Project

performance; nonverbal; gender; stereotypes; workplace; implicit

Lead
Lay summary
Compared to men, the number of women in top leadership positions is still relatively small, both in Switzerland (18.86% of director positions) and in the United States (14.1% of executive officer positions). It seems that, despite clear advancements made in western countries, women are still at a disadvantage in the workplace. The persistence of gender bias in the workplace may be explained, in part, by existing stereotypes of women in managerial domains. Although explicit, self-reported stereotypes have become increasingly positive (Duehr & Bono, 2006), negative views of women persist at an implicit (relatively unconscious) level. For example, in two studies my collaborators and I found that women are more likely than men to be associated implicitly with managerial incompetence, while men are more likely than women to be associated with managerial competence (Latu et al., 2011). How important are these implicit stereotypes in determining behavior? In the current studies I am investigating (a) how implicit stereotypes of women’s competence are expressed in the nonverbal behavior of the person holding these stereotypes, (b) how implicit stereotypes affect the performance of the female targets of these stereotypes, and (c) how accurate external judges are at assessing such implicit stereotypes. Research on implicit bias towards Blacks suggests that implicit bias is leaked through nonverbal behaviors that denote lack of friendliness or comfort (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002). However, these findings can not be generalized to bias against women for one important reason: while racial bias includes both negative affect and negative stereotypes of Blacks, the affective and stereotypical components of gender bias tend not to converge. Men feel positively towards women overall (positive implicit evaluations; e.g., Skowronski & Lawrence, 2001), however they negatively stereotype women once in the managerial domain (negative implicit gender-managerial stereotypes; e.g., Latu et al., 2011). Thus, different nonverbal behaviors may be displayed in a social interaction when a man has negative implicit stereotypes of women, compared to when a White has negative implicit evaluations of Blacks. In a first study I will investigate which nonverbal behaviors correlate with implicit gender-managerial stereotypes during a mixed-gender social interaction which is set in a workplace context. I will measure male participants’ implicit stereotypes of women in managerial domains using a response-time task (sequential priming task). Afterwards, in a seemingly unrelated study, male participants will interact successively with a female and male confederate. Independent coders (blind to the participants’ implicit stereotyping level) will evaluate several nonverbal behaviors. I predict that in an interaction with a woman, male participants who implicitly think that women are incompetent managers (strong implicit stereotypes) may speak longer, interrupt the woman more, have a more open or dominant body posture, nod less and frown more while the woman is speaking, and present certain speech-related characteristics linked to dominance (louder voice, greater voice variability, more voice relaxation, and less filled pauses). Building on this initial study, I plan to investigate how one’s power position affects the extent to which their implicit stereotypes are expressed in their nonverbal behaviors. Consistent with the literature that shows that power increases stereotyping (Fiske, 1993), I suspect that implicit stereotypes will be more strongly related to nonverbal behaviors related to implicit stereotypes when the male participant is in the higher compared to lower power position. In a second study I plan to extend the investigation to both members of the interaction dyad, by studying how the implicit gender-managerial stereotypes of a male recruiter influence his nonverbal behaviors during a job interview, and, in turn, how these nonverbal behaviors affect the performance of a female candidate during the job interview (this time a naïve participant and not a confederate). I expect that implicit gender-managerial stereotypes of a recruiter will predict the performance of a female candidate, such that candidates being interviewed by a recruiter with negative stereotypes of women in managerial domains will perform worse. In a third study, using the video recordings collected in the first studies, I will cut short silent clips (20s) and present them to male and female external judges. I will ask judges to guess the level of implicit stereotyping of the person depicted in the video. I predict that women will be more accurate than men at judging men’s implicit gender-managerial stereotypes from such minimal information. If external viewers can judge from minimal nonverbal information one’s implicit stereotyping level, it shows that these nonverbals are very powerful and pervasive in social interactions. Also, if women are indeed better at making these judgments, this finding would show that detecting men’s implicit stereotypes is adaptive, as it may protect against this subtle form of bias.

