Wimpy and undeserving of respect: Penalties for men’s gender-inconsistent success

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 (2010) 664–667

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Wimpy and undeserving of respect: Penalties for men’s gender-inconsistent success Madeline E. Heilman a,*, Aaron S. Wallen b a b

New York University, Department of Psychology, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA Columbia University, Graduate School of Business, Uris Hall, 3022 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 6 August 2009 Revised 30 December 2009 Available online 6 February 2010 Keywords: Gender stereotypes Gender norms Norm violation Impression formation

a b s t r a c t Results of an experimental study varying the sex of the employee and the gender-type of the job demonstrated that men, as well as women, are penalized when they are successful in areas that imply that they have violated gender norms. But the nature of these penalties differed. When depicted as being successful at a female gender-typed job, men were characterized as more ineffectual and afforded less respect than women successful at the same job or than men successful in a gender-consistent position. Women, in contrast, were more interpersonally derogated and disliked when said to be successful at a male gender-typed job. Regardless of these differing characterizations, both men and women successful in gender-inconsistent jobs were reported to be less preferable as bosses than their more normatively consistent counterparts. These results suggest that success, when it violates gender norms, can be disadvantageous for both men and women, but in different ways. Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Research has demonstrated that women who succeed in male gender-typed positions are penalized for their success. They are interpersonally derogated and characterized as cold, manipulative, abrasive, pushy and selﬁsh. They also are disliked (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). These ﬁndings support the idea that penalties for a woman’s success are an expression of disapproval for inferred violation of gender norm prescriptions. The current research is aimed at demonstrating that men, too, are penalized for gender-inconsistent success, but their penalties are different than those for women. This issue is important for furthering our understanding of the penalties for success effect. Gender stereotypes, in addition to describing the attributes of women and men, denote norms about behaviors that are suitable for each (Burgess & Borgida, 1999; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Heilman, 2001; Heilman & Parks-Stamm, 2007; Rudman & Glick, 2001). These normative prescriptions designate not only ‘‘shoulds” but also ‘‘should nots”, with behaviors deemed desirable for one sex prohibited for the other. Thus, there is a normative injunction for women to be socially sensitive and service-oriented (communal), and not to engage in the assertive, achievement-oriented (agentic) behaviors associated with men. According to this reasoning, there also should be a normative injunction for men, and it should be the opposite of that for women, with agentic behaviors prescribed and communal behaviors prohibited. Gender norms should constrain men as well as women. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (M.E. Heilman). 0022-1031/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.01.008

Violations of normative prescriptions arouse disapproval and result in penalties (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Indeed, research has shown that women who behave in a ways typically reserved for men are responded to more negatively than women who behave in a normatively consistent manner (e.g., Brett & Stroh, 1997; Carli, LeFleur, & Loeber, 1995; Flynn & Ames, 2006; Heilman & Chen, 2005). Rudman and her colleagues have termed this negative response to women ‘‘backlash” (Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 1999, 2001; Rudman & Phelan, 2008), and also have demonstrated negative reactions to men who behave in ways that violate male gender norm prescriptions (e.g., Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Rudman, in press; Rudman & Fairchild, 2004). The ﬁndings from these research investigations concern reactions to explicit norm-violating behavior, but they also have implications for reactions to success. To be successful implies having behaved in ways necessary to get the job done. Thus, when the gender-type of a job is inconsistent with the gender of the job incumbent, success implies attributes that violate gender-prescriptive norms. It has been shown that when women are successful at male gender-typed jobs the inference is that they have been highly agentic (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007; Heilman et al., 2004). Therefore, when men are successful at female gender-typed jobs, the inference is likely to be that they have been highly communal. If the underlying basis of the penalties for success effect is disapproval for gender norm violation, then counter-normative inferences should induce the same reactions as more explicit norm violations, rendering men successful in female gender-typed positions vulnerable to penalties for their success. Although we are proposing that the same process will bring about penalties for either men or women who have achieved

