"Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis": Correction to Eagly et al.

Reports an error in "Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis" by Alice H. Eagly, Mona G. Makhijani and Bruce G. Klonsky (Psychological Bulletin, 1992[Jan], Vol 111[1], 3-22). Some of the numbers in the Value columns of Table 1, page 11, were aligned incorrectly. The corrected version of Table 1 is provided in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1992-16290-001.) Reviews research on the evaluation of women and men that occupy leadership roles. While holding the characteristics, except for sex, constant and varying the sex of the leader, these experiments investigated whether people are biased against female leaders and managers. Although this research showed only a small overall tendency for Ss to evaluate female leaders less favorably than male ones, this tendency was more pronounced under certain circumstances. Specifically, women in leadership positions were devalued relative to their male counterparts when leadership was carried out in stereotypically masculine styles, especially when this style was autocratic or directive. Also, the devaluation of women was greater when leaders occupied male-dominated roles and when the evaluators were men. Findings are interpreted from a perspective that emphasizes the influence of gender roles within organizational settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and leadership style: A meta-analysis.

Research comparing the leadership styles of women and men is reviewed, and evidence is found for both the presence and absence of differences between the sexes. In contrast to the gender-stereotypic expectation that women lead in an interpersonally oriented style and men in a task-oriented style, female and male leaders did not differ in these two styles in organizational studies. However, these aspects of leadership style were somewhat gender stereotypic in the two other classes of leadership studies investigated, namely (a) laboratory experiments and (b) assessment studies, which were defined as research that assessed the leadership styles of people not selected for occupancy of leadership roles. Consistent with stereotypic expectations about a different aspect of leadership style, the tendency to lead democratically or autocratically, women tended to adopt a more democratic or participative style and a less autocratic or directive style than did men. This sex difference appeared in all three classes of leadership studies, including those conducted in organizations. These and other findings are interpreted in terms of a social role theory of sex differences in social behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: A meta-analysis.

This article presents a synthesis of research on the relative effectiveness of women and men who occupy leadership and managerial roles. Aggregated over the organizational and laboratory experimental studies in the sample, male and female leaders were equally effective. However, consistent with the assumption that the congruence of leadership roles with leaders' gender enhances effectiveness, men were more effective than women in roles that were defined in more masculine terms, and women were more effective than men in roles that were defined in less masculine terms. Also, men were more effective than women to the extent that leader and subordinate roles were male-dominated numerically. These and other findings are discussed from the perspective of social-role theory of sex differences in social behavior as well as from alternative perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men.

A meta-analysis of 45 studies of transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles found that female leaders were more transformational than male leaders and also engaged in more of the contingent reward behaviors that are a component of transactional leadership. Male leaders were generally more likely to manifest the other aspects of transactional leadership (active and passive management by exception) and laissez-faire leadership. Although these differences between male and female readers were small, the implications of these findings are encouraging for female leadership because other research has established that all of the aspects of leadership style on which women exceeded men relate positively to leaders' effectiveness whereas all of the aspects on which men exceeded women have negative or null relations to effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Female medical leadership: cross sectional study

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relation between male and female medical leadership. DESIGN: Cross sectional study on predictive factors for female medical leadership with data on sex, age, specialty, and occupational status of Norwegian physicians. SETTING: Oslo, Norway. SUBJECTS: 13 844 non-retired Norwegian physicians. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Medical leaders, defined as physicians holding a leading position in hospital medicine, public health, academic medicine, or private health care. RESULTS: 14.6% (95% confidence interval 14.0% to 15.4%) of the men were leaders compared with 5.1% (4.4% to 5.9%) of the women. Adjusted for age men had a higher estimated probability of leadership in all categories of age and job, the highest being in academic medicine with 0.57 (0.42 to 0.72) for men aged over 54 years compared with 0.39 (0.21 to 0.63) for women in the same category. Among female hospital physicians there was a positive relation between the proportion of women in their specialty and the probability of leadership. CONCLUSION: Women do not reach senior positions as easily as men. Medical specialties with high proportions of women have more female leaders.     

Military Leadership Evaluations: Effects of Evaluator Sex, Leader Sex, and Gender Role Attitudes.

Despite a recent increase in women holding managerial or leadership positions, women are still underrepresented in the highest levels in business and in the military. Sex of evaluator and sex of leader have often been found to be related to leadership recommendations. Conducted at the United States Naval Academy, this study examined whether sex of evaluator and the evaluator's gender role attitudes were related to recommendations for promotion of male or female Naval lieutenant. Participants included 69 male and 39 female midshipmen who had completed the Attitudes Toward Women Scale and the Male Masculinity Role Norm Scale several weeks prior to the experimental intervention. For the intervention, participants were assigned by sex to read a fitness report for either a male or female lieutenant and to rate the lieutenant for promotion and his or her leadership characteristics. Compared with female leaders, male leaders were perceived as having fewer leadership characteristics that had an emotional component. Regardless of the sex of the evaluator, support for promotion was positively related to emotional and positive leader characteristics and negatively related to perceived negative leader characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why can't a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 96(1) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2008-18683-004). Some of the sample sizes presented in Table 1 were incorrectly reported. The correct sample sizes are presented in the erratum.] Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biases in appraisals of women leaders.

