The Costs of Gender Bias in Tennessee's Workforce - 10-27-15

October 2015
Part of the Women & Work: Barriers Series
Tennessee Economic Council on Women
Gender Bias
In Tennessee’s Workforce
How unconscious assumptions about gender create costly inefficiencies in
Tennessee’s workforce and undercut the economic wellbeing of women and families
Implicit Gender Bias is the unconscious manifestation of assumptions and preferences
we all hold about male and female behavior. This report considers the effects of
longstanding male-provider and female-caregiver stereotypes at a time when women are
increasingly relied upon to be providers; and explores how bias can unknowingly tip the
balance against women in a workforce that seeks competence, assertiveness, and
independence—but preferably from men.
The Costs of

One of the most enduring features of human society is the classification of men and women as providers and caretakers,
respectively. However, this division of labor has become increasingly blurred in recent decades, particularly as divorce rates
have risen, job security has plummeted, and women have entered the workforce in greater numbers. Today, women in
Tennessee and across the world are providers—often sole providers—at unprecedented rates.
Unfortunately, while these traditionally gendered roles have shifted considerably in just a handful of generations, the way
most of us think about men and women in the context of work and the economy still fits the old mold. Longstanding societal
norms call on men to earn more, to be proactive, determined, independent, and even prideful; and in contrast we expect
women to manage households and to be communal, deferential, and emotional—or risk social backlash.
These expectations are economically damaging because the male-gendered qualities (and the individuals who exhibit them)
are also strongly associated with competence and leadership, and the female-gendered traits are not. As a result, stubborn
gender assumptions and expectations can unknowingly tip the scales and promote inefficiencies in our economy, including
the misallocation of human capital, wages, influence, and other resources on the basis of sex rather than merit. It is difficult
to quantify the aggregate impact of skewed hiring decisions or the statewide consequence of under-utilizing a huge portion of
our workforce, but it is easy to imagine the debilitating effect that gender bias can have on the wellbeing of individual
Tennessee families, or on businesses struggling in an outdated environment to find the best person for the job.
Hiring, compensation offerings, negotiations, promotions, performance evaluations, attributions of project success, impres-
sion management, and managerial effectiveness; these are many of the situations in which unconscious, implicit gender bias
has been shown in studies and in the real world to disadvantage women. Even as overt acts of sexism and discrimination
have waned dramatically, decades of research have revealed that these more subtle, enduring barriers continue to undercut
the ability of women to reach their economic potential, fulfill their aspirations, and satisfy their growing role as providers
and caretakers for Tennessee’s children.
At a time when Tennessee is ranked 38th
in the nation in the economic wellness its youth (Speer & Gutierrez, 2015); single
mothers support nearly one in three households with children, and 45% of those households live in poverty (U.S. Census), it
is vital to our future that we confront every challenge to their economic stability and growth.
The Economic Council on Women is pleased to submit the following report, which explores the economic threat of every-
day, unconscious gender bias and provides recommendations to policymakers, employers, and members of the workforce
derived from the most modern, authoritative research available. In addition, it will attempt to provide a baseline reference for
the Economic Council’s future study of workforce barriers by highlighting how this social and psychological force factors
into prominent discussions on the wage gap, industry gender segregation, corporate governance, and others.
Respectfully Submitted,
Dr. Dena Wise
Chair
Dr. Phyllis Qualls-Brooks
Executive Director
William Arth
Senior Research Manager

v
Table of Contents
Letter from the Chair ..................................................................................... iii
Council Roster & Report Credits.................................................................... vi
Special thanks and explanation of format ............................................ vii
A note on gender and sex..................................................................... vii
Introduction & Executive Summary............................................................... 9
The business case for addressing gender bias in Tennessee ................. 10
The Basics of Implicit Gender Bias in the Workforce..................................... 12
Gender: Our brains’ use of shortcuts to guide behavior....................... 12
Ambiguity: Where implicit bias persists ............................................... 12
The Male-Provider/Female-Caregiver Binary Social Model .................. 13
Gender Bias in:
Self-Promotion & Impression Management.................................................. 15
Hiring & Wages.............................................................................................. 20
Negotiation.................................................................................................... 24
Work Attribution & Evaluation...................................................................... 31
Leadership ..................................................................................................... 36
How Does Bias Factor into the Wage Gap? ................................................... 40
The Intersection of Gender, Race, and other Biases...................................... 42
Takeaways & Recommendations................................................................... 44
Workers................................................................................................ 44
Employers ............................................................................................ 46
Others .................................................................................................. 49
Bibliography................................................................................................... 50

vii
Dr. Phyllis Qualls-Brooks, Executive Director
The One Hundredth General Assembly created the Tennessee Economic Council on Women (TCA § 4-50-101, et seq.)
to address the economic concerns and needs of women in Tennessee.
The Council conducts research, holds hearings, develops recommendations and policy, educates the public, and
engages in activities for the benefit of women. It is authorized to request funds from the federal government and
private sources. The Council consults with and reports to the Governor, the Women’s Legislative Caucus, the General
Assembly and the pertinent agencies, departments, boards, commissions and other entities of State and local govern-
ments on matters pertaining to women.
Our Vision: Economic equality, literacy, impact, opportunity and stability for every woman in Tennessee.
Our Mission: The Tennessee Economic Council on Women is an economic advocate for women.
Its purpose is to assess the economic status of women in Tennessee in order to develop and advocate for solutions
that will address their economic needs and promote economic autonomy. The Council’s areas of study include, but
are not limited to: employment policies and practices, educational needs and opportunities, child care, property
rights, health care, domestic relations, and the effect of federal and state laws on women.
Visit the Economic Council at www.tennesseewomen.org
Or call us at 615.253.4266 to learn more
Report Credits
This report was commissioned by the Tennessee Economic Council on Women in 2014 as part of the Wom-
en & Work: Barriers series. Beginning with this document, the Barriers series explores how gender impacts
the financial stability and growth of Tennessee women.
Authored and prepared by William Arth, Senior Research Manager (william.arth@tn.gov)
Under the advisement of Executive Director Phyllis Qualls-Brooks
With support from Margaret Groeschl; Noel Blackmire; and John Dewees, MLIS, Ohio State University
Images from State of Tennessee Photo Services, Alan Stark, audio luci, Tim Bishop, and open sources.
Leslee Alexander
Ann Ayers-Colvin
Dr. Mimi Barnard
Andrea Burckhard
Rep. Karen Camper, Vice Chair
Dr. Carol Danehower
Maleia Evans
Commissioner Many-Bears Grinder
Veronica Marable Johnson
Representative Sherry Jones
Senator Becky Massey
Ruby Miller
Dr. Janet Smith
Robin Smith
Representative Johnnie Turner
Kathleen Armour Walker
Representative Dawn White
Dr. Dena Wise, Chair

The Costs of Gender Bias in Tennessee’s Workforce - October 2015
viii
Special thanks and explanation of format
This document attempts to transcribe a rich host of academic research into a publically accessible, broadly useful
format, interwoven with information specific to Tennessee. In this effort, the author is particularly thankful to those
researchers whose excellent work is not only referenced, but depicted here in a series of vignettes, illustrating the
outcome of economically significant processes in ways that could not be done so credibly in the form of personal
accounts, nor so vividly as discrete citations. In order of the appearance of their work, thank you to: O. A. O’Neill, C. A.
O’Reilly III, L. A. Rudman, C. A. Moss-Racusin, J. F. Dovidio, V. L. Brescoll, M. J. Graham, J. Handelsman, E. Reuben, P.
Sapienza, L. Zingales, L. J. Kray, L. Thompson, H. R. Bowles, L. Babcock, L. Lai, J. A. Kennedy, A. B. Van Zant, K. McGinn,
A. Galinsky, M. E. Heilman, M. C. Haynes, M. Biernat, M. J. Tocci, J. C. Williams, and T. G. Okimoto.
A note on gender and sex
This publication uses the terms gender and sex interchangeably, and tackles both from the largely homogenous view
shared by the majority of Tennessean’s. This is done for readability and clarity, and is not intended to be dismissive
toward those who may not identify with traditional sex and gender classifications, nor toward those whose view of
gender roles do not align with that portrayed herein. Indeed, one of the goals of this report is to calibrate the link
between sex, gender, and the presumed roles or capabilities of a person. It remains the case, however, that the vast
majority of research and experience relevant to gender bias is limited to populations for whom there is little or no
distinction between the “being” of sex and “doing” of gender (Ridgeway, 2009).
Perhaps more than any other subject of study for the TECW, gender bias is rooted in this wholly binary approach to
gender—not just as an indicator of sex but also, automatically, of gender and a rigid series of associated standards. As
such, observations and conclusions reached in this document are likely relevant to the majority of Tennesseans, but
perhaps not all. As a dedicated advocate for all women and families in Tennessee, we strive each day for our work to
reach a greater audience with richer impact. We encourage those with further questions or concerns about the
Economic Council’s research to contact us directly.