M.E. Heilman, A.S. Wallen / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 (2010) 664–667

success in a gender inconsistent job, we are not proposing that the penalties will be the same. It is our belief that inferred norm violators are thought not only to have engaged in counter-normative behavior, but also to be deﬁcient in the attributes that are deemed normatively required for their sex. Indeed, women thought to be successful in areas that are traditionally male have been shown to be viewed in ways that are antithetical to the female stereotype and conceptions of how women should be—they are seen as harsh and socially insensitive. Consequently, men who are thought to be successful in areas that are traditionally female are likely to be viewed in ways that reﬂect perceived deﬁcits in agenticism. We therefore expect them to be characterized in ways that are antithetical to the image of someone who takes charge and gets things done—as wimpy and ineffectual. Moreover, because of these stereotype-antithetical assumptions, we expect that the general response to them will not be dislike (as it is for norm-violating women), but rather will be lack of respect. The following study tests these ideas. We sought to determine the reactions to men and women who have achieved success working on either a male or a female gender-typed job, with the intention of replicating earlier ﬁndings about reactions to women and contrasting them with what we believed would be parallel, but different, responses to men. We expected that whereas women would be penalized by being cast as more interpersonally hostile and less likable, men would be penalized by being cast as more ineffectual and less respected. We furthermore expected that whether successful women and men would be penalized would depend on the sex-type of the job at which they had achieved their success, with penalties occurring only in situations in which success is considered indicative of norm violation. Lastly, because of the disapproval likely to be directed at individuals assumed to violate gender norms, we expected that the successful employees would be found differentially desirable as a boss depending upon the perceived gender ﬁt of the job. When success was gender-inconsistent, we expected both men and women to be found less desirable as a boss.

Methods Participants and design Forty-two introductory psychology students (27 women, 14 men, 1 unspeciﬁed) participated for course credit. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two gender-typed jobs (male or female). All participants reviewed both a male and female employee, yielding a 2 (job gender-type) 2 (employee sex) factorial design with repeated measures on the employee sex factor.

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Participants completed a questionnaire after reviewing each employee and a ﬁnal questionnaire containing manipulation checks and demographic questions. They then were debriefed and thanked. Job gender-type manipulation The job was Financial Advisor or Employee Relations Counselor for the male and female gender-typed jobs, respectively. Financial Advisors were said to provide ﬁnancial advice and information to company employees, and were described as needing to be good with numbers and knowledgeable about banking, insurance, accounting, and bond and equity investment. Employee Relations Counselors were said to provide assistance to employees with personal and family problems, and were described as needing to have good people skills, and be knowledgeable about fostering trusting relationships and providing emotional support. Additional information indicated that Financial Advisors were 86% men and that Employee Relations Counselors were 86% women. Both jobs were housed within the same organizational department and paid $60–75,000. Preliminary work indicated the two jobs to be equivalent in prestige and status. Dependent measures The attribute measures were composites of scales, including abrasive, manipulative, selﬁsh, and cold (a = .82) for the interpersonal hostility scale, and wimpy, wishy–washy, insecure, spineless and weak (a = .78) for the ineffectuality scale. The liking scale (a = .71) consisted of responses to three questions, e.g., ‘‘How much do you think you would like this individual?”, as did the respect scale (a = .69), e.g., ‘‘How much do you think this is someone who commands respect from others?” Desirability as a boss was measured by a single item, ‘‘How much would you want this individual to be your boss?” All ratings were done on 9-point scales anchored by ‘‘very much” and ‘‘not at all”. Results Preliminary analyses As intended, target employees were seen as successful—indicated as ‘‘very successful” 93% of the time when male, and 99% of the time when female. Also, our job gender-type manipulation was effective: 93% of participants described the Financial Advisor job as ‘‘mostly men” and 86% described the Employee Relations job as ‘‘mostly women”. Data analyses

Procedure Participants were told that they would be reviewing employees holding the same position in a large company. They then were presented with a job description summary describing the position and its job responsibilities. This was followed by a brief description of each employee’s educational and work background including a section that, using terms such as ‘‘consistently outstanding”, ‘‘stellar performer” and ‘‘one of the most valuable employees in the company”, indicated that the employee was highly successful. All participants viewed two stimulus employees, one female (Andrea), and one male (James). The descriptive materials for the two stimulus employees were designed to be equivalent but not identical, and each description appeared equally often in each condition. Presentation order of the male and female employees was systematically varied.