In a variety of group settings, members favor men over women when selecting and evaluating leaders, even when actual leadership behaviors are held constant. Leadership categorization theory (R. B. Lord & K. J. Maher, 1991) and social role theory (A. H. Eagly, 1987) suggest that these biases result from discrepancies between individuals' stereotypes about women and their implicit prototypes of leaders. The authors examined this role-incongruence hypothesis in small groups led by women who adopted a relationship- or task-oriented leadership style. Group members with liberal attitudes regarding women's roles responded positively to both leadership types. Group members with conservative attitudes felt the task-oriented leader was more effective, but they also rated her more negatively on measures of collegiality. These results suggest that individuals' reactions to women leaders are tempered by their expectations about the role of women and men in contemporary society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex of authority role models and achievement by men and women: Leadership performance and recognition.

Investigated whether performance, for both sexes, is conditioned by expectations for them, with expectations being at least partly defined by same-sex role models. 276 undergraduates were exposed to all-male, all-female, or mixed-authority role models and then participated in a 4-person mixed-sex discussion. Vicarious cultural experience of authority models was represented by videotaped reenactments of TV commercials. Ss viewed either 4 traditional commercials showing a man as authority and woman as subordinate, or 4 reversed-role versions in which the male and female actors switched roles in the same scenarios. Personally observed authority models were represented by the experimenter, who supervised the discussion. Sex of authority in the commercials and sex of experimenter were crossed in a factorial design. In the all-male authority condition, men and women performed equally (as measured by talking time and number of substantive content suggestions), but recognized only the men as leaders in postdiscussion evaluation questionnaires. In the all-female authority condition, men and women also performed equally, and, in addition, they also received equal leadership recognition. In the 2 mixed-authority conditions, men objectively outperformed women. The data show that recognition is not a direct function of performance for either sex but is influenced by the evaluators' expectations, which are partly defined by sex of authority role models in the social environment. (103 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are leader stereotypes masculine? A meta-analysis of three research paradigms.

This meta-analysis examined the extent to which stereotypes of leaders are culturally masculine. The primary studies fit into 1 of 3 paradigms: (a) In Schein's (1973) think manager–think male paradigm, 40 studies with 51 effect sizes compared the similarity of male and leader stereotypes and the similarity of female and leader stereotypes; (b) in Powell and Butterfield's (1979) agency–communion paradigm, 22 studies with 47 effect sizes compared stereotypes of leaders' agency and communion; and (c) in Shinar's (1975) masculinity–femininity paradigm, 7 studies with 101 effect sizes represented stereotypes of leadership-related occupations on a single masculinity–femininity dimension. Analyses implemented appropriate random and mixed effects models. All 3 paradigms demonstrated overall masculinity of leader stereotypes: (a) In the think manager–think male paradigm, intraclass correlation = .25 for the women–leaders similarity and intraclass correlation = .62 for the men–leaders similarity; (b) in the agency–communion paradigm, g = 1.55, indicating greater agency than communion; and (c) in the masculinity–femininity paradigm, g = 0.92, indicating greater masculinity than the androgynous scale midpoint. Subgroup and meta-regression analyses indicated that this masculine construal of leadership has decreased over time and was greater for male than female research participants. In addition, stereotypes portrayed leaders as less masculine in educational organizations than in other domains and in moderate- than in high-status leader roles. This article considers the relation of these findings to Eagly and Karau's (2002) role congruity theory, which proposed contextual influences on the incongruity between stereotypes of women and leaders. The implications for prejudice against women leaders are also considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal affect responses to male and female leaders: Implications for leadership evaluations.

It was hypothesized that female leaders would elicit more negative nonverbal affect responses from other group members than male leaders offering the same initiatives. Male and female subjects participated in 4-person discussions in which male or female confederates assumed leadership. During the discussion subjects' nonverbal affect responses to the confederates were coded from behind one-way mirrors. Female leaders received more negative affect responses and fewer positive responses than men offering the same suggestions and arguments. Female leaders received more negative than positive responses, in contrast to men, who received at least as many positive as negative responses. The data demonstrate a concrete social mechanism known to cause devaluation of leadership, and thus support a more social interpretation of female leadership evaluations, in contrast to previous interpretations based on private perceptual bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further effects of role versus gender on interpersonal sensitivity.