9
The topic of gender bias is a fitting foundation for the TECW’s “Women & Work: Barriers Series” because our common-
ly held perceptions of what it means to be male or female are among the most enduring and pervasive guides of
human behavior. Even today, after centuries of hard-earned progress, the classification of one’s gender still translates
to specific treatment and expectations about one’s behavior and ability—with crucial effect in the workforce.
Research and experience both confirm that we don’t just see gender, we use it to coordinate interaction, to predict
characteristics and skills; we assign responsibilities, penalize aberrance, and even set standards for ourselves to live up
to—all based on what we believe it means to be male or female and how one does something in a masculine or
feminine way (The Basics of Implicit Gender Bias in the Workforce). Indeed, even jobs and tasks themselves become
“gendered” in ways that can make men or women seem especially ill-suited or unwelcome.
In a workforce where many of the overt forms of gender discrimination have receded, it is crucial to be educated about
the more subtle, unintentional, or “implicit” forms of bias that continue to harm both workers and employers. Many of
these observations will be familiar to readers, but are often subject to dismissal because they are supported only by
anecdotal experiences (The Male-Provider/Female-Caregiver Binary Social Model). In an effort to create consensus and
a valid cause for action, this document defines the problem of gender bias in the workforce by connecting those
everyday observations with empirical evidence and labor market observations.
Importantly, this report is not intended to provide a universal account of the hazards women face in the workforce
(future reports will likely address topics like workplace policies, time use, and parenting), nor can this document
encapsulate the full effects of bias, as we all encounter forms of bias based on our characteristics and actions. Some
forms of bias have been observed to overlap and interact with gender bias in experiments (The Intersection of Gender,
Race, and Other Bias), but this report is limited primarily to the specific and potent effects of gender bias alone.
At the foundation of gender bias in the workforce are two expressions of the male-provider/female-caregiver binary:
(1) women are poorly equipped to succeed in male-gendered jobs and tasks; and (2) women should not betray tradi-
tional female expectations. The bulk of this report will explore how these social rules, in the form of implicit gender
bias, infiltrate economically significant processes to the detriment of women and businesses.
Gender Bias in Self-Promotion & Impression-Management: The assumption that women are not qualified to perform
well in male-gendered tasks creates a need for self-promotion. This need creates a dilemma for women because self-
promotion is thought of as a stereotypically male-gendered behavior and violates traditional female expectations of
warmth and modesty. The result is an “Impression-Management Dilemma” in which women, unlike men, must strike a
career-long balance between separate—and sometimes opposite—behaviors or risk being penalized by observers and
assigned lower status, deemed less competent, less likable, and less desirable as a boss, employee, or coworker.
Introduction &
Executive Summary
By measuring the impact of bias in experimentation, observing behaviors in the labor market,
and evaluating historical gender customs we can triangulate and identify how gender stereo-
types disrupt economically significant processes, create costly inefficiencies for businesses,
and undercut the financial health of women and their households.

10
Gender Bias in Hiring & Wages: Expectations that women cannot or should not perform certain work are shown to bias
observers against them relative to male peers, even when factors like experience and past performance are equal.
Based on the difference of gender alone, women are unconsciously assumed to be less competent, less hireable,
deserving of lower wages, and less worthy of mentorship. As a result, gender bias (including instances of overt discrimi-
nation) appears to be directly responsible for approximately one-fourth of the gender wage gap, but it is also likely a
historic factor in the other three-fourths, as it has contributed substantially to ongoing industry and role segregation.
Gender Bias is Negotiation: In its traditional form, negotiation is the most “male-gendered” behavior discussed in this
document. Adversarial and domineering, we commonly treat this process as a crucible in which interests are assumed
to be divergent, past successes are displayed, and prowess can be proven. The result is that women, who are asked to
be modest, communal, submissive actors, are less likely to initiate negotiation, generally achieve weaker outcomes,
and are assumed to be poor negotiators. This last fact is important because female success in negotiation appears to
be rooted less in the traits or perspective of women and more in how negotiation is viewed in society and what
information is available to negotiators. Illustrating this point, the perception that women are poor negotiators appears
to encourage deceit in their counterparts, leading to a higher rate of bad deals.
Gender Bias in Work Attribution & Evaluation: In male-gendered fields and roles, success itself can be unfeminine.
Stereotypes establishing women as less technically competent can cause observers to devalue their perceived influ-
ence in positive outcomes, particularly when working with men. Indeed, women are even shown to discount their own
contribution to mixed-gender projects. Unfortunately, this phenomenon continues into the realm of formal evalua-
tions, where women can be undervalued as a result of implicit gender bias in “gut reaction” numerical-scale ratings and
where observers tend to grade women according to less valuable metrics like social warmth rather than competence.
Gender Bias in Leadership: Challenges to female success can extend to the achievement of authority, which is itself
male-gendered in much of the workforce. As a result, women in leadership roles often face a high degree of scrutiny
and are at risk of being undermined by social backlash and assumptions that their successes have been created by
some other force. Additionally, expressions of emotion—particularly anger—that can be acceptable and even valuable
for managers can be seen as internally motivated and inappropriate for women.
The business case for addressing gender bias in Tennessee
The world has changed and traditional expectations that men become economic providers and women remain caregiv-
ers in the home are further from reality today than they have ever been. Unfortunately, these expectations continue to
be reinforced all around us—in social and familial interactions, media portrayals, laws, and policies—and they create
harmful inequalities in our workforce. For example, women comprise 47% of Tennessee’s workforce, but continue to
be underrepresented in high-growth and high-wage job sectors like transportation and warehousing, production,
management, and finance (Jobs4TN.gov), where men are traditionally dominant and women are perceived as having a
“lack of fit.” Similarly, women hold just 36% of all managerial positions and make up just 26% of Tennessee’s business
owners according to the U.S. Census. Women also consistently earn less than men, according to median full-time year-
round wages, in virtually every job sector, with gaps ranging from 15% to 85% by industry (U.S. Census), and gender
bias is believed to be directly responsible for around 5%, with some estimates approaching 10% or more
(approximately $2,000 to $5,000) of the gender wage gap (Greszler & Sherk, 2014; Hall, & Reed, 2001).
Gender bias is also a pervasive market inefficiency. By artificially linking men and women to specific roles and tasks,
and by reinforcing expectations of low achievement and low value for women, bias hampers employers’ ability to
choose from the best and largest possible pool of candidates, leads to ineffective incentives for women, undermines
Introduction & Executive Summary

11
the ability of managers and peers to identify and reward success accurately, and diminishes the extent to which
Tennessee can benefit from diverse perspectives in decision-making and labor.
Finally, while equal access to opportunity and resources are vital rights, and increased economic performance would
be a boon to our State, the most compelling reasons to eliminate gender bias in the workforce are that (1) women are
providing for future generations on a large scale, and (2) many of those with the most responsibility are struggling the
most financially. Illustrating this point, women are providers in 67% of all Tennessee homes with children under 18, are
the sole providers in nearly one in four such homes, and are 77% of all custodial single parents. At the same time,
Tennessee women make up 69% of all Tenncare recipients between the ages of 19 and 64—those of provider age, and
women (19%) were more likely than men (16%) to live in poverty in 2013. Most jarring, however, is the fact that single
mothers—those 77% of custodial parents—lived in poverty at an incredible rate of 46% in Tennessee (versus 40% in
the US)(US Census; TN Department of Human Services, Dec. 2014).
A number of observations have been collected later in this document (Takeaways & Recommendations) for considera-
tion by workers, employers, and thought-leaders in Tennessee. In the long-term, it must be our state’s goal to better
reflect reality in the ways we view gender relative to the roles of provider and caregiver. That is a substantial undertak-
ing, and while this document will offer thoughts on the matter, its focus remains on the short term, where men and
women can make subtle changes today that will have great impact. Chiefly, in a time when women are implicitly
assumed to be less capable, and less likely to have contributed to success in many fields and roles, we must work to
eliminate ambiguity in economically significant processes. The following pages explore these processes in detail and
highlight how very subtle changes in the presentation of a situation can overcome unconscious bias and result in better
decisions for all involved.
Introduction & Executive Summary
By addressing gender bias in Tennessee, we will strengthen the upward mobility and financial
stability of so many of our state’s providers and many of our most vulnerable. In doing so,
we’ll not only serve a population in need, ensure economic freedoms, and build better busi-
nesses; we’ll promote the well-being and achievement of future generations of Tennesseans.

12
Gender: How our brains use shortcuts and frames to guide our actions in biased ways.
As humans are confronted with complex decisions or situations where information is lacking, our brains often employ
shortcuts, or “heuristics,” to arrive at judgements more quickly. These shortcuts tend to focus on specific features of a
situation rather than the whole, and while they typically furnish a satisfactory result, they can also lead to irrational or
suboptimal decisions – particularly in instances of high complexity or ambiguity. This report will focus specifically on
the use of stereotyping, but other examples of heuristics include making an educated guess or intuitive judgement, or
applying a “rule of thumb.”
Social situations can be incredibly complex, so our brains often rely on stereotypes to guide how we view and organize
information as well as how we coordinate behavior with others—sometimes imperfectly. In many ways, stereotypes
function like personal knowledge of someone by helping us to understand and plan our actions, but unlike personal
knowledge, stereotypes are not based on each specific person we encounter. Stereotypes are imperfect tools because
they are built on generic information and experiences provided by the world around us, which we then apply to the
individuals according to common characteristics such as their sex.
When we observe that someone is male or female in sex, we translate that information into a social category of cultur-
ally defined standards of difference: a gender. Gender is one of the most prominent “frames” that we use to categorize
and utilize both personal and stereotypical information. Age and Race are two other widely significant frames, but
many other, more specific examples exist and are thought to influence relationships within subgroups like families, po-
litical parties, and corporations. Importantly, gender categorization occurs automatically and unconsciously (Ridgeway,
2009).
When we use frames like gender to call up stereotypes and apply them to a person or situation, it exposes us to errors
in judgement called bias. Specifically, stereotypes can be used to gauge the likely behavior and traits of others
(descriptive bias), or define how we think another person should act (prescriptive bias) or should not act (proscriptive
bias) (Phelan & Rudman, 2010). Stereotypes are sometimes accurate enough—which is why our brains use them—so
bias specifically refers to instances when stereotypes are applied unfairly or inaccurately, and this report focuses on
those that erroneously or harmfully portray women as out of place in the workforce.
Ambiguity: Where implicit bias persists despite a sharp decline in explicit discrimination.
Perhaps the most jarring aspect of bias is that it can be formed and expressed without us knowing it, through the use
of the stereotyping heuristic. Modern social psychology has revealed that much of our perception and interaction is
guided by the mental operations that occur beneath our conscious focus, and the bias expressed in this way is referred
to as implicit bias. Importantly, implicit bias is neither intentional nor easily detectable by those expressing it, and is
distinctly different from intentional, thoughtful, or “cognitively busy” expressions of bias, which are called explicit bias.
Explicit bias has grown less common in the modern workplace and includes acts of overt discrimination or other prefer-
The Basics of Implicit
Gender Bias in the Workforce
“Sex categorization unconsciously primes gender stereotypes in our minds and makes them
cognitively available to shape behavior and judgement.” (Ridgeway, 2009)