The dependent measures were analyzed using two-way mixed design univariate ANOVAs. To test our hypotheses we conducted intercell comparisons using repeated measures t-tests within jobtype and independent samples t-tests across job-type (all twotailed). No differences were evident between male and female respondents on any measures, and their data were therefore combined for all analyses. Means for the dependent measures are presented in Tables 1–3. Penalties for women: interpersonal hostility and liking Interpersonal hostility ANOVA of the interpersonal hostility scale indicated a signiﬁcant interaction effect, F(1, 40) = 4.39, p < .05, g2 = .10. Intercell comparisons indicated that women were rated as more interper-

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M.E. Heilman, A.S. Wallen / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 (2010) 664–667

Table 1 Mean interpersonal hostility and liking ratings in each experimental condition. Interpersonal hostility

Liking

Financial Advisor Male Female

2.52 (1.38) 3.17 (1.65)

7.79 (1.11) 6.79 (1.27)

Employee Relations Counselor Male Female

2.40 (0.97) 2.29 (0.88)

7.50 (1.22) 7.45 (0.86)

Note: Standard deviations appear in parentheses. The higher the mean, the more negative the interpersonal hostility rating and the more favorable the liking rating. Scales range from 1 to 9. n = 21 for all cells.

Table 2 Mean ineffectuality and respect ratings in each experimental condition. Ineffectuality Financial Advisor Male Female

Respect

2.10 (1.11) 2.20 (1.27)

7.10 (1.14) 6.73 (1.38)

Employee Relations Counselor Male 3.00 (1.05) Female 2.40 (0.79)

5.59 (1.21) 6.17 (1.36)

Note: Standard deviations appear in parentheses. The higher the mean, the more negative the ineffectuality rating and the more favorable the respect rating. Scales range from 1 to 9, n = 21 for all cells.

Table 3 Mean ratings of boss desirability in each experimental condition. Desirability as boss Financial Advisor Male Female

6.86 (2.15) 6.19 (2.38)

Employee Relations Counselor Male Female

6.38 (1.69) 6.86 (1.90)

men were rated as more ineffectual than women, t(20) = 2.44, p < .05 (d = .53), but not when the job was Financial Advisor, t(20) = 0.64, ns (d = .14). Moreover, men were rated as more ineffectual when they held the Employee Relations Counselor job than the Financial Advisor job, t(40) = 2.69, p < .05 (d = .83), but there was no difference in characterizations of women whatever the job, t(40) = 0.61, ns (d = .19). Respect An ANOVA of the respect scale indicated a signiﬁcant interaction effect F(1, 40) = 5.90, p < .05, g2 = .13. Intercell comparisons indicated a tendency for men to be respected less than women when they were Employee Relations Counselors, t(20) = 1.94, p = .067 (d = .42), but not when they were Financial Advisors, t(20) = 1.47, ns (d = .32). Furthermore, although there was a main effect for job-type, F(1, 40) = 9.17, p < .01, g2 = .19, this effect was conﬁned only to male employees: men received lower respect ratings when working as Employee Relations Counselors than as Financial Advisors, t(40) = 4.16, p < .01 (d = 1.28), but job type did not affect ratings of women, t(40) = 1.33, ns (d = .41). Desirability as a boss ANOVA of participants’ ratings of their desire to have the target individual as a boss indicated a signiﬁcant interaction effect, F(1, 40) = 4.82, p < .05, g2 = .11. Consistent with our predictions, employees whose success was gender-consistent (i.e., women in the Employee Relations Counselor position and men in the Financial Advisor position) were preferred as bosses to employees whose success was gender-inconsistent (i.e., women in the Financial Advisor position and men in the Employee Relations Counselor position), t(40) = 2.20, p < .05 (d = .34). No differences were found in ratings of the gender-consistent men and women, t(40) = 0.00, ns (d = 0.00) or the gender-inconsistent men and women, t(40) = 0.30, ns (d = 0.14).

Note: Standard deviations appear in parentheses. The higher the mean, the more favorable the rating. Scales range from 1 to 9. n = 21 for all cells.

Additional analyses

sonally hostile than men when the job was Financial Advisor, t(20) = 2.27, p < .05 (d = .50), but not when it was Employee Relations Counselor, t(20) = 0.52, ns (d = .11). Also, women were rated as more interpersonally hostile when they held the Financial Advisor position than when they held the Employee Relations position, t(40) = 2.16, p < .05 (d = .67), but job type made no difference in ratings of men, t(40) = 0.32, ns (d = 0.10).

