Gender Differences In Leadership Roles

The researchers pointed to cognitive factors to explain this suggesting that older participants are more set in their ways, and that younger participants are willing to accept gender stereotypes as a way of fitting in (Garcia-Retamero & López-Zafra, 2006). The sample included a wide range of ages and education levels, but was limited to Whites in southern Spain. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six groups and completed a questionnaire after reading a vignette, which proposed a man or woman being promoted to a supervisor position. Participants rated factors such as likelihood of success in being promoted as well as potential success in the position, as well as how the candidates were perceived as conforming to stereotypical gender …show more content…
The hypothesis regarding causal attributions was confirmed as female candidate success in masculine environments resulted in participants making external attributions in this regard, whereas male success was attributed to internal causes across industries. When there was a failure on the part of women to be promoted in feminine industry the attribution of causes was equalized between internal and external causes an unfortunate but informative result from this study is that women have less confidence in other women’s abilities to obtain promotions and to be successful in leadership roles. The researchers suggested that this might be due to the lack of representation of women in leadership roles, and therefore a lack of role models and the perpetuated belief that women do not have the ability to succeed. This view likely contributes to the cycle of male domination in leadership positions and the perception that women do not have what it takes to lead, especially in environments that are not feminine in nature. The fact that women and older adults exhibit more prejudice against women is indicative of the cognitive process of automaticity whereby stereotyped notions are ingrained and therefore would require cognitive effort to overcome those biases (Garcia-Retamero & …show more content…
Cuadrado and García-Ael (2015) relied upon two theories of prejudice toward female leaders, including role congruity theory and the lack-of-fit model to examine gender typing and the nature of same-gender bias in evaluations of effective leadership. Citing past research, the authors highlighted the lack of adequate representation of women in management. Their study included three hypotheses including that participants will deem masculine characteristics as more valuable than feminine characteristics for becoming a successful manager, men will be more prone than women to have a stereotypical view successful managers, and participants will value feminine traits as they relate to female manager but not in a male or general manager (Cuadrado & García-Ael,