13
ences of which a person is aware and has not corrected for before taking action. This distinction is crucial because we
cannot assume that the absence of explicit bias signals the absence of implicit bias; each day, we utilize stereotypes to
counter ambiguity where better information is not readily available. This unintended and often unnoticed behavior is
consequential to everyone as it works at the margins of decision-making, but it can be especially harmful to groups like
women, who can easily have the scales tipped against them by static assumptions that they lack the necessary skills or
qualities to succeed in much of the workforce.
The negative assumptions that women encounter are often linked to their traditional role as caregivers in society as
opposed to providers. Understanding the way in which we have assigned the role of provider to men and caregiver to
women can be helpful in predicting and avoiding expressions of bias in the workforce.
The Male-Provider/Female-Caregiver Binary Social Model
One of the most enduring features of human society is the classification of men and women as providers and caretak-
ers, respectively. Today, despite the fact that women are providers, leaders, and workers in unprecedented numbers,
most of the gender-related stereotypes we employ are based on outmoded assumptions that women do not need to,
or cannot effectively function as primary economic agents. This fundamental misunderstanding of capability is rooted
in a patriarchal tradition that has been eroded over centuries of social change, but it’s impact is still felt in our work-
force today, where bias often influences the outcomes of economically significant processes and those traits conducive
to social and professional success are mutually-exclusive for women. The Male-Provider/Female-Caregiver Binary So-
cial Model (Figure 01) is a collection of the most common stereotypes applied to men and women in the workforce and
can serve as a guide for predicting the characteristics and impact of gender bias in the workforce.
Longstanding stereotypes about men call on them to fill the “provider” role, in which they earn substantially more, are
proactive, determined, independent, prideful, assertive, and risk-taking (commonly referred to as “agentic” behavior).
In contrast, women are generally defined as “caregivers” who are expected to be communal, warm, deferential,
selfless, emotional, and poorly equipped for tasks that require agency or high technical competence. This provider/
caregiver binary not only assumes that men will work and women will stay home to care for family members, it asserts
that they are each best suited to these roles—though women are permitted to work in specific professions, which tend
to overlap with caregiving responsibilities (e.g. education, food service, medical care). Importantly, both sexes risk
some degree of social backlash for breaking away from these expectations, but only women are frequently forced to do
so to make a living; while men are stereotypically associated with social and economic resources, women are system-
atically separated from them (Bowles, 2006).
Just as certain traits have become associated with the male and female genders, so too have specific actions, roles, and
environments, which are said to be “gendered” as male or female. Research indicates that for gender-neutral acts, men
are typically assumed to be more agentically competent and more worthy of status, resulting in a modest advantage. In
the instance of heavily male-gendered professions such as those in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering,
mathematics), law, and business, men tend to be strongly favored. In female-gendered acts and professions, women
tend to be weakly favored, except in positions of authority, where male advantages persist (Ridgeway, 2009). In these
The Basics of Implicit Gender Bias in the Workforce
“Stereotypes, along with other elements of attitudes toward particular social groups, can bias
decision making implicitly, by skewing the manner in which inherently ambiguous infor-
mation about the stereotyped target is perceived, characterized, attributed, encoded in and
retrieved from memory, and used in social judgment” (Krieger, 2004).

14
results we see with a bit more detail how the traits and roles affiliated with women are those least
connected to economic, professional, and civic success, and how expectations of female warmth do not align with the
professional expectations of competence and agency required in male-gendered tasks. This dilemma is the crux of the
gender bias problem.
The gendering of roles also helps to illuminate how stereotypes are embedded in new individuals and institutions, be-
coming part of a fluctuating, but self-reinforcing cycle that can persist through time, outlast change-makers, and
threaten to roll back progress. Indeed, men and women even emulate and enforce these behavioral rules for them-
selves. For Tennessee, this means that correcting the economic inefficiencies that result from gender bias will require
efforts at both the personal and institutional level.
“As a background identity, gender typically acts to bias in gendered directions the perfor-
mance of behaviors undertaken in the name of more concrete, foregrounded organizational
roles or identities. Thus, gender becomes a way of acting like a doctor or of driving a car.…
We so instantly sex-categorize others that our subsequent categorizations of them as, say,
bosses or coworkers are nested in our prior understandings of them as male or female and
take on slightly different meanings as a result. (Ridgeway 2009)
The Basics of Implicit Gender Bias in the Workforce
Masculine Traits
 High-status
 Technically
Competent
 Assertive
 Dominant
 Confident
 Risk-seeking
 Forceful
 Competitive
 Independent
 Result-
Oriented

Work
Earn
Compete
Home
Care
Nurture
Feminine Traits
 Low-status
 Interpersonally
Warm
 Submissive
 Communal
 Deferential
 Modest
 Risk-averse
The Male-Provider/Female-Caregiver Binary Social Model
Figure 01

15
Key Findings:
 Competence and likeability are both valued characteristics in the workforce. This benefits male candidates, who are
assumed to be technically competent according to gender stereotypes, and are permitted to be work-oriented while
still being likeable. In contrast, women are stereotypically viewed primarily as social actors: they are required to be
warm and communal to be likeable, and they are presumed not to possess high technical competency.
 Self-promotion is an important tool used by both women and men to establish competence in the workforce. This is
particularly important for women—who are not automatically assumed to be technically competent—but implicit gen-
der bias complicates use of self-promotion because it contradicts stereotypical expectations of female modesty. As a
result, female self-promoters are likely to encounter social backlash that portrays them as less likeable.
 Competence tends to be valued at a higher rate than likeability, with self-promoters of either gender tending to have
more success than their modest peers. Likely as a result of the trade-offs between competence and likeability for
women, self-promoting men retain an advantage over self-promoting women; however, women who can juggle self-
promotion with more communal behaviors may be able to level the playing field and possibly exercise an advantage.
 Because implicit biases are never completely unlearned, self-promotion and its hazards are relevant throughout a
career, in virtually every economically significant practice, including hiring, negotiation, teamwork, promotion, and
leadership.
 Perhaps unexpectedly, men and women share the same basic expectations for male and female behavior and ability,
with both assuming lower female technical competence and both placing women in an impression-management
dilemma between competence and likeability.
 In fact, women may actually be more likely to penalize female self-promoters, and may do so more severely. This de-
fense of female modesty may be explained by the tendency for individuals with lower societal status to take pride in
selected characteristics that are viewed as emblematic of their group.
 Observers (particularly men) have been shown to overlook violations of female modesty if they see a direct connec-
tion between their own future success and the female candidate’s competency (as expressed through self-promotion).
This process for selectively valuing information in relation to a specific result is referred to as outcome dependency.
Why This Matters
Understanding how self-promotion will be received by others is crucial to its effective use. While specific workforce
situations include a multitude of variables, the ability of an individual to influence the perception of others remains
consistently important, as does the innate response of observers, who may or may not approve of someone’s self-
promotion based solely on their gender. Conversely, observers’ ability to receive and digest self-promotion rational-
ly is critical to effective, economically sound decision-making (see more in: Hiring & Wages).
Just as workers must carefully manage the impressions they give off, it is incredibly important that employers
implement transparency efforts to minimize the inefficiencies caused by gender bias in general, and by biased
responses to self-promotion in particular.
Self-Promotion &
Impression-Management
Gender Bias in

16
Self-Promotion & Impression-Management
The Hazards of Self-Promotion for
Women
Self-promotion is a vital tool used by both sexes to
secure employment, raises, and advancements, as
well as to define personal contributions to work
efforts, and steer future assignments. Also discussed
as part of an overall strategy of impression-
management, self-promotion is a common way for
individuals to express their competence to peers and
observers. Unfortunately, research and experience
indicate that self-promotion can lead to dispropor-
tionate social backlash for women, who employ this
tool in contrast with gender prescriptions of modesty
(Rudman, 1998). Though men are generally encour-
aged by the traditional male-provider/female-
caregiver binary social model to exhibit characteristics
like pride and self-assurance, which are closely
aligned with both professional success and social
status for men, “women who behave confidently and
assertively are not as well received as men who
engage in the same behaviors (Rudman, 1998).” In
other words, impression-management poses a unique
challenge for women because most economically
significant situations call for both competency and
likeability, which come from two separate—and often
opposite—sets of behaviors for women.
This double-standard is sometimes described as the
“Impression-Management Dilemma” or the “Backlash
Effect,” and is reliably observable in experiments,
where “agentic behavior, behavior that demonstrates
dominance, competitiveness, and achievement
orientation, is generally considered out of bounds for
women (Heilman, 2007).” This dilemma is viewed as a
barrier to success for women at every stage of the
professional spectrum, and has been the topic of
much debate in recent years, with some arguing that
women should be more “agentic” and others caution-
ing that this behavior can show competence, but also
triggers implicitly biased responses labelling women
as “cold,” “bossy,” or worse. Thankfully, while
individual circumstances are influenced by many
variables, researchers continue to make gains in our
understanding of how implicit gender bias interacts
with self-promotion and other agentic behaviors in
practices like hiring, negotiation, and leadership.
A Preference for Competence
While the risk of social backlash against female self-
promoters is consistently present, available data
indicates that the social harm done may only rarely
outweigh the value of projecting competence, and
that artfully balancing both sides may even provide
some women with advantages over male competi-
tors.
This observation held true in a recent analysis of MBA
graduates who were eight years into their profes-
sions. In it, female graduates who exhibited masculine
traits like self-assurance and dominance were shown
to receive approximately 50% more promotions than
women who were more traditionally “feminine” and
reserved (O’Neill, 2011).
This outcome is common in the literature, where
likeability tends to result in lower overall gains than
projected competence for women in male-gendered
roles and fields. Importantly, this study also measured
participants’ ability to self-monitor their gendered
The Importance and Prevalence of Self-Promotion
Figure 02: Self-promotion is an impression-management tool likely
employed in every stage of one’s career. Because Implicit gender
biases appear never to be unlearned, steps must be taken by work-
ers and employers to allow both men and women to talk about
their successes without penalty.
Hiring
Negotiation
Teamwork
Advancement
Leadership
Self-Promotion