Our design precluded standard meditational analyses but the pattern of correlations was consistent with our ideas about the process underlying our effects. That is, interpersonal hostility ratings were signiﬁcantly correlated with liking (r(40) = .43, p < .01), and ineffectuality ratings were signiﬁcantly correlated with respect (r(40) = .46, p < .01). Moreover, both liking (r(40) = .65, p < .01) and respect (r(40) = .34, p < .05) were signiﬁcantly correlated with boss desirability ratings.

Liking ANOVA of the liking ratings indicated a signiﬁcant main effect for sex of target, F(1, 40) = 6.65, p < 05, g2 = .14, and signiﬁcant interaction between sex of target and gender-type of job, F(1, 40) = 5.46, p < .05, g2 = .12. Intercell comparisons indicated that women were rated as less likeable than men only when the job was Financial Advisor, t(20) = 3.74, p < .001 (d = .82), not when it was Employee Relations Counselor, t(20) = 0.17, ns (d = .04). Also, women were more disliked when in the Financial Advisor position than in the Employee Relations position, t(40) = 1.99, p = .055 (d = .61), but job type did not affect ratings of men, t(40) = 0.84, ns (d = .26). Penalties for men: ineffectuality and respect Ineffectuality ANOVA of the ineffectuality ratings revealed a signiﬁcant interaction effect, F(1, 40) = 5.85, p < .05, g2 = .13. Intercell comparisons indicated that when the job was Employee Relations Counselor,

Discussion These results make clear that men, as well as women, are penalized when they are successful in gender inconsistent domains. But they also indicate that men and women do not pay the same price for gender norm violation. When successful at a female gendertyped job, men were characterized as more ineffectual and considered less deserving of respect than women successful at the same job or than men successful in a position considered to be more gender appropriate. These results, together with the replication of ﬁndings showing women successful in male domains to be derogated and disliked, support the idea that penalties for success take the form of characterizations that are antithetical to how men and women are ‘‘supposed to be”. Interestingly, regardless of the nature of their characterizations, both men and women whose success violated gender norms were judged to be similarly undesirable as bosses, suggesting that different reactions to counter-normative men and women can lead to the same negative consequences.

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These results have implications for men currently taking on positions traditionally reserved for women in our culture, such as jobs in nursing, child care, housekeeping and early childhood education (Cullen, 2003). It appears that these men can be subjected to negative responses, much as women are, when they step out of the boundaries of their prescribed ‘‘shoulds” and succeed in areas that are considered to be off-limits for them. And the negativity appears to take the form of seeing the man as a ‘‘loser” despite his success – as someone who is wimpy and inadequate. This is consistent with the derisive depiction of such men in the popular culture (e.g., the ridiculed male nurse in the ﬁlm, Meet the Parents). The results also suggest that there are some work contexts where men’s penalties for gender-violation can be particularly harmful. When being feared is more important than being loved, loss of respect can be very costly, perhaps even more costly than loss of affection. Determining when loss of respect is most damaging remains for future research. Also remaining for future inquiry is the question of when, exactly, positions are female gender-typed. Williams (1992) has argued that men in female occupations ride a ‘‘glass elevator” to the top. It is conceivable that when in a leadership position (or on the way to one), whatever the occupation, success for men is not considered to be gender-inconsistent, and the penalties demonstrated here would not occur. It is of note that we found no participant gender differences. This ﬁnding is consistent with other work in this area (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007; Rudman & Fairchild, 2004; Rudman & Glick, 1999, 2001; Heilman et al., 2004). Recent research suggests that men and women penalize successful women for different reasons, with women, but not men, doing so to protect their self-perceptions of competence (Parks-Stamm, Heilman, & Hearns, 2008). Whether there are similar gender differences underlying penalties for norm-violating men has yet to be determined. Our ﬁndings demonstrate that success is not always advantageous. If success implies talents and skills that are undesirable for the individual who is successful, it can induce negative and potentially costly reactions. For men as well as women, current success can paradoxically impede rather than facilitate future accomplishment.

Appendix A. Supplementary material Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.01.008.

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Wimpy and undeserving of respect: Penalties for men’s gender-inconsistent success

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