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Gender Stereotypes in the Evaluation of Female and Male Top Management Leaders

Agency and communality have previously emerged as gender stereotypes in theinterplay of leadership evaluations. Within an experimental vignette design, data from385 participants who answered an online survey was used to determine to what extenta leader's value orientation influences perceived competence and effectivenesscompared to male and female leaders. The first two hypotheses tested if a communalleader received higher ratings of competence and leadership effectiveness comparedto agentic leaders and if a male leader received higher ratings than female leaders. Thethird hypothesis tested a backlash effect for women in a way that the effect of lowerratings of perceived competence and leadership effectiveness for agentic leaders isstronger for female leaders compared to male leaders. Each participant randomlyreceived one vignette about a leader with one of the four conditions (male-communal/female-communal/ male-agentic/ female-agentic) and was asked to evaluate the leaderon perceived competence and effectiveness. The results showed that communal leadersreceived higher ratings of competence compared to agentic leaders, and likewise,female leaders were better evaluated than male leaders for competence andeffectiveness. Additionally, the interaction effect could not provide support for thehypothesis that there might be a backlash effect for women. A backlash effect wouldmean that the effect of lower ratings of perceived competence/leadership effectivenessfor agentic leaders is stronger for female leaders compared to male leaders. Limitationsand practical implications are discussed.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-129987
Date January 2024
CreatorsHannah, Kohnagel, Ulrich, Annika
PublisherLinnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för psykologi (PSY)
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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