Past research has shown that, regardless of sex, those in a subordinate role are more sensitive to how their leaders feel about them than are the leaders sensitive to their subordinates, suggesting that the stereotypically greater sensitivity of women might be explained by their traditionally subordinate role to men. The present study further investigated this phenomenon, specifically in a boss–employee situation. A total of 120 Ss interacted in 96 pairs (male, female, and mixed-sex). Results revealed no significant sex differences but indicated that subordinates were more sensitive to how their leaders felt about them (the subordinates), and leaders were more sensitive to how their subordinates felt about themselves. Findings are discussed in relation to role requirements of leader and subordinate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agentic women and communal leadership: How role prescriptions confer advantage to top women leaders.

The authors contribute to the ongoing debate about the existence of a female leadership advantage by specifying contextual factors that moderate the likelihood of the emergence of such an advantage. The investigation considered whether the perceived role incongruence between the female gender role and the leader role led to a female leader disadvantage (as predicted by role congruity theory) or whether instead a female leader advantage would emerge (as predicted by double standards and stereotype content research). In Study 1, it was only when success was internally attributed that women top leaders were evaluated as more agentic and more communal than men top leaders. Study 2 showed that the favorable ratings were unique to top-level positions and further showed that the effect on agentic traits was mediated by perceptions of double standards, while the effect on communal traits was mediated by expectations of feminized management skills. Finally, Study 2 showed that top women leaders were evaluated most favorably on overall leader effectiveness, and this effect was mediated by both mediators. Our results support the existence of a qualified female leadership advantage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, motivation, and coping in the evaluation of leadership effectiveness.

Examined the effects of gender, coping, and motivational orientation in evaluating individual leadership. Ss were 17 female and 31 male graduate students in an intensive leadership development program at a leading business school. The Shanan Sentence Completion Technique, Jackson's Personality Research Form, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices were used to predict peer ratings of leadership at the end of the 9-mo program. The data reveal significant gender differences on the measures of motivation, with men showing higher levels of agentic instrumental tendencies and women exhibiting higher levels of communal-social qualities. These qualities, in turn were differentially correlated with evaluations of leadership. Women exhibiting strong agentic characteristics were negatively perceived as leaders. There was no relationship between agentic or communal qualities and evaluations of leadership received by male leaders. Finally, individuals with active coping tendencies were evaluated as more effective leaders for both genders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and social influence: A social psychological analysis.

Men and women are believed to differ in how influential and easily influenced they are: Men are thought to be more influential, and women more easily influenced. In natural settings, men and women tend to differ in these ways, but these differences stem largely from formal status inequalities by which men are more likely than women to have high-status roles. Status is important because of the legitimate authority vested in high-status roles. Within appropriate limits, people of higher status are believed to have the right to make demands of those of lower status, and people of lower status are expected to comply with these demands. Yet, small, stereotypic sex differences in leadership and social influence generally have been found in laboratory experiments and other small-group settings where men and women have equal formal status. These small sex differences may occur because experience with hierarchical social structures in which men have higher status creates expectancies about male and female behavior, and these expectancies affect social interaction in ways that foster behavior that confirms the expectancies. Sex differences that occur in the laboratory as well as natural settings may stem from social structural factors—namely, from the existing distributions of women and men into social roles. (77 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The contingent smile: A meta-analysis of sex differences in smiling.

The authors present a meta-analysis of sex differences in smiling based on 448 effect sizes derived from 162 research reports. There was a statistically significant tendency for women and adolescent girls to smile more than men and adolescent boys (d=0.41). The authors hypothesized that sex differences in smiling would be larger when concerns about gender-appropriate behavior were made more conspicuous, situational constraints were absent or ambiguous, or emotion (especially negative) was salient. It was also predicted that the size of the sex difference in smiling would vary by culture and age. Moderator analysis supported these predictions. Although men tend to smile less than women, the degree to which this is so is contingent on rules and roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Why can't a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in big five personality traits across 55 cultures": Correction to Schmitt et al. (2008).

Reports an error in "Why can't a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures" by David P. Schmitt, Anu Realo, Martin Voracek and Jüri Allik (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008[Jan], Vol 94[1], 168-182). Some of the sample sizes presented in Table 1 were incorrectly reported. The correct sample sizes are presented in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2007-19165-013.) Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of dispositional dominance and sex role expectations on leadership behaviors.

In a conceptual replication and extension of E. I. Megargee's (1969) investigation of the influence of sex roles on the expression of trait dominance, 40 same- and 40 mixed-sex dyads of undergraduates were asked to choose a leader and then to interact while performing a gender-neutral task. Ss were selected on the basis of scores on the California Personality Inventory Dominance scale. In each dyad, a high-dominant S was paired with a low-dominant S. Percentages of high-dominant Ss assuming the leadership role were similar to those obtained by Megargee: 73% in same-sex pairs, 90% in mixed-sex dyads in which the male was high dominant, and only 35% in mixed-sex dyads in which the female was high dominant. While performing the task, high-dominant female followers of low-dominant male leaders were generally more dominant in their behaviors than were low-dominant female followers of male leaders. They were also less satisfied than were the latter with their partner and with their position as follower. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)