The role of perspective‐taking in attenuating self‐group distancing in women managers

Abstract

Contrary to expectations about solidarity and sisterhood between women, women managers sometimes distance themselves from junior women in the workplace when facing identity threat, that is, the feeling that one's social identity—such as race or gender—is devalued or undermined. For example, women managers might distance themselves from lower status junior women by seeing themselves as more masculine and career committed than their junior women colleagues. To advance our understanding of how to combat self‐group distancing, the present research proposed and tested whether taking the perspective of junior women would attenuate these ingroup‐distancing tendencies in women managers. Findings from a field study and an experimental study indicated that women managers reported greater self‐distancing from junior women (on masculine trait perceptions) compared to women employees. As predicted, this effect was attenuated for women managers with high levels of perspective‐taking (Study 1) and for women who were experimentally led to take the perspective of junior women (Study 2). For ratings of career commitment and support for affirmative actions, we did not replicate the self‐ingroup distancing effect reported in the literature. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.