Abstract
We examined male power-roles as a potential moderator of gender bias in hiring decisions. Drawing from previous work on perceptions of agentic women and precarious manhood theory, we predicted that men in low-power roles may react more negatively to agentic women compared to men in high-power roles. In two experiments, male participants evaluated résumés from male and female job candidates applying for a managerial position. Across experiments, results suggest that lacking power may facilitate biased hiring decisions. U.S. college men assigned to (Experiment 1, n = 83) or primed (Experiment 2, n = 84) with a low-power role rated the female applicant as less hireable and recommended a lower salary for her compared to the male applicant. This difference did not occur in the high-power or baseline conditions. A meta-analysis combining the results of both experiments confirmed that gender bias was limited to the low-power condition. Results are discussed in terms of powerlessness as a masculinity threat that may have downstream consequences for women.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported in part by the Geis Memorial Award and by a RISE grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of South Carolina. We wish to thank members of the first author’s dissertation committee Duane T. Wegener, Stephanie Goodwin, James LeBreton, and Margo Monteith for feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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Hoover, A.E., Hack, T., Garcia, A.L. et al. Powerless Men and Agentic Women: Gender Bias in Hiring Decisions. Sex Roles 80, 667–680 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0964-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0964-y