The Influence of Social Status on Token Women Leaders' Expectations About Leading Male-Dominated Groups

Abstract

Prior research has shown that women report mostly negative expectations about being a gender-token in male-dominated work groups. We speculate that this is partially caused by the socially-ascribed status devaluation of women. In the present study we investigated the degree to which elevated social status may lessen negative expectations of gender-token women assigned to leadership positions. Sixty-three undergraduate women participated in one of three tokenism conditions: 1) nontoken, 2) gender-token, and 3) high-status gender-token. In all conditions participants were led to believe that they would be leading a group of men in a decision-making exercise. Leader expectations were then assessed. The results suggest that increased social status may help prevent gender-token women from developing negative expectations about interactions with maledominated work groups.

The Interplay among Stereotypes, Performance-Avoidance Goals, and Women's Math Performance Expectations

“…Nevertheless, even among high math-achieving women, worry over potential math difficulties does not abate. Thus, consideration of performance expectations may be a more proximal determinate of experiences in maledominated fields such as math (e.g., Catsambis, 1995;McDonald, Toussaint, & Schweiger, 2004;Meece & Jones, 1996). After all, women who perform equally as well at math as their male peers nevertheless report a low self-concept of ability and opt to pursue non-math-related college majors and careers (e.g., Bleeker & Jacobs, 2004;Meece & Jones, 1996;Schmader et al, 2004;Stangor & Sechrist, 1998).…”

Fixed Roles and Situated Actions

“…Some women in an all-female task group will be every bit as assertive as will some men in all-male groups; and conversely, some men in an all-male group will be as reactive as will some women in all-female groups. In addition, in situations not meeting the task focus scope condition, such as social events or in dating relationships, we might not expect many status-related behaviors such as influence and deference to appear (McDonald et al 2004;Monin et al 2008).…”

The Impact of a Leader Model on High Dominant Women’s Self-Selection for Leadership

“…McDonald et al (2004) demonstrated that an increase in social status may help prevent women from developing negative expectations about leadership in male-dominated groups. The women's negative expectations concerning leadership were reduced as a result of the status manipulation.…”