17
behaviors and discovered an important benefit for
women who can employ both male- and female-
gendered qualities strategically. Whereas self-
promoting females rarely prevail in competitions with
self-promoting males, this study revealed a signifi-
cantly higher rate of
promotions for those
women who were highly
self-monitored and could
detect when to be agentic
and when to be passive.
This group not only
outpaced passive women
and men in promotions,
but also agentic men
(O’Neill, 2011).
Another trend echoed in this study is the plight of self
-effacing, communal men, who tend to lose out to
their more agentic peers of both genders across the
literature. However, it is important to note that these
men are penalized less than women for acting outside
of gender expectations. In fact, even when they
depart from agentic behavior, men still benefit from a
stereotype-based assumption of greater competence
than modest women—who remain very likeable, but
continue to be viewed as less competent than
similarly qualified peers (Rudman, 1998).
More Than First Impressions
As observers, when we conjure up impressions of a
coworker, boss, or potential hire, they tend to include
assumptions or expectations that are formed implicit-
ly, that is, unconsciously and automatically (Koch,
Konigorski, & Sieverding, 2014). Because these
impressions are so immediate, and because they
thrive in circumstances where information is lacking,
first impressions—say, upon interviewing a candi-
date—might seem to be most vulnerable to bias, but
these moments are by no means the only ones where
bias can play a role, nor do assumptions made in an
initial meeting necessarily go away over time. Re-
search shows that, even when consciously rejected,
the assumptions we make unconsciously are not lost;
rather than replacing implicit views, explicit views are
added. “This leaves the social perceiver with dual
attitudes towards members of the stereotyped group,
one set implicit and the
other explicit. These
attitudes tend to
dominate social infor-
mation processing in
different circumstanc-
es—one when con-
scious, deliberative
thought is possible, and
the other in more
spontaneous settings, and when the actor does not
view their behavior as expressing an attitude toward a
target group (Krieger, 2004).” These implicit and
explicit responses compete, in relation to non-
gendered situational cues, to shape behavior (Bowles,
2005). Importantly, while explicit views do not appear
to replace implicit views, these implicit associations
do seem to be augmentable, at least for short periods
of time, by counterstereotypical experiences (Roos,
Lebrecht, Tanaka, & Tarr, 2013) and conditioning (Hu,
Antony, Creery, Vargas, Bodenhausen, & Paller,
2015).
The Relevance of Observer Gender
The characteristics of one’s observers and the
environment in which they interact can regulate the
influence of bias in a situation and significantly shape
its outcome—though maybe not how you’d expect.
Gender stereotypes are ubiquitous in our society, and
all men and women will encounter gender bias in
some way, regardless of other characteristics like
social status, age, or race (which come with their own
forms of bias). Just as its presence is constant, the
direction of bias in the workforce tends to be con-
sistent as well, with working women very likely being
disadvantaged by it, often without anyone being
...most economically significant
situations call for both
competency and likeability, which
come from two separate—and
often opposite—sets of behaviors
for women.

18
consciously aware of it. One might expect this
universally shared injustice to make special allies of
women, but this is not necessarily the case. In fact,
women tend to share and employ the same implicit
assumptions and expectations as men, and can
sometimes be their most strident enforcers.
Ingrained from a young age, expectations for what a
scientist, CEO, nurse, or homemaker looks like are
similar for both men and women, and even working
women in male-gendered fields show little or no
differentiation from men in the application or variety
of gender bias.
In a rare example where male and female participants
did enforce gender stereotypes differently, female
(but not male) evaluators were shown to penalize
female self-promoters more harshly than male self-
promoters. Specifically, female participants in an
experiment at Rutgers University (Rudman, 1998)
found self-promoting female candidates to be less
competent, less socially attractive, and less hireable
than self-promoting men, and consistently chose the
self-promoting men for their partner in a future work
activity. Male evaluators were less likely to penalize
female self-promotion under certain conditions (see:
Outcome Dependency). Because self-promotion is a
direct violation of the female prescription of modesty,
a possible explanation offered for the strong response
of female evaluators is the observed tendency for
disenfranchised group members to protect self-worth
by selectively overvaluing the attributes associated
with their group —i.e. modesty. This study, in itself,
should not be treated as a definitive predictor of
female behavior, but warns that the participation of
women in an economically significant process does
not singularly ensure unbiased behavior, nor is it likely
to create a female advantage.
Observer Motivations & Outcome
Dependency
Similar to the way that preexisting biases can influ-
ence evaluation and judgement, the future strategic
relationship between two individuals can shape the
type of information that is sought out or viewed as
relevant in the present. This process of picking and
choosing from facts to support a desired result is
known as outcome dependency. In the previously
mentioned study (Rudman, 1998), experimenters
used three interview scenarios to explore why an
evaluator might ask different questions and might
assign different significance to gender violations
depending on the workplace relationship they
anticipated sharing with the candidate.
All three interview scenarios required study partici-
pants to interact with male and female candidates
(actors) for a job. Some were asked to “get-to-know”
candidates in a casual format; some were tasked with
formally evaluating candidates to ensure success in a
future trivia exercise; and a third group was given the
opportunity to choose a candidate to be their partner
in a trivia competition for a cash prize. Simultaneous-
ly, the candidate-actors were assigned roles and
scripts that expressed either modesty or self-
promotion. The study’s proctors then offered partici-
pants a series of interview questions to choose from
(some with a strong connection to gendered behav-
ior, e.g. “Are you by nature a competitive person?“)
and monitored which questions and candidates they
favored in the context of the three interaction types.
The “get-to-know-them” interaction type established
no future strategic relationship between partners,
and thus did not encourage outcome dependency. In
the second group participants were responsible for

19
assessing the likely performance of candidates. This
didn’t establish a future relationship either, but it did
allow researchers to measure the use of gender-
coded questions when gauging potential perfor-
mance. Participants in the third group were choosing
partners, which prompted them to consider what
makes a good trivia contestant and also established a
strategic relationship in which the chosen candidate’s
future success would benefit the evaluator directly—
fertile ground for outcome dependency.
The results revealed that evaluators, both male and
female, adjust the sort of information they seek, the
type of candidate they favor, and the degree to which
they value stereotype-confirming behavior according
to their immediate responsibility and their future
relationship with the candidate.
Generally speaking, gender appeared to matter least
when the stakes were lowest. Both men and women
with no goal other than to get acquainted with the
candidate were least likely to pick questions relevant
to gender stereotypes, and typically found self-
promoters of both sexes to be most hireable after-
ward.
When the evaluators were asked to refer a candidate
or to select them to be their partner in the trivia
game, however, gender mattered. Interestingly,
though, men and women treated gender and stereo-
type-violations differently. Women consistently
penalized female self-promoters, favoring male self-
promoters over modest men and all female candi-
dates. Men also preferred self-promoting men over
similar, self-promoting women when they were asked
to endorse a candidate, but behaved differently when
they were choosing a partner for the trivia competi-
tion. In this final condition the strategic relationship
between evaluator and candidate outweighed the
preference for a candidate who would fit their
stereotypical mold—women could be self-promoters
because the competence they promised would
benefit the evaluator directly. As a result, the male
evaluators chose approximately evenly between male
and female self-promoters despite favoring male
partners before further information was made
available.
The Impact of Gender on Information Sought and
Used in Various Circumstances
Encounter
Type
Gendered
Questions?
Decision
Criteria
Get-to-know-
them
No NA
Job Referral Yes
Gender
Influenced
Future Partner Yes
Outcome
Dependent
Figure 03: Gendered questions were more likely to be selected
when the stakes were high. This led to backlash against female self
-promoters in the referral condition, but the importance of gender
(and possible violations) diminished when the self-promoter’s
skills could be seen benefiting their future partner (Rudman, 1998).

