Am I the right candidate? Self-ascribed fit of women and men to a leadership position

Women are assumed to show a self-ascribed lack-of-fit to leadership positions compared to men (Heilman, 1983). The present study examined whether this gender difference would diminish when agency is accounted for and whether a stimulus person’s gender would alter women’s self-ascribed fit. German management students (91 women, 95 men) received a fictitious recruitment advertisement for a leadership position that portrayed a man, a woman, or both a man and a woman. Participants indicated their perceptions of agency and suitability to the advertised position. As predicted, women judged themselves as less suitable for the leadership position than men and participants’ self-reported agency mediated this effect. Furthermore, all participants felt most suitable if a male and a female stimulus person were portrayed

Too Masculine, Too Bad Effects of Communion on Leaders’ Promotion of Cooperation

This study challenges researchers and practitioners in the field of leadership to consider communion as a relevant variable for (male) leadership effectiveness. We suggest that communal traits influence the ability of male leaders to engender cooperation and that this effect is stronger in male-dominated contexts. We argue that this is because relevant traits and leadership behaviors that underscore a sense of community are associated with stereotypically feminine roles and identity. In a series of three studies, experimental as well as survey-based, using Spanish, Dutch, and American samples, we examined such gendered construction of male leadership and its effects on cooperation. Among others, results are discussed in terms of how stereotypically masculine constructions of male leadership may create barriers to effective leadership

Predictably confirmatory: The influence of stereotypes during decisional processing.

Stereotypes facilitate the processing of expectancy-consistent (vs expectancy-inconsistent) information, yet the underlying origin of this congruency effect remains unknown. As such, here we sought to identify the cognitive operations through which stereotypes influence decisional processing. In six experiments, participants responded to stimuli that were consistent or inconsistent with respect to prevailing gender stereotypes. To identify the processes underpinning task performance, responses were submitted to a hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) analysis. A consistent pattern of results emerged. Whether manipulated at the level of occupational (Expts. 1, 3, and 5) or trait-based (Expts. 2, 4, and 6) expectancies, stereotypes facilitated task performance and influenced decisional processing via a combination of response and stimulus biases. Specifically, (1) stereotype-consistent stimuli were classified more rapidly than stereotype-inconsistent stimuli; (2) stereotypic responses were favoured over counter-stereotypic responses (i.e., starting-point shift towards stereotypic responses); (3) less evidence was required when responding to stereotypic than counter-stereotypic stimuli (i.e., narrower threshold separation for stereotypic stimuli); and (4) decisional evidence was accumulated more efficiently for stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent stimuli and when targets had a typical than atypical facial appearance. Collectively, these findings elucidate how stereotypes influence person construal

Psychological wellbeing of fathers with and without a child with intellectual disability : a population-based study

Background Few studies have explored the well‐being of fathers of children with intellectual disability (ID), despite the significant role that they play in their children's lives. The current study compared fathers of children with and without a child with ID on measures of psychological well‐being (life satisfaction, work–family balance and general health) and dimensions of parenting (parenting self‐efficacy and parent–child closeness) and then examined whether the presence of a child with ID in the family was a significant predictor of paternal well‐being when controlling for a number of father (age, education, employment and residency), child (ID status, gender, behavioural and emotional problems) and family (income poverty and number of children in the household) variables. Methods Data were drawn from the third wave of the Millennium Cohort Study, a UK population‐representative and cohort study, where the cohort child was 5 years of age; 256 fathers were identified as having a child with ID, with data available for 10 187 fathers without a child with ID. Fathers were compared on the four well‐being and parenting outcomes and then multiple regression models were conducted to explore associations between these outcomes and variables identified as potential correlates of well‐being. Results Initial group comparisons showed that there were differences in the well‐being of fathers, with fathers of children with ID reporting poorer life satisfaction and general health. However, these differences were small. Regression analyses showed that child behavioural and emotional problems, living in income poverty and paternal employment were more important than disability status in predicting fathers' well‐being. Conclusions These works add to the limited amount of research on fathers using population‐representative data. The current findings are consistent with rejecting a general simplistic and negative narrative that raising a child with ID puts fathers at risk of poorer outcomes. However, some fathers, such as those with children with behavioural problems and living in poverty, may require greater support. Future longitudinal research that explores the impact of paternal well‐being on the long‐term outcomes of children with and without ID is warranted

Who Believes in the Giant Skeleton Myth? An Examination of Individual Difference Correlates

