Prejudice Toward Female Leaders: Backlash and Status-Violations. Laurie Rudman, Rutgers University (USA)
18/03/2010
Women face a catch-22 in job interviews. In order to be perceived as qualified for a leadership position, they need to behave in an agentic way (e.g. speaking directly about their strengths and claiming credit for their achievements). However, if they do, they suffer from social repercussions and are regarded as less likeable and hireable than their male counterparts.
The status incongruity hypothesis proposes that prejudice toward atypical women and men (i.e., backlash) stems from gender rules that link masculine ideals to high status traits and feminine ideals to low status traits. Distinguishing between prescriptive and proscriptive stereotypes shows that what men cannot be is weak and what women cannot be is powerful. As a result, backlash effects stem from status-related expectancy violations, by which women are penalized for status-enhancing displays associated with dominance, whereas men are penalized for status-attenuating displays associated with weakness. Laurie Rudman will present survey results showing the remarkable overlap between gender rules and status characteristics and three experiments that provide support for the status incongruity hypothesis. In concert, the findings suggest that gender rules provide a significant barrier to gender equality by penalizing gender vanguards in ways that maintain the status hierarchy.
Prof. Laurie A. Rudman is a professor of psychology at Rutgers University (USA). Prejudice and employment discrimination, particularly with respect to gender and ethnicity, is an important topic of her research. In particular, she has focused on understanding backlash toward atypical, agentic women and communal men. She has published this research in high-impact journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and routinely receives funding for it from the National Science Foundation. She is an honorary fellow of APA, APS and SESP and a winner of the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Award and the National Research Service Award.
This colloquium is open to all. Please sign up for the colloquium by sending an e-mail to s.nauts@psych.ru.nl.
Plaats en tijdstip
Spinoza building, Radboud
Nijmegen
Nederland
15:30-17:00