20
Key Findings:
 Implicit Gender Bias (unconscious, automatic stereo-
typing) can tip the scales in hiring and compensation
decisions on the basis of stereotypes rooted in the his-
toric male-provider/female-caregiver social model.
 Implicit gender bias is reliably measurable in laboratory
settings, where men and women both associate men
with technical competence and leadership, and are like-
ly to unknowingly favor male candidates in hiring and
wage decisions—particularly in male-gendered fields
(STEM, etc.) and roles (leadership positions).
 Implicit gender bias is one of several direct contributors to a workforce that is highly segregated by gender, with men
dominating high-paying fields and positions, and women being concentrated in “pink collar” jobs, which offer lower
wages, fewer benefits, and less predictable, though sometimes more flexible, schedules.
 Women are now contributors and/or providers in a majority of Tennessee households and it is crucial that they are
able to compete fairly for high-paying jobs with the fewest additional barriers.
 These same barriers are also inefficient for businesses, who would benefit from a larger, more competitive labor pool
and greater diversity.
 Individuals who exhibit relatively high implicit gender bias are more likely to favor men in decision-making and are
least able to detect when a female candidate is the better alternative. In one study, nine of ten mistakes favored men.
Measuring Implicit Gender Bias
Unlike explicit gender bias, which describes intention-
al and obvious discrimination, implicit bias is difficult
to detect and measure in the real world. As an
unconscious, automatic function of the brain, its
impact on decision-making can be subtle but devas-
tating to groups like women, for whom the traditional
caregiver stereotype can be damaging in the work-
force.
While we lack an ethical way of measuring the effect
of bias in hiring in the real world—it would be both
difficult and inappropriate to manipulate hiring
processes in a way that could elicit measurable
results—scientists have consistently revealed its
influence in research settings (examples to follow),
STATISTICS
 Workforce bias (in general, not simply at the point
of hire) is estimated to account for as much as 5%
to 10% of the difference in median income for full-
time, year-round workers (approximately $2,000 to
$5,000).
 In 2013, women held 36% of managerial jobs,
owned a part in 26% of businesses.
Why This Matters
Hiring may be the most economically significant
process that occurs in the workforce, and research
reveals how implicit gender bias can create disad-
vantages for women seeking employment in leader-
ship roles and in male-gendered fields. This bias is an
inefficiency that hurts women and families as well as
businesses because it obscures optimal decision-
making and arbitrarily limits employers’ access to
potential candidates. Building Tennessee’s capacity
to connect the right workers to the right jobs, and
increasing household providers’ access to high-
paying fields must be a top priority. As working
women encounter fewer barriers to entry in the
workforce, Tennessee’s businesses and families will
benefit.
Gender Bias in
Hiring & Wages

21
Hiring & Wages
and the disadvantages it imposes on women are
further evident in the large-scale divides between
men and women by industry, wage, and role.
In the instance of wage, for example, bias has been
determined to directly cause one-quarter or more of
the difference in median full-time wages between
sexes. Most efforts to control for other influential
variables like differing education, experience, and
parental status reveal a remaining disparity between
5% to 10% (approximately $2,000 to $5,000) which
experts believe is the result of bias in hiring, promo-
tion, and other economically significant processes
(Greszler & Sherk, 2014; Wall & Reed, 2001).
Notably, this is a measure of earnings by full-time,
year-round workers, and does not address the
disparity in compensation between those with single
full-time jobs and those with one or more part-time
jobs who would consider themselves unwillingly
underemployed. As is discussed next, this is an
important distinction because women are vastly more
likely to work in fields where part-time work is
common, and are twice as likely as men to hold
multiple part-time jobs (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics). It should also be noted that, while variables like
education and experience level may not be directly
related to bias in hiring, they can be influenced by
gender bias earlier in one’s life. Curriculum develop-
ment, education and recruitment policies, promotion
trends, and social expectations for men and women
can play a factor in whether a candidate has the traits
and pervious experience desired at the point of hire.
Gender Segregation by Industry
Automatic expectations that men are independent,
competent, and result-oriented are widespread in our
culture and have been shown to grant an advantage
to male candidates in many hiring situations (Koch,
Konigorski, & Sieverding, 2014). Women, in contrast,
are presumed to be more communal, nurturing, and
emotional—traits that are rarely prioritized and
sometimes stigmatized by prospective employers
(Ellemers, 2014). These assumptions tend to happen
implicitly (unconsciously and without intent) and can
distort the way individuals perceive a candidate’s
potential throughout the interview process. Indeed,
some candidates can be disadvantaged even before
making contact with an employer as evaluators
consider the “type” of person their company should
hire. Specifically, gender frames through which
perceivers intuitively consider candidates have been
shown to tilt the outcome of hiring, wage, and other
economically significant decisions to the disadvantage
of women (Ridgeway, 2009).
These findings are most common in male-gendered
industries and roles (those stereotypically associated
with male workers and traits), which tend to be
higher-paying than traditionally female-gendered
ones. Major examples include science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (the STEM fields), as
well as law, manufacturing, transportation, logistics,
Estimated Impact of Bias in the Gender Wage Gap
Figure 04: Gender bias is believed to be directly responsible for
approximately 5% to 10% of the total gender wage gap (Greszler &
Sherk, 2014; Wall & Reed, 2001).

22
Hiring & Wages
and construction. In Tennessee, men make up the
majority of these fields, and even in industries like
medicine, education, and finance, where women
outnumber men, male median incomes are between
15% and 86% greater than female median incomes
because men tend to hold more lucrative positions
and specializations (e.g. doctor vs nurse, or manager
vs administrative support) (U.S. Census; Jobs4tn.gov).
Even setting aside gender
-divergent career
trajectories within
specific industries (see:
Work Attribution &
Evaluation and The Wage
Gap for more), gender
segregation between
industries remains
incredibly impactful. Working women tend to be
concentrated in fields like food service, hospitality,
and retail, where compensation is relatively low, work
schedules can be both demanding and unpredictable,
and part-time employment is very common. Many
factors have contributed to this pattern, but deeply
engrained assumptions that certain types of work are
gendered as either male or female—or that all work is
male-gendered—appear to be a root cause.
Implicit Gender Bias in Hiring
In roles and industries where work is male-gendered,
bias is most pronounced and can permeate the entire
hiring process.
In a 2012 Yale University study (Moss-Racusin, 2012),
when science faculty members were asked to choose
between virtually identical paper resumes of male
and female candidates for a scientific lab manager
position, participants perceived female candidates as
less competent (though more socially likeable), based
on gender alone. Per-
ceived competence
translated into more
concrete penalties, too, as
participating faculty also
viewed male candidates
as more hirable, ex-
pressed willingness to
mentor them more often,
and supported higher starting wages for them than
for female candidates ($30,238 for men; $26,507 for
women).
As has been observed in most research dealing with
implicit gender bias, the gender of the observer did
not impact their preferences; both men and women
favored the male candidates in all three measures
(Moss-Racusin, 2012).
Similarly, in a 2013 experiment (Reuben, 2013) where
participants were asked to choose a male or female
partner to perform simple math-related activities,
both men and women were twice as likely to select a
male candidate over a comparably qualified female,
based on knowledge of their physical characteristics
alone (Reuben, 2013). This occurred despite the fact
that men and women are proven to exhibit little or no
biological differences in math and science aptitude,
particularly as educational curricula have grown less
gendered (Koch, Konigorski, & Sieverding, 2014). This
same study was then repeated with several additional
variables to measure the success of participants’
choices, and to test whether or not their decisions
would change when they were provided with infor-
mation about past candidate performance, and when
...participating faculty also viewed
male candidates as more hirable,
expressed willingness to mentor
them more often, and supported
higher starting wages for them
than for female candidates.

23
candidates had a chance to promote their own
abilities in person.
In the later rounds, more information meant a more
level playing field. Participants were generally less
likely to favor men over women when candidates
reported their own abilities, and were least likely to
do so when experimenters provided impartial,
objective information to participants about each
candidate’s previous performance in similar math
activities. This additional layer of study reveals a
critical trend in implicit gender bias—as observations
are brought out of unconscious thought and into
more cognitively busy processes, implicit bias dimin-
ishes in favor of more logical and optimal considera-
tion. For many participants, this not only meant a
more even distribution of male and female selections,
but also a higher rate of choosing the superior
candidate—the one who later performed the activi-
ties with the highest accuracy. However, for some
participants whose implicit gender bias was measura-
bly stronger (as detected by an Implicit Association
Test), additional information was not as helpful.
Members of this group were not only most likely to
hire men over women based on gender alone; they
were also least likely to update their opinions based
on objective information, and were considerably less
capable of filtering out overestimations (boasting)
provided by several male candidates who later
underperformed relative to rival candidates and failed
to meet their own estimates. When candidates were
able to promote themselves and employers made the
wrong choice, they chose lower-performing men in 9
of 10 mistakes (Reuben, 2013).
As experimenters put it, “the same stereotype that
made employers discriminate against women on the
basis of incorrect belief in the first place prevented
them from filtering candidates’ self-reported infor-
mation optimally. The ability to update an opinion
with new information after a decision has been made
was lowest for those with high bias against women,
which often resulted in poor decisions (Reuben,
2013).” These results offer important insight into how
gender can influence early assumptions made upon
seeing a resume and cloud the use of additional
information gained during a successive interview—to
the disadvantage of both women and employers.
Hiring & Wages

