The Effect of Workplace Gender Composition on Investment Interest in Hypothetical Companies

The current study extends previous work on gendered workplace attitudes by manipulating the workplace gender composition (CEO gender, employee gender) of traditional male and female employment sectors. Participants reported general financial investment interest in purported male-role congruent (science laboratory) and female-role congruent (daycare) start-up companies, where CEO gender and employee gender were orthogonally manipulated. Participants had more favorable investment attitudes toward daycares when the CEO was a woman, and especially favorable investment attitudes when both the CEO and employees were women. These findings were stronger for participants higher in hostile sexism. For science laboratories, participants reported equivalent investment attitudes, regardless of CEO gender, as long as the employee gender composition matched the CEO gender (i.e., female CEO + female employees). These findings suggest that social role expectations influence investment attitudes in predictable ways for traditional female employment sectors, but in more nuanced ways for traditional male employment sectors.

How Personal and Social Selves Influence the Development of Children and Adolescents at School

Abstract. How do different aspects of students' self-relate to their development at school? In educational psychology, this question has been examined essentially only in terms of the influence of the ability self-concept, a central part of the personal self. Starting with a literature review on why and how the ability self-concept impacts motivation and student outcomes, we argue that social selves – learners' knowledge about their group memberships and associated evaluations – have an impact, too. Students are more intrinsically motivated and more successful if they experience fit between learning environment and important self-aspects. Accordingly, we suggest a model according to which students try to increase fit by exerting primary control, i. e., by proactively changing the environment, with the self as agent. To that end (i) they mentally project the self as different from the actual self, with the mental self-projection serving as a self-evaluative standard and motiving behaviors aiming at its attainment, (ii) they choose behavioral options that allow for the enactment of important self-aspects, (iii) they choose interaction partners who share important self-aspects or are supportive of their behavioral enactment, and (iv) they switch between or prioritize different values, to best match affordances and constraints of the learning environment. If a student repeatedly fails to achieve fit through primary control, secondary control strategies are deployed, i. e., internal processes aimed at minimizing losses and saving resources for the pursuit of more attainable goals. To that end, students either disidentify with the learning environment or redefine their selves in a reactive manner, with, in many cases, detrimental effects on their academic outcomes. We hope to inspire educational psychologists to more systematically investigate the different self-aspects' impact on social and academic development of learners at school.

The Effects of Invoking Stereotype Excuses on Perceivers’ Character Trait Inferences and Performance Attributions

Abstract. This investigation examined perceivers’ character trait inferences and performance attributions in response to a target who invoked a gender stereotype to excuse poor math performance. Furthermore, this investigation sought to compare the effects of this excuse to the effects produced by a non-stereotype excuses and the mere mention of a stereotype. Results revealed that invoking a gender stereotype excuse for poor math performance may elicit especially negative effects on perceptions of an excuse-maker’s: (a) overall character; (b) effectualness; (c) responsibility for the performance outcome; and (d) control over the performance outcome.