If it doesn’t help, it doesn’t hurt? Information elaboration harms the performance of gender-diverse teams when attributions of competence are inaccurate

Dijk, Hans van; Meyer, Bertolt; Engen, Marloes van

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0201180

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 80 publications

(160 reference statements)

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“…The findings of Chatman et al. (2008) and van Dijk et al. (2018) provide preliminary evidence that gender role expectations shape interactions and performance at the group level.…”

Section: Advancing Research On the Group-level Consequences Of The Flmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…If such women and men in reality are the most competent group members, we argue that their limited influence in the group is likely to harm the group’s performance. In line with this argument, a recent study showed that gender-diverse groups tended to perform worse to the extent that less-competent members were more influential (van Dijk et al., 2018). We thus argue that the performance of a work group decreases the more the behavior of target women and men is based on inaccurate gender role expectations.…”

Section: The Consequences Of the Flywheel Of Gender Role Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Sekaquaptewa and Thompson, 2003). In a similar experiment, van Dijk et al. (2018) showed that group members on gender role-congruent tasks in gender-diverse groups were more influential (measured by speaking time) compared to group members on gender role-incongruent tasks during discussions.…”

Section: Advancing Research On the Group-level Consequences Of The Flmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…In work groups, gender role expectations can therefore benefit perceivers by inferring female and male group members’ knowledge and abilities, and using that to determine whom to ask for advice and whose input to ignore (cf. van Dijk et al., 2018).…”

Section: The Flywheel Of Gender Role Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Controlled experiments can build on the studies by Chatman et al. (2008) and van Dijk et al. (2018) to further establish the causal mechanisms of gender role expectations in the functioning and performance of groups.…”

Section: Advancing Research On the Group-level Consequences Of The Flmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Flywheel Effect of Gender Role Expectations in Diverse Work Groups

Dijk

Engen

2019

Front. Psychol.

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Popular press suggests that gender diversity benefits the performance of work groups. However, decades of research indicate that such performance benefits of gender diversity are anything but a given. To account for this incongruity, in this conceptual paper we argue that the performance of gender-diverse work groups is often inhibited by self-reinforcing gender role expectations. We use the analogy of a flywheel to illustrate how gender role expectations tend to reinforce themselves via three mechanisms. Specifically, we argue that gender role expectations shape (1) the allocation of jobs, tasks, and responsibilities, (2) the behavior of perceivers, and (3) the behavior of target women and men. In turn, these three consequences of gender role expectations tend to confirm the initial gender role expectations, thus creating an automatic, self-reinforcing flywheel effect. Such self-reinforcing gender role expectations provide superficial impressions of individual women’s and men’s actual knowledge and abilities at best. We therefore further propose that each of the three mechanisms of the flywheel of gender role expectations negatively affects group performance to the extent that gender role expectations inaccurately capture group members’ actual knowledge and abilities. Because the extent to which work group members rely on gender role expectations depends on how they form impressions of others, we propose that individuals’ motivation to form accurate impressions is crucial for inhibiting the flywheel of gender role expectations. We close by advancing an agenda for future research on each of the three areas of interest in our conceptual analysis: the flywheel effect of gender role expectations, the consequences of this flywheel effect for group functioning, and ways to motivate group members to form accurate impressions.

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“…The findings of Chatman et al. (2008) and van Dijk et al. (2018) provide preliminary evidence that gender role expectations shape interactions and performance at the group level.…”

Section: Advancing Research On the Group-level Consequences Of The Flmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: The Consequences Of the Flywheel Of Gender Role Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Advancing Research On the Group-level Consequences Of The Flmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: The Flywheel Of Gender Role Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Advancing Research On the Group-level Consequences Of The Flmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Flywheel Effect of Gender Role Expectations in Diverse Work Groups

Dijk

Engen

2019

Front. Psychol.

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Hidden figures: epistemic costs and benefits of detecting (invisible) diversity in science

Peters

2021

Euro Jnl Phil Sci

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Demographic diversity might often be present in a group without group members noticing it. What are the epistemic effects if they do? Several philosophers and social scientists have recently argued that when individuals detect demographic diversity in their group, this can result in epistemic benefits even if that diversity doesn’t involve cognitive differences. Here I critically discuss research advocating this proposal, introduce a distinction between two types of detection of demographic diversity, and apply this distinction to the theorizing on diversity in science. Focusing on ‘invisible’ diversity (i.e., differences in, e.g., LGBTQ+, religious, or political orientation), I argue that in one common kind of group in science, if group members have full insight into their group’s diversity, this is likely to create epistemic costs. These costs can be avoided and epistemic benefits gained if group members only partly detect their group’s diversity. There is thus an epistemic reason for context-dependent limitations on scientists’ insight into the diversity of their group.

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(Mitigating) the self-fulfillment of gender stereotypes in teams: The interplay of competence attributions, behavioral dominance, individual performance, and diversity beliefs.

Meyer¹,

Dijk²,

Engen³

2022

Journal of Applied Psychology

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We challenge the social categorization perspective in the team diversity literature by arguing that stereotypes and not favoritism for members of the same social category govern processes and dynamics in gender-diverse teams. We posit that team members' gender and task stereotypes generate competence attributions that shape individual team members' dominance behavior and performance in a self-fulfilling way: Team members who are attributed more competence behave more dominantly and outperform those who are attributed less competence. We further argue that pro-diversity beliefs may prevent this selffulfilling tendency of stereotypes by inhibiting individuals' stereotype-confirming behavior. Hypotheses were tested with 97 gender-heterogeneous four-person student teams working on stereotypically masculineor feminine-typed problems. Team members estimated each other's competence prior to collaboration. Diversity beliefs were manipulated to be either pro-diversity or pro-similarity and dominance was observed with behavioral coding. Multilevel path modeling showed that competence attributions mediated the effects of stereotypical gender-task fit on individual dominance behavior and performance under pro-similarity beliefs but not under pro-diversity beliefs. Our study thus shows that the self-fulfilling tendencies of gender stereotypes in teams can be mitigated by instituting pro-diversity beliefs.

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If it doesn’t help, it doesn’t hurt? Information elaboration harms the performance of gender-diverse teams when attributions of competence are inaccurate

Cited by 9 publications

References 80 publications

The Flywheel Effect of Gender Role Expectations in Diverse Work Groups

The Flywheel Effect of Gender Role Expectations in Diverse Work Groups

Hidden figures: epistemic costs and benefits of detecting (invisible) diversity in science

(Mitigating) the self-fulfillment of gender stereotypes in teams: The interplay of competence attributions, behavioral dominance, individual performance, and diversity beliefs.

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