24
Key Findings:
 Negotiation is a tool individuals can use to increase their compensation, shape their responsibilities, and pursue pro-
motion, but men are significantly more likely to be successful in negotiation than women.
 Research indicates that women are less likely than men to initiate negotiation, and are less aggressive when doing
so, in part because they experience greater anxiety, feel less control over their surroundings than men, and are raised
to exhibit traits that conflict with society’s current masculine view of negotiation.
 Women tend to be viewed as unskilled negotiators with a poor ability to detect manipulation, which can encourage
their counterparts to lower ethical standards, be more coercive, and even deceitful.
 When women do negotiate assertively, they can encounter social penalties (backlash) for betraying gender stereo-
types of modesty and communal behavior. They are seen by both men and women as less likeable and less attractive
to work with. This double standard is not encountered by men, who are expected to be assertive both socially and
professionally.
 Situational features like ambiguity and priming can greatly influence the activation and severity of gender stereotypes.
Because of this, they appear to hold more influence over outcomes than internal features like female personality traits
or anxiety.
Why This Matters
Given the historic importance of negotiation as a
means to secure greater resources and influence, it is
easy to imagine how this practice has become
infused with characteristics typical of history’s chief
economic agents: men. Conversely, it is no surprise
that generations of men, as presumed breadwinners,
leaders, and heads of household, have been raised to
reflect the traits imbedded in negotiation. However,
men now comprise only a slim majority (53%) of
Tennessee’s non-household workforce, and as the
percentage of economic activity performed by
women rises, so too does the risk of inefficiency when
negotiation dissuades certain workers from pursuing
an ideal path, acts as a barrier to promotion or hire,
or results in under-incentivized employees. Addition-
ally, by reassessing both our views of negotiation and
women’s role in it, we can reach more efficient
outcomes more often.
Lower Success Rates for Women
Negotiation is an incredibly complex process in which
subtle variables like the personalities and expecta-
tions of participants interact with more overt charac-
teristics like the structure and goals of the interaction
itself to shape an outcome. The true breadth and
diversity of factors that influence negotiation are
evident in the dozens of methodologies and findings
produced by modern research on this topic. Helpfully,
several common themes emerge in the data to offer
insight into the impact of gender on negotiation.
In 2005 Laura Kray and Leigh Thompson of the Haas
School of Business at UC Berkeley performed an
exhaustive meta-analysis of publications studying
gender in negotiation (including wage negotiation and
bargaining between opposing interests). In their work
they analyzed dozens of related reports and conclud-
ed from the available data that, “under baseline
conditions, men outperform women in terms of
Gender Bias in
Negotiation

25
economic measures of success.” Kray and Thompson
also threaded together a consensus view among
researchers that “at a basic level, gender stereotypes
play a role in how focal negotiators behave, how their
partners expect them to behave, and how focal
negotiators interact with the environment” (Kray &
Thompson, 2005). Observations of this disparity
abound in research and the following examples from
the body of work they reviewed offer a valuable
introduction:
 Women were more trustworthy and pursued
others’ interests (Buchan, Croson, & Solnick,
2004);
 Women were less competitive and favored
cooperative choices (Caldwell, 1976);
 Women offered up more resources than men,
especially to other men (Solnick, 2001);
 Women achieved numerically worse deals
(Ayres & Siegelman, 1995);
 Women showed less motivation to show their
worth in negotiation, made weaker opening
offers, and expressed lesser entitlement to earn
more (Barron, 2003);
 Women set lower goals than men and per-
formed worse when information was scarce
(Bowles, Babcock, & McGinn, 2004);
Just as important as the disparity in success at the
negotiation table is the female reluctance to even
initiate the process. The overall frequency of wage
negotiation varies throughout research and across the
workforce, with estimates of its likelihood ranging
broadly between 10% and 50%, depending on
circumstances (H. R. Bowles et al., 2007; CareerBuild-
er, 2013), but women are consistently less likely to
initiate negation than men. Again, the rate varies
widely, but some experimental situations report men
negotiating up to ten times as often as women (Small
et al., 2007). This is a critical problem because
negotiation can increase wages earned by thousands
of dollars annually (Marks & Harold, 2009), and can
have a compounding positive impact in the tens or
hundreds of thousands over the span of a career, as
raises are often percentage-based and grow in scale
from an initial offer.
How Feminine Socialization Can
Undercut Negotiation
In part, researchers believe the gender divergence in
both performance and initiation stems from charac-
Negitiation
The Compounding Effect of a Wage Gap Over 40 Years
Figure 05: Assuming growth of 3% annually, the difference in annual earnings between a starting wage of $35,000 and $40,000
grows to nearly $16,000 in year 40, and the gap in lifetime earnings totals $377,000.
Year 40Year 20Year 1
AnnualSalary

26
teristics that women develop while growing up. Some
cite indications that women have lower compensation
expectations than men (Major, McFarlin, & Gagnon,
1984), are less likely than men to feel influential over
their circumstances, and are thus less likely to view a
job offer as negotiable and more likely to view it as a
finite “price on an item in a store” (Babcock &
Laschever, 2003). Women are also shown to feel a
greater degree of anxiety than men when considering
the prospect of negotiation, even when they know it
is a viable option. This anxiety and unwillingness to
negotiate is discussed by Small, et al. (2007) as a
reflection of the low power status of women. In their
work, Small et al. revealed a significant difference
between genders in anxiety and reluctance to initiate
negotiation (men were more than ten times as likely
to negotiate in one round of the study), but discov-
ered that self-reported female anxiety was not
present when the word “negotiation” was replaced
with “ask,” or when participants were asked immedi-
ately prior to the experiment to describe a past
situation in which they exercised power over some-
one else.
These findings support the assertion that a woman’s
perceived lack of power over their environment can
diminish their actual ability to influence it, and that
methods of empowerment can counteract this view.
The results also connect the failure to initiate negotia-
tion with the lower status of women, who were much
more comfortable with asking for more money than
negotiating for it. Asking “conveys a weaker stance
and is considered a linguistic gesture of politeness… in
which speakers acknowledge restraint to minimize
imposing on others, and is particularly important for
low-power individuals (Small et al., 2007).” This is
consistent with research showing that women are
least comfortable with negotiation when their
evaluator is male (H. R. Bowles et al., 2007), as men
typically hold higher economic and social status.
Similarly, most women are raised to display “warm”
traits like modesty, submissiveness, and communality,
which are not highly valued in the workforce and are
not typically conducive to negotiation (Kray & Thomp-
son, 2005). In fact, research on the subject has
revealed that even when women do display male-
gendered traits, they may still fall short in the specific
traits most closely affiliated with successful initiation
and negotiation as they are typically practiced today.
In a University of Texas study (Spence & Helmreich,
2000) where participants of both sexes were present-
ed with a list of traits and asked to select those with
which they identified, men and women chose tradi-
tionally masculine traits in fairly even numbers, but
differed significantly in which masculine traits they
selected. Women were likely to identify with the
traits: active, independent, and self-expressive, but
were much less likely than men to identify with the
traits: forceful, competitive, and in charge (Spence &
Buckner, 2000). As observed by fellow researchers
exploring the tendency of participants to initiate
negotiation (H. R. Bowles et al., 2007), this revealed
an important division among traditionally “male”
traits between those associated with competence and
those related to dominance (Rudman & Glick, 2001).
Specifically, women identified much more frequently
with the former than the latter, (and were also much
more likely than men to identify with traits tradition-
ally viewed as feminine).
It appears, then, that one contributor to the observed
gender disparity in negotiation is internal to women.
That is, some women do not initiate negotiation as
often as men or encounter the same rate of success
because doing so calls for “dominant” behaviors that
are not typically developed. This is an important
determination because women (and those raising
...Women are less likely than men
to feel influential over their
circumstances, and are thus less
likely to view a job offer as
negotiable...
Negotiation

27
future generations of women) can work to adjust
behaviors and foster a female comfort with negotia-
tion; however, female behavior and comfort are not
the only contributors to this disparity. A growing body
of research suggests that personality traits are not the
primary gender-related determents of success, but
rather the differential treatment of men and women
and the consistency with which we treat negotiation
as male-gendered.
To get a fuller view of the disadvantages women face
when navigating negotiation we need to look outward
to the social context and biases of the situation, the
type and amount of information available during
negotiation, and how these elements presently stack
the deck against female negotiators.
Unfemininity and the Risk of Social
“Backlash”
As was discussed in the previous section on Impres-
sion-Management, women who behave confidently
and assertively risk being penalized socially (Koch,
Konigorski, & Sieverding, 2014). This risk applies to
negotiation as well, where initiation and the aggres-
sive pursuit of greater resources conflicts with the
female prescription of modesty and expectations of
lower status. In a 2007 study, Bowles, Babcock, and
Lai measured evaluators’ responses to male and
female candidates who initiated negotiation. In it,
candidates of both genders were penalized to some
degree (viewed as less nice and more demanding),
but negative responses to female negotiators were
between two and five times as strong, depending on
the circumstances of each round. As is the case in
other economically significant processes, the percep-
tion of demandingness was shown to significantly
lessen the evaluators’ willingness to work with a
female candidate, even when the evaluator was also
female.
In total, “attempting to negotiate for higher compen-
sation had no effect on men’s willingness to work
with men, but it had a significantly negative effect on
men’s willingness to work with women. Women
penalized men and women equally for attempting to
negotiate” (H. R. Bowles et al., 2007).
Importantly, a later round of the study showed that
female participants anticipated backlash from men,
but did not expect to receive it from female evalua-
tors, and were naively less cautious about negotiating
with them. This revealed an important underestima-
tion of the female defense of female modesty, which
both workers and employers must bear in mind.
Backlash is not only a measurable and damaging
response exhibited by both men and women, it is also
often a foreseeable risk that may act as an additional
deterrent to initiation for women (Amanatullah &
Morris, 2010). Broadly supported in research, back-
lash creates a double standard for women, who must
be both likeable and aggressive if they are to achieve
higher wages, and introduces an important caveat
into the popular contemporary advice that women
take initiative and “Lean In” (Sandberg, 2013). As with
impression-management in general, negotiation is a
balancing act for women. Choosing to negotiate, as
opposed to passively accepting offers, may promote
greater access to resources over the span of a career,
but women who are able to self-monitor and apply
both tactics at the right times will likely benefit most
(O’Neill, 2011).
Perceived Competence, Deceit, and
Stereotype Threat
So far, we have explored how women are often
socialized to embody traits and perspectives that are
unconducive to negotiation, and how both men and
women tend to respond negatively to female negotia-
tors by judging them too demanding and undesirable
to work with. In addition to these effects, common
gender stereotypes assume that women are less
competent negotiators, which has even been shown
to influence how honestly others approach negoti-
ating with women.
Negotiation