This study examined individual difference correlates of belief in a narrative about the discovery of giant skeletal remains that contravenes mainstream scientific explanations. A total of 364 participants from Central Europe completed a survey that asked them to rate their agreement with a short excerpt describing the giant skeleton myth. Participants also completed measures of the Big Five personality factors, New Age orientation, anti-scientific attitudes, superstitious beliefs, and religiosity. Results showed that women, as compared with men, and respondents with lower educational qualifications were significantly more likely to believe in the giant skeleton myth, although effect sizes were small. Correlational analysis showed that stronger belief in the giant skeleton myth was significantly associated with greater anti-scientific attitudes, stronger New Age orientation, greater religiosity, stronger superstitious beliefs, lower Openness to Experience scores, and higher Neuroticism scores. However, a multiple regression showed that the only significant predictors of belief in myth were Openness, New Age orientation, and anti-scientific attitudes. These results are discussed in relation to the potential negative consequences of belief in myths

Women Psychologists within Academic Health Systems: Mentorship and Career Advancement

Women are underrepresented on the faculties and within the senior leadership ranks of academic health systems. Nevertheless, despite the continuing existence of career development challenges related to gender, it is possible for women to thrive professionally in these settings. Mentorship is extremely important, and it is argued that effective mentorship is facilitated by an understanding of both gender differences in social behaviors and the culture of academic health systems. Furthermore, a systems’ level emphasis on faculty diversity and the career development of women faculty is recommended.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44857/1/10880_2005_Article_5746.pd

'If you had only listened carefully...':the discursive construction of emerging leadership in a UK all-women management team

Increasingly, feminist linguistic research has adopted a discursive perspective to learn how women and men 'do' leadership in gendered ways. 'Women' as a social category is made relevant to this study by virtue of the lack of female senior leaders in UK businesses (Sealy and Vinnicombe, 2013). Much previous research has analysed leadership discourse in mixed gender groups, relying on theories that imply comparisons between men and women. Using an Interactional Sociolinguistic approach, this study aims to learn more about how women perform leadership in the absence of men by analysing the spoken interactions of a women-only team who were engaged in a competitive leadership task. The analysis reveals that the women accomplish leadership in multiple and complex ways that defy binary gendered classifications. Nonetheless, there is a distinctive gendered dynamic to the team's interactions which, it is argued, might be disadvantageous to women aspiring to senior positions

Women and Illegal Activities: Gender Differences and Women's Willingness to Comply Over Time

In recent years the topics of illegal activities such as corruption or tax evasion have attracted a great deal of attention. However, there is still a lack of substantial empirical evidence about the determinants of compliance. The aim of this paper is to investigate empirically whether women are more willing to be compliant than men and whether we observe (among women and in general) differences in attitudes among similar age groups in different time periods (cohort effect) or changing attitudes of the same cohorts over time (age effect) using data from eight Western European countries from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey that span the period from 1981 to 1999. The results reveal higher willingness to comply among women and an age rather than a cohort effect. Working Paper 06-5

Attitude formation through exploration: The “Treasure Island” paradigm and the significance of risk predictability

Little experimental research has investigated how attitudes are formed via direct personal experience within risky environments. This report summarizes the development of Treasure Island (TI), an attitude learning paradigm based on BeanFest. Two studies are reported: The first designed to compare the outcomes of TI with BeanFest; the second to show how a manipulation of risk predictability would affect attitude learning within the paradigm. Study 1 demonstrated sampling and learning asymmetries similar to those seen in BeanFest, although the magnitude of these asymmetries was attenuated by the opportunity for participants to landmark decisions. The manipulation of risk predictability in Study 2 led participants to seemingly form a less accurate representation of the underlying pay-off contingencies; however, a significant negative learning asymmetry did persist. The findings of this research (a) identify TI as a versatile paradigm for the investigation of attitude learning within risky environments and (b) confirm the robust nature of the negative learning asymmetry in contingent-learning settings; but (c) assert that care should be taken when generalizing the findings of BeanFest to ostensibly more variable contexts

Forming Judgments of Attitude Certainty, Intensity, and Importance: The Role of Subjective Experiences

Two studies examined the impact of subjective experiences on reports of attitude certainty, intensity, and importance. In Study 1, participants with moderate or extreme attitudes toward doctor-assisted suicide generated three (easy) or seven (hard) arguments that either supported or countered their opinion toward the issue prior to indicating the strength of their attitude. Participants with moderate attitudes rated their opinions as more intense, personally important, and held with greater certainty when they had generated either a small number of supporting arguments or a large number of opposing arguments. Ratings provided by individuals with extreme attitudes were unaffected by the argument generation task. In Study 2, the impact of ease of recall on strength-related judgments was eliminated when it was rendered nondiagnostic by a misattribution manipulation. Implications of these findings for attitude strength and other judgmental phenomena are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68385/2/10.1177_0146167299025007001.pd