What We “Say” and What We “Think” About Female Managers

Abstract

In two studies, we investigated implicit gender stereotypes of successful managers. Using an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) named the Successful Manager IAT (SM-IAT) in Study 1, we found that male participants were more likely to implicitly associate men with successful manager traits and women with unsuccessful manager traits compared to reversed pairings. Women, individuals high in internal motivation to respond without sexism, and those low in external motivation to respond without sexism showed positive implicit associations between women and successful manager traits. In contrast, all participants showed positive views of women on workplace-contextualized explicit measures of gender stereotypes. The findings of Study 2 also revealed that implicit gender stereotypes predicted hypothetical workplace outcomes, such that a greater implicit association of men with successful manager traits, and women with unsuccessful manager traits, was linked to increased workplace rewards assigned to male managers by both male and female participants. The findings of our studies have important implications for both gender stereotyping researchers and workplace practitioners. Theoretically, our studies suggest that explicit and implicit stereotypes of female managers diverge, with implicit stereotypes being more likely to highlight traditional, often negative, views of female managers. Our findings point toward a better understanding of female managers' challenges in the workplace.

Trying to separate the wheat from the chaff: Construct- and faking-related variance on the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

“…The informed faking of low scores might be indicated by effects on IAT a , but the naïve and informed faking of high scores might not be indicated, because faking high scores only affects the construct-related IAT effect (i.e., IAT v ). From a practical standpoint, faking low is indeed the more likely faking condition, because low scores often represent the associations that are not socially stigmatized in particularly sensitive areas, such as pedophilia, racism, stereotypes, or sexism (e.g., Agerström & Rooth, 2011;Banse, Schmidt, & Clarbour, 2010;Banse et al, 2001;Carlsson & Björklund, 2010;Gray, Brown, MacCulloch, Smith, & Snowden, 2005;Greenwald & Banaji, 1995;Greenwald et al, 1998;Latu et al, 2011).…”

Gender Biases in (Inter) Action

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AbstractAlthough explicit stereotypes of women in the workplace have become increasingly positive (Duehr & Bono, 2006), negative stereotypes persist at an implicit level, with women being more likely associated with incompetent-and men with competent-managerial traits (Latu et al, 2011). Drawing upon work on self-fulfilling prophecies and interracial interactions, we investigated whether and how implicit and explicit gender stereotypes held by both male interviewers and female applicants predicted women's interview outcomes.

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“…Moreover, organizations are increasingly committed to promoting gender equality through diversity programs and policies. However, despite an improvement in explicit gender stereotypes (Duehr & Bono, 2006;Stoker, Van der Velde, & Lammers, 2012), negative stereotypes persist at an implicit level, with women being more likely to be implicitly associated with negative managerial traits (Latu et al, 2011) and with roles incompatible with leadership (Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002;Rudman & Kilianski, 2000).One pivotal point at which gender stereotypes can manifest themselves in workplace inequality is in the door to employment itself: the job interview. But what is the role that gender stereotypes play in female job applicants' interview performance and employers' interview-based job decisions?…”

“…But what is the process involved? So far, we know that implicit gender stereotypes can predict the decisions and discriminatory behaviors of the person holding these biases (Latu et al, 2011;Rudman & Glick, 2001;Williams et al, 2010). For example, the more participants associated men, more than women, with managerial competence, the more they favored male employees in a hypothetical salary allocation scenario (Latu et al, 2011).…”

“…So far, we know that implicit gender stereotypes can predict the decisions and discriminatory behaviors of the person holding these biases (Latu et al, 2011;Rudman & Glick, 2001;Williams et al, 2010). For example, the more participants associated men, more than women, with managerial competence, the more they favored male employees in a hypothetical salary allocation scenario (Latu et al, 2011).We similarly propose that in the context of a job interview, interviewers' implicit gender stereotypes would predict how interviewers evaluate female applicants, such that more negative implicit stereotypes would predict lower interviewer evaluations.We extended this chain of reasoning and hypothesized that applicants would pick up on their interviewers' evaluations and assimilate them, such that lower interviewer evaluations would predict lower applicant self-evaluations. We hypothesized that applicants' self-evaluations would be influenced by interviewers' evaluations because applicants in a stressful, evaluative situation are likely to be sensitive to cues coming from interviewerscues that may contain feedback about their performance.…”