occupational commitment and sex role identity and 465 supervisors whose responses are linked with the subordinates are surveyed for the women’s influence tactics and performance ratings. Findings – Results suggested that femininity was negatively related to the use of influence tactics overall, and this relationship was moderated by occupational continuance commitment. Results also showed that women’s use of influence tactics was only positively received in terms of performance ratings when the influence tactic was congruent with gender role expectations. Research limitations/implications – The results of this current study suggest that not all women are equally likely to use influence tactics and not all tactics result in positive perceptions of performance. Feminine women in general refrain from using influence tactics unless they are driven to stay in a given occupation, but they only receive positive results when their behaviours are congruent with society’s gender role expectations. Originality/value – Past research has mostly focused on broad differences between males and females, and this study has shown that there are more nuanced differences that can more accurately describe the effects of gender disposition (i.e. sex role identity) on influence tactics. It also emphasizes the importance of occupational commitment as a boundary condition, which influences women to step out of their gender roles even though they may be penalized with lower performance ratings.


Author(s):  
Kathrin J. Hanek

Drawing primarily on the literature in experimental economics and social psychology, this article reviews key findings on gender differences for two aspects of competitiveness and competition: entry preferences and performance. Although women, relative to men, have been shown to shy away from competition and underperform in competitive environments, this article also discusses boundary conditions for these effects, such as the nature of the task or gender composition of the group, and highlights manifestations of these effects in applied domains, including in negotiations, the labor market, educational settings, and sports. Adopting social psychological frameworks of prescriptive norms and stereotypes, particularly social role theory, this article examines ways in which gender-incongruencies may underpin gender gaps in competition and gender-congruencies may alleviate them. Finally, this article considers implications for individuals and institutions as well as future directions in the field to continue finding ways to close gaps.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cigdem Basfirinci ◽  
Zuhal Cilingir Uk ◽  
Sernur Karaoglu ◽  
Kadriye Onbas

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reveal implicit occupational gender stereotypes for 12 different occupations in Turkey.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 954 Turkish university students, this study aimed to explore which jobs are implicitly perceived to be masculine and which jobs are implicitly perceived to be feminine. The role of the respondents’ sex, the place where they grew up (metropolitan or rural) and the information level about the occupation (job title or job description) on occupational gender stereotypes were also tested. Gender stereotypes were assessed using a hypothetical scenario method, which provides an opportunity to reveal implicit information processing. Chi Square andt-test were used in hypothesis testing.FindingsConsistent with the circumscription and compromise and the social role theory, as expected, the findings of the current study provided additional support about occupational gender stereotypes showing that job titles are strongly effective vehicles to communicate gender stereotypes for Turkish university students.Originality/valueUsing implicit measures of information processing and offering findings from a completely different cultural background (Turkey) constitutes the original contribution of this work.


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