28
Deceit
A recent study by Kray, Kennedy, & Van Zant (2014)
reinforces the understanding that women are viewed
as less savvy and also more polite negotiators, with
disturbing results. In their 2014 analysis of face-to-
face negotiations by MBA students, neither women
nor men were more likely to lie than the other, but
women were much more likely to be lied to (22%)
than men (5%). In this data set, female negotiators
were not only more likely to be mislead by the other
negotiator, they were three times as likely to be
blatantly lied to. As experimenters put it: “the gender
bias in deception appears driven by a greater propen-
sity to tell women blatant lies in a situation in which
men tend to be told the truth.”
Additional rounds of study revealed the cause:
women were more likely to be misled because they
were viewed by both men and other women as poorly
equipped to detect dishonesty. As a result, their
counterparts were more likely to lower ethical
standards and use deception.
As predicted by experimenters, this led to a higher
number of bad deals for women; agreements were
12% more likely to be reached when women—rather
than men—were in a role that was vulnerable to
deceit. (In this scenario, buyers and sellers had
different desires for the use of a parcel of land and
buyers could lie about their intended use to secure a
deal.)
It is not clear from this study that women are actually
more easily misled than men, but the results do
indicate that this perception is enough to encourage
others to employ unethical behaviors, putting women
at a unique disadvantage. While this finding speaks
specifically to negotiating a sale as opposed to a
salary, it is unsettling to consider how lower ethical
standards might affect women’s access to greater
resources in the workforce.
Situational Variables: Ambiguity
and Stereotype Priming/Threat
Improving the way we think of women in the context
of work is a critical component of realigning their
economic opportunities with their economic responsi-
bilities as providers. Unfortunately, because stereo-
typical gender assumptions are formed and rein-
forced in society at large, gains in the social con-
sciousness may come too slowly to help women
already in the workforce today. Thankfully, there
remain multiple features of negotiation (and other
economically significant processes) that can be
augmented to minimize the impact of gender bias
immediately. Specifically, subtle variations in the
structure of a negotiation, the information available
to participants, and the way in which gender stereo-
types are—or are not—“primed” beforehand can
have a dramatic impact on the outcome. These
observations can be put to valuable use by workers,
employers, and policymakers as they work to pro-
mote or pursue economic success.
“Attempting to negotiate for
higher compensation had no effect
on men’s willingness to work with
men, but it had a significantly
negative effect on men’s
willingness to work with women.”
Negotiation

29
Information and Ambiguity
Perhaps because of the gender expectations dis-
cussed previously in this section, female negotiators
tend to enter the process with more modest expecta-
tions than men and often secure less favorable
results. Recent research on the topic suggests that the
gender variance is strongest in expectations (target
prices), opening bids, and outcomes when ambiguity
is also high, but narrows when critical information is
available to guide women
through a less modest
approach.
In simulated negotiations
over halogen headlights,
Bowles, Babcock, and
McGinn (2004) tested the
impact that information
can have on purchasers’ bargaining strategies. There
were two mixed-gender two groups studied: both
were instructed to get a price below $35 per unit, but
the second group was also encouraged to negotiate
down to a much lower rate of $15 per unit. Experi-
menters performed surveys before and after the
negotiations to measure the experience of partici-
pants.
In the first group, “male buyers entered the negotia-
tion expecting to pay 10% less and to offer 19% less
than did female buyers. Consistent with expectations,
male buyers walked out of the negotiation paying
27% less than did female buyers (Bowles, Babcock, &
McGinn, 2004).” This result was largely in line with
gender assumptions about negotiation, but the
second group’s outcomes were not.
The second group, for whom the only difference was
the additional $15 price target, reported “no signifi-
cant sex differences in target prices, intended first
offers, or negotiated outcomes.” In other words, the
more aggressive posture displayed in male negotia-
tors appears to have been simulated in women by
providing an aggressive target. By diminishing the
ambiguity built into bargaining, the added price target
narrowed the space in which women could feel the
desire or need to be reserved. Through this simple
change, female negotiators were empowered to
eliminate the 10% difference in expected pay, the
19% difference in opening offers, and the 27% gap in
outcomes (Bowles, Babcock, & McMinn, 2004).
These findings are not only relevant to women
engaged in bargaining; the revelation that knowing
simple information like a
price or wage target can
sometimes overcome
gender disparities
highlights the im-
portance for women to
be well-informed about a
prospective job’s pay
range, and provides
insight into what employers might do to provide an
equal playing field for applicants.
A more direct example of this comes from the same
study, where the starting salaries of over 500 MBA
graduates were analyzed. After controlling for dozens
of salary predictors, including industry, role, location,
and tasks, male salaries outpaced female salaries by
an average of 5% ($5,941) and up to 10%. Important-
ly, the gap was most narrow among those who chose
fields related to their business degree, for which they
were likely to have the best understanding of an
acceptable starting pay range (low ambiguity). For
those who took jobs outside of their earlier discipline
(e.g. health and human services), the gap between
genders was largest. Graduates who chose these
more foreign fields were likely to encounter greater
ambiguity when navigating negotiation, and success
in this process was determined to influence the larger
gap between genders. Adding to the bad news,
women were not only subject to a larger pay gap in
the high-ambiguity fields, they were also more likely
than men to enter them. This may be a reflection of
how women are deterred from entering male-
gendered fields like business and investment, even
Negotiation
“The gender bias in deception
appears driven by a greater
propensity to tell women blatant
lies in a situation in which men
tend to be told the truth.”

30
when they are educated to pursue them (Bowles,
Babcock, & McGinn, 2004).
Stereotype Priming
Actionable information like a price target is not the
only structural feature of negotiation that can
manipulate the impact of gender. The way we
envision negotiation and which traits produce results
is also critically influential, and appears to be much
more malleable than one might expect. One way to
change how we approach negotiation is through a
process called “priming.” Priming involves “activating
particular representations or associations in memory
just before carrying out an action or task (Psychology
Today).” By priming participants of one gender or the
other to feel empowered, or to view traits they
embody as useful immediately prior to a negotiation,
we can influence the outcome substantially.
A set of experiments in 2002 (Kray, Galinsky, &
Thompson) primed male and female candidates to
consider gender-neutral, male-, or female-gendered
traits as diagnostic of un/successful negotiation, and
found that when female traits (verbal and listening
skills, emotional insight) were promoted or male traits
(assertiveness, self-interest, rationality) were down-
played in advance of negotiation, women not only
expected to fair better, they also achieved greater
results than their male counterparts. As expected,
men outperformed women when female traits were
criticized. Importantly, men also prevailed when
gender-neutral traits (well-prepared, humorous, open
-minded) were promoted (Kray, Galinsky,
&Thompson, 2002)—offering insight into the default
disadvantage of women in negotiation today.
This study further emphasizes how external forces are
important contributors to negotiation outcomes, and
reveals what may be a surprising degree of fluidity in
what can be viewed as contributing to success.
Employers and policymakers may be encouraged by
the way in which a very simple manipulation was
sufficient to overturn the effects of gender in these
experiments.
Stereotype Threat
One of the specific ways by which perceptions of poor
female performance are understood to impact
outcomes is by creating disruptive anxiety in women
(or other categories of person “lacking fit”) who are
performing a task that they are broadly understood to
be deficient in. Examples of this phenomenon include
poor female performance in difficult math tests
despite comparable competency (Spencer, Steele,
Quinn, 1999), and impairment of female “shop talk”
and work satisfaction relative to men in STEM fields
despite comparable experience and professional
relevance (Holleran, Whitehead, Schmader, & Mehl,
2010).
In the previously referenced study by Kray, Galinsky,
& Thompson, stereotype threat was activated either
for men or women when traits they were typically
associated with were downplayed, and in each case,
those who most embodied the weaker traits set lower
goals for themselves and achieved worse results. The
effect, whether conscious or subconscious, amounts
to: “I am a woman, [I am told that] women do not
have the traits or skills needed to be successful
negotiators.”
An important caveat to this interpretation is offered
by Kray and Thompson (2005), who identify a trend in
research suggesting that “women are better off to the
extent that they are aware that a negative stereotype
exists about their ability” and treat processes like
negotiation as a challenge through which to disprove
the stereotype.
Negotiation

