Gender Research in Spanish Psychology: An Overview for International Readers

Recruiters prefer expert recommendations over digital hiring algorithm: a choice-based conjoint study in a pre-employment screening scenario

Purpose

This study aims to analyze aspects of decision-making in recruitment. Using a choice-based conjoint (CBC) experiment with typified screening scenarios, it was analyzed what aspects will be more important for recruiters: the recommendation provided by a hiring algorithm or the recommendation of a human co-worker; gender of the candidate and of the recruiter was taken into account.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 135 recruitment professionals (67 female) completed a measure of sex roles and a set of 20 CBC trials on the hiring of a pharmacologist.

Findings

Participants were willing to accept a lower algorithm score if the level of the human recommendation was maximum, indicating a preference for the co-worker’s recommendation over that of the hiring algorithm. The biological sex of neither the candidate nor the participant influenced in the decision.

Research limitations/implications

Participants were presented with a fictitious scenario that did not involve real choices with real consequences. In a real-life setting, considerably more variables influence hiring decisions.

Practical implications

Results show that there are limits on the acceptance of technology based on artificial intelligence in the field of recruitment, which has relevance more broadly for the psychological correlates of the acceptance of the technology.

Originality/value

An additional value is the use of a methodological approach (CBC) with high ecological validity that may be useful in other psychological studies of decision-making in management.

Women’s and men’s role in culture of honor endorsement within families

In this article, we analyze the patterns of culture of honor within Spanish families. Each member of 271 Spanish four-member families (parents and two children each, total N = 1084) completed a questionnaire containing scales for the culture of honor and for sociodemographic variables (gender, order born and age). The results show that intra-family similarities emerge. However, path analyses show that the gender and birth order of the child are relevant in predicting this similarity. In particular, the first-born child converges with their mother to a higher extent than the father regardless of their gender. However, for the second-born child both parents instill their ideas about culture of honor in a gender congruent way (father–boy and mother–girl). Furthermore, there are higher similarities within younger families, indicating a stronger influence from parents to children. Results are discussed in view of social role and gender social learning theories.

Emotional Androgyny: A Preventive Factor of Psychosocial Risks at Work?

Although previous studies have acknowledged the connections between gender and emotional competences, more research is needed on how gender and emotion interact to influence psychosocial risks at work. This paper addresses how gender stereotypes and emotions simultaneously act as psychosocial antecedents of organizational stress. Following the principles of psychological androgyny, we propose that a combination of communion and agency can serve as a preventive factor at work and lead to healthier responses by providing a wider range of emotional competences to deal with organizational demands. Following previous methodological approaches, we include a quantitative review about scientific research on occupational health in the PsycINFO database during the period 1980-2017 from a multidimensional gender perspective that differentiates between studies addressing the topic from either sex, gender or gender identity dimensions. Finally, we propose new analytical directions to deal with psychosocial hazards at work by underscoring some of the complex ways in which gender and emotional competences influence psychosocial risks at work.

Too Masculine, Too Bad

This study challenges researchers and practitioners in the field of leadership to consider communion as a relevant variable for (male) leadership effectiveness. We suggest that communal traits influence the ability of male leaders to engender cooperation and that this effect is stronger in male-dominated contexts. We argue that this is because relevant traits and leadership behaviors that underscore a sense of community are associated with stereotypically feminine roles and identity. In a series of three studies, experimental as well as survey-based, using Spanish, Dutch, and American samples, we examined such gendered construction of male leadership and its effects on cooperation. Among others, results are discussed in terms of how stereotypically masculine constructions of male leadership may create barriers to effective leadership.