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Last update: 21.02.2013

Active participation

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Communication	Title	Media	Place	Year

Compared to men, the number of women in top leadership positions is still relatively small, both in Switzerland (18.86% of director positions) and in the United States (14.1% of executive officer positions). The gender pay gap also remains quite large: the typical European female worker earned 17.1% less than the typical male worker in 2009 (Eurostat, 2011). Thus, despite clear advancements made in western countries, women are still at a disadvantage in the workplace. Different explanations have been proposed for the persistence of gender bias in the workplace (Eagly & Carli, 2007), including stereotypes of women in managerial domains. Although explicit, self-reported stereotypes have become increasingly positive (Duehr & Bono, 2006), negative views of women persist at an implicit (relatively unconscious) level. For example, in two studies my collaborators and I found that women are more likely than men to be associated implicitly with unsuccessful manager traits, while men are more likely than women to be associated with successful manager traits (Latu et al., 2011) How important are these implicit stereotypes in determining behavior? So far, we know that they affect some hypothetical decisions in the workplace context. For example, people with negative stereotypes of women allocated higher salary increases to men than women in a hypothetical managerial task (Latu et al., 2011). What we do not know, however, is how these implicit gender-managerial stereotypes are expressed or “leaked” into one’s nonverbal behavior during an actual social interaction. Research on racial bias has shown that implicit bias towards Blacks is leaked through nonverbal behaviors that denote lack of friendliness or comfort (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002). However, these findings can not be generalized to bias against women for one important reason: while racial bias includes both negative affect and negative stereotypes of Blacks, the affective and stereotypical components of gender bias tend not to converge. Men feel positively towards women overall (positive implicit evaluations; e.g., Skowronski & Lawrence, 2001), however they negatively stereotype women once in the managerial domain (negative implicit gender-managerial stereotypes; e.g., Latu et al., 2011). Thus, different nonverbal behaviors may be displayed in a social interaction when a man has negative implicit stereotypes of women compared to when a White has negative implicit evaluations of Blacks. In a first study I will investigate which nonverbal behaviors correlate with implicit gender-managerial stereotypes during a mixed-gender social interaction which is set in a workplace context. I will measure male participants’ implicit stereotypes of women in managerial domains. Afterwards, in a seemingly unrelated task, male participants will interact successively with a female and male confederate. Independent coders (blind to the participants’ implicit stereotyping level) will evaluate several nonverbal behaviors of the male participants. I will choose behaviors that, based on the nonverbal literature, I suspect to be reliably related to implicit gender-managerial stereotypes. For example, I predict that in an interaction with a woman, male participants who implicitly think that women are incompetent managers (strong implicit stereotypes) may speak longer, interrupt more, have a more open or dominant body posture, nod less and frown more while the woman is speaking, and present certain speech-related characteristics linked to dominance (louder voice, greater voice variability, more voice relaxation, and less filled pauses). Building on this initial study, I plan to investigate how one’s power position affects the extent to which their implicit stereotypes are expressed in their nonverbal behaviors. More precisely, in an identical social interaction, I will manipulate male participant’s status, such that they are either a superior interacting with female and male subordinates, or a subordinate interacting with female and male superiors. Consistent with the literature that shows that power increases stereotyping (Fiske, 1993), I suspect that implicit stereotypes will be more strongly related to nonverbal behaviors related to stereotypes (as determined in the initial study) when the participant is in the higher compared to lower power position. In a second study I plan to extend the investigation to both members of the interaction dyad, by studying how the implicit gender-managerial stereotypes of a male recruiter influence his nonverbal behaviors during a job interview, and, in turn, how these nonverbal behaviors affect the performance of a female candidate during the job interview (this time a naïve participant and not a confederate). I expect that implicit gender-managerial stereotypes of a recruiter will predict the performance of a female candidate, such that candidates being interviewed by a recruiter with negative stereotypes of women in managerial domains will perform worse. Such behavioral confirmation of implicit stereotypes has never been investigated within the context of a real social interaction, by studying how one’s implicit stereotypes covary in real time with the stereotype target’s behavior. In a third study, using the video recordings collected in the first studies, I will cut short silent clips (20s) and present them to male and female external judges. I will ask judges to guess the level of implicit stereotyping of the person depicted in the video. I predict that women will be more accurate than men at judging men’s implicit gender-managerial stereotypes from such minimal information. The findings of these studies have theoretical importance. If external viewers can judge from minimal nonverbal information one’s implicit stereotyping level, it shows that these nonverbals are very powerful and pervasive in social interactions. Also, if women are indeed better at making these judgments, this finding would show that detecting men’s implicit stereotypes is adaptive, as it may protect against this subtle form of bias. It is also of practical importance to study how men’s implicit gender-managerial stereotypes affect nonverbal behaviors and women’s performance. Men tend to feel positively towards women; however it is managerial stereotypes that tend to be negative. Thus, if we were to apply the implicit racial bias findings which show that bias leaks into nonverbal behaviors related to friendliness, we would miss an important aspect of mixed-gender interactions - nonverbal behaviors that indirectly communicate to women that they are incompetent and unlikely to succeed in managerial domains. The current studies will provide the necessary answers about what these specific nonverbal behaviors are, when they are more likely to emerge, and how they affect women’s behaviors in actual interactions.