31
Key Findings:
 The way we view the work of others, and the extent to which we credit them with success, is not perfectly objective; it
can be influenced by situations and pre-existing stereotypes.
 For women in mixed-gender team environments, stereotypes that assume (or prefer) they wield low technical compe-
tence and hedge toward submissiveness can lead observers (and even women themselves) to devalue their contribu-
tion to successes and attribute it to nearby men, for whom success is an easier fit according to stereotype. This pro-
cess is called attributional rationalization.
 This is especially true when information is not available to draw a direct connection between individuals and out-
comes, as is often the case in a team project. However, this disparity can be balanced out by specific information
validating female performance, such as clear recognition from a supervisor, a project structure that involves silo-ed
work for which individuals are each responsible, and highly flattering evidence of past performance.
 Bias is also evident in performance evaluations, where research points to women being scored on warmth more than
competence, benefitting less from observed competence than men, and being punished more for low observed
warmth.
 In performance evaluations with both a narrative and number scoring component, women have been shown to re-
ceive equal or greater praise than men while still receiving lower numerical scores—possibly because narratives are
more cognitively demanding while numerical scores are inherently more implicit and more open to gender bias.
 Lastly, research indicates that successful reviews translate into raises and promotions most often for white men, but
that success is less likely to result in a tangible reward for women and minorities.
No Benefit of the Doubt
Workforce bias doesn’t end at the storefront or the
negotiation table, where a lack of familiarity can
produce particularly biased results. Even as colleagues
get to know one another and observe their respective
strengths and skills, gender stereotypes and ambigui-
ty can still obscure perceptions in damaging ways. As
one researcher put it, “People are not always optimal
social information processors (Krieger, 2004).”
Situations and pre-existing stereotypes can impact the
way we digest the raw data we take-in and this can
result in unfair assessments of others’ work. Of
particular importance to the office dynamic are
gender assumptions (and preferences) about low
Why This Matters
For any workforce based on incentives and merit, it is
a fundamental assumption that success can be seen,
rewarded, and elevated. Unfortunately, research
reveals that women (unlike men) rarely get the
benefit of the doubt, and must supply or benefit from
highly specific information that validates their
contribution to successful work. This undoubtedly
promotes poorer peer opinions, artificially weaker
performance reviews, and decreased access to
advancement, raises, and influence. Performance
evaluations, in particular, must be performed using
objective methods that can promote efficiency.
Gender Bias in
Work Attribution
& Evaluation

32
female technical competence and submissiveness,
which can result in lopsided performance reviews and
inaccurate assessments of female contributions to
teamwork, particularly when ambiguity is high.
Attributional Rationalization
Negative stereotype-based expectations impact how
women are regarded and how their work is evaluated
– particularly when the work is male gendered,
including in management roles. In these settings,
women are not only endangered by the risk that their
work will be seen as being of lesser quality, but also
that successes may be attributed to some other
influence like a teammate or workplace policy. This
latter result is known as “attributional rationalization”
and is particularly relevant to women working in
mixed-gender teams (Heilman & Haynes, 2005).
A 2005 study performed at New York University
(Heilman & Haynes, 2005), provides excellent insight
into how attributional rationalization works and what
steps can be taken to avoid it. In the study, partici-
pants were asked to assess the contributions of one
member out of a mixed-gender duo who had success-
fully collaborated on a male-gendered task: creating
an investment portfolio (first working separately and
then combining work product).
Each participant was asked to review one of two near-
identical project review documents; they differed only
in that half were titled “Individual Assessment Form”
and the other half “Group Assessment Form.”
Participants were then asked to judge the likely (a)
competence, (b) influence on task outcome, and (c)
leadership shown by the either the male or female
collaborator, with either a group or individual form.
For those participants furnished with an “Individual
Assessment Form” there was no statistical distinction
between the presumed competence, influence, or
leadership of male and female collaborators. Howev-
er, when a “Group Assessment Form” was provided it
was no longer irrefutable that women made meaning-
ful contributions. With this ambiguity added, partici-
pants gave men the benefit of the doubt, but not
women. Without a direct, objective validation of their
work, women were judged to be less competent, less
influential, and less likely to have taken on a leader-
ship role than men.
Successive rounds performed similar experiments
with similar results. In the same way that generic or
specific confirmation of success could enable or
eliminate attributional rationalization, respectively, so
too could variations in information about task
assignments and past performance. Specifically, when
a successful project (success was indicated by a group
assessment form for all participants in the follow-up
rounds) was structured so that each teammate would
complete their own portion of the project individual-
ly, male and female collaborators received compara-
ble scores in competence, involvement, and influ-
ence. When the task was described as collaborative
throughout, men were judged significantly higher in
all three measures.
The pattern of assuming success for men and
doubting it in women was exposed in greater detail in
the past performance experiment. In this round
participants had to judge the collaborators’ contribu-
tions to a successful project based on identical
information with the exception that some were
described as being at the top 25% or top 2% perform-
er among their peers. As with the other conditions,
both genders were judged comparably when given a
specific 2% designation, but among those with a 25%,
women received lower ratings than men and their
female peers in the 2%. In fact, women with 25%
designations were treated comparably to women in a
control group for whom there was no evidence of
past performance given at all. Perhaps surprisingly,
judgements of men were similarly high whether they
were designated in the top 2%, 25%, or not rated at
all.
Throughout the study, men were not only judged
more highly than women in all but the most specific
conditions, they were also given the benefit of the
doubt that they were positive actors in conditions
with vague or no information. Meanwhile, women
Work Attribution & Evaluation

33
relied on very specific and very high indicators of past
performance to be judged more positively. When
ambiguity was present about the source of success,
“women’s performance [had to] be at the top 20th
percentile, and in many cases in the top 10th percen-
tile to be viewed on par with the average man’s
performance” (Heilman & Haynes, 2005).
As with most other expressions of bias discussed in
this document, male and female observers showed
the same favor toward men and bestowed the same
doubts upon women. This further supports the
conclusion that there is something more complicated
than male sexism at work in these situations. Rather,
these are the results of universally held gender
stereotypes that promote unintentional, implicit
assumptions of the least of women.
Self-Doubt
Unfortunately, this perception is not only shared by
observers; women have also been shown to belittle
their own contributions to successful multi-sex teams
when explicit evidence of achievement is not availa-
ble.
In a follow-up to their 2005 study that utilized similar
variables like group and independent evaluation
forms, Haynes and Heilman (2013) found that women
were considerably more likely than men to downplay
their own contribution to a male-gendered task when
individual feedback and validation was not offered.
This occurred despite the fact that the project was
performed remotely and participants never met their
partner—in fact the partners weren’t even real.
Devaluation was less likely to occur when specific
validating information was available. Specifically,
when women received individual confirmation of
their good work (as opposed to group validation),
were shown to have performed well in a previous and
similar task (past performance), or when the task was
structured so that they were the only one possibly
responsible for a portion of the success, they were
less likely to discount their involvement. In contrast,
men behaved with higher relative confidence regard-
less of the variables in play.
High ambiguity was not the only condition necessary
for women to doubt their contribution; they also
needed a suitable peer to overvalue, someone for
whom success was expected: a man. When women
were paired with other women they tended to
identify themselves as making the greater contribu-
tion and being the better performer. When women
were paired with men, however, they perceived their
contribution as relatively smaller and identified men
as the better performers 60% of the time, as opposed
to female teammates, who they selected approxi-
mately 12% of the time. For comparison, when
individual feedback was made available the act of
devaluing was significantly less common and some-
what reversed. In this less ambiguous condition, 17%
of women identified female partners as the better
performer, and fewer than 5% chose a male partner
over themselves. Men rarely identified a female
partner as the better performer; doing so only once
for every four times a woman chose a male partner
(Haynes & Heilman, 2013).
These figures should not be taken as exact predictors
of behavior, but are included here to highlight the
significant gap in possible outcomes as well as the
palliative impact of self-validating information.
The growing body of evidence that men and women
both unintentionally devalue female contributions
(even their own) to male-gendered work is of serious
concern because this inaccuracy likely translates to
poor peer opinion, artificially weaker performance
When ambiguity was present
about the source of success,
“women’s performance had to be
at the top 20th percentile, and in
many cases in the top 10th
percentile to be viewed on par
with the average man’s
performance.”

34
reviews, and a lesser potential for female advance-
ment in high-status, high-paying jobs.
Performance Evaluation
The presence of gender bias in performance evalua-
tions is of particular importance to this document
because they are central to advancement policies and
are also highly malleable products (as opposed to
socially derived stereotypes) that can be shaped to
minimize the influence of gender bias in the short
term. Presently, positive performance reviews are
much more likely to lead to promotions for white men
than for women or members of ethnic and racial
minorities (Koch, Konigorski, & Sieverding, 2014), but
emerging evidence about bias in the process may
provide solutions that will help narrow the gap
between good work, high praise, and commensurate
rewards.
A 2012 analysis (Biernat et al., 2012) of performance
evaluations in a major law firm explored the effects of
gender and confirmed that male and female employ-
ees were rated with emphasis on different traits;
received comparable narrative praise but divergent
numerical scores; and that men were ultimately more
likely to receive high scores and were three times as
likely to be identified as potential partner material.
In these evaluations—which were only seen by
partners, not the evaluated attorneys—subjects were
described in a written narrative assessment that
supported rankings by category on 5-point numerical
scales. Analysis showed that men and women re-
ceived similarly positive praise in the written compo-
nent, but women received consistently lower numeri-
cal ratings. In fact, the use of a high volume of
positive performance words was actually bad for
women (but good for men) in terms of corresponding
number ratings. The difference between success rates
in the two components was partially explained by the
fact that evaluators rewarded different traits in each
gender but prized the male-gendered trait most.
Specifically, men were evaluated with an emphasis on
technical competence while women were judged with
an emphasis on interpersonal warmth. As Figure 06
shows, when narratives were compared to 5-point
rankings, competence tended to correspond to
greater scores than warmth for both genders, but
men were more likely than women to be rewarded
for competence while women were more likely than
men to be punished for low warmth. In researchers’
own words, “while both men and women may have
Differences by Gender in Numerical Ratings Relative to Narrative Mentions of Competence and Warmth
Figure 06: The scores of men and women were more closely linked to competence and warmth, respectively; men were rewarded
most for high competence, and women were punished most for low warmth (Biernart et al., 2012).
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
4
4.1
4.2
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
4
4.1
4.2
NumericalRating
NumericalRating
Low Technical Competence | High Technical Competence Low Interpersonal Warmth | High Interpersonal Warmth
Men
Men
Women
Women
Technical Competence Interpersonal Warmth

The Costs of Gender Bias in Tennessee's Workforce - 10-27-15

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