Rooting for Their Own Gender: Preschoolers' Selective Preference for Winners

Children's social preferences are influenced by the relative status of other individuals, but also by their social identity and the degree to which those individuals are like them. Previous studies have investigated these aspects separately and showed that in some circumstances children prefer high-status individuals and own-gender individuals. Gender is a particularly interesting case to study because it is a strong dimension of social identity, but also one of the most prevalent forms of social hierarchy, with males conceptualised as superior to females, by adults and children alike. Here we directly asked how children's social preferences are influenced by status (winner or loser of a zero-sum conflict) and winner gender (female or male) in different scenarios (same or mixed-gender). In Experiment 1, children saw same-gender conflicts between two females or two males and they displayed an overall preference for winners. In Experiment 2, participants watched two mixed-gender conflicts, one where the female prevailed and one where the male prevailed. In this case, children chose the winner, but only when they had the same gender as themselves. Experiment 3 confirmed that children preferred own-gender individuals in the absence of conflict or status. Overall, children are sensitive to the relative status of other individuals and use this information to make social decisions. However, preschoolers do not prefer just any individual who wins access to a resource. They preferred dominant individuals, but only when they were of their own gender. This suggests that children's dominance evaluations are modulated by children's social identity.

Examining how a documentary film can serve as an intervention to shift attitudes and behaviours around sexism in STEM

"Picture a Scientist," a documentary featuring stories and research about bias in STEM, reached a large international audience. Yet, the extent to which this type of engaging media can impact gender bias remains unclear. In a unique collaboration between film creators and researchers, the current large-scale field studies explored whether "Picture a Scientist" functioned as an intervention and persuasive message targeting sexism in STEM. Study 1 found viewers who indicated more knowledge and stronger emotions, perspective-taking, and transportation after the film were more inspired to continue learning sexism in STEM and combating unfair treatment, suggesting the documentary engaged both classic and narrative persuasion processes. Employing a quasi-experimental design, Study 2 demonstrated that compared to those who had not watched the film (but intended to), participants who had viewed the film indicated higher awareness of gender bias, stronger intentions to address this bias, and participants in leadership reported stronger intentions to enact inclusive policies (for example, making it easier to report mistreatment). Our findings suggest that the use of this documentary may be a relatively low-cost and easily scalable online intervention, particularly when organizations lack resources for in-person workshops. These studies can help inform organizational trainings using this or similar documentaries.

Gendered Corruption: People's Reactions to Victims of Monetary Versus Sexual Extortion

This research addresses the important issue of the connection between corruption and gender-based violence, an area that has gained increasing attention in recent years. It provides a new perspective by comparing the perception of victims of monetary corruption versus sexual corruption. Through an experimental study, we exposed participants to a fictitious scenario in which they witnessed an event of sex-based (vs. money-based) extortion. The results showed that the victims' decision to cave into the extortion (both money or sex-based) led to higher feelings of moral outrage and blame toward them, and a weaker moral perception. Moreover, victims were considered less moral and more prone to reputational damage when described as caving into sex-based (vs. money-based) extortion. Finally, a moderated mediation model showed that the reputational damage suffered by the woman also significantly mediated the relation between the decision to cave into the extortion and the helping intentions toward her, but only when the corruption involved sexual payment. These findings provide insights into the perception of victims of both money-based and sex-based extortion, highlighting the significant role of reputational damage and stigma in the context of sextortion.

Beyond the Question: Reexamining a Parent's Unusual Request

Pediatricians sometimes think about medical ethics as the field of determining right and wrong in in answering difficult moral questions that occur at the bedside. But an emphasis on rapidly determining right and wrong when faced with ethical dilemmas can lead clinicians to miss important issues underlying both the question and their approach to answering it. We argue that ethical reflection is not merely a process of getting to the right answer but also a way to probe beyond the original question to better understand the stakeholders' perspectives and priorities. In this Ethics Rounds, we present the case of an infant born at 23 weeks' gestation who initially faced numerous complications of prematurity, but has progressed beyond acute critical illness. His father requests a transition to palliative care at a point this option would not typically be offered. The straightforward response to this father's request is "no." However, we reexamine the father's request from the perspective of a neonatologist, a clinical ethicist, and a conflict mediator. Why is the father making this request? Why do clinicians feel rushed to respond? The authors discuss how elements of surprise and implicit biases can push clinicians to hasty answers. We introduce tools used in clinical ethics consultation and conflict mediation that can facilitate alternative responses from the clinical team. Employing the "Ladder of Inference," ascertaining the "View from Everywhere," and differentiating positions from interests can help clinicians explore the context of ethical questions and lead to more fruitful resolutions.

"Cat Ladies" and "Mama's Boys": A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Gendered Discrimination and Stereotypes of Single Women and Single Men

Do single women and single men differ in their experiences of "singlism"? This mixed-methods research examined whether single women and single men report quantitative differences in amounts of singlehood-based discrimination and explored qualitative reports of stereotypic traits associated with single women and single men. We recruited Canadian and American single adults across two Prolific studies (total N = 286). The results demonstrated that single female and male participants did not differ in their personal discrimination, but female participants perceived single women to experience more discrimination than single men. Furthermore, qualitative analyses revealed four overlapping "archetypes" of single women and men including: Professional ("independent," "hard-working"), Carefree ("free," "fun"), Heartless ("selfish," "promiscuous"), and Loner ("lonely," "antisocial"). Overall, single women and men may experience similar stereotypes and discrimination, but there are also important nuances that highlight the need for more research at the intersection of gender and singlehood.

Status foe: a psychobiographical investigation of Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) led an extraordinary life as a journalist, educator, and activist while navigating the intersecting social realities of race, gender, and class. She embodied courage, advocating for the civil rights of Black Americans in an uncompromising fashion.Building on decades of research in social psychology, sociologist Cecilia L. Ridgeway presents (2019) a cultural schema theory of status. She contends that issues of status in interpersonal contexts are an unavoidable aspect of the human condition. Despite the ubiquity of status as a sociocultural force, Ridgeway believes that status hierarchies may be undermined.The present study is a psychobiographical exploration of Wells through the lens of Ridgeway's status theory. It explores: the development of Wells' cultural schemas; how Wells navigated her own status; the inter-relationship between Wells and her sociocultural context; and how Wells undermined and overcame status hierarchies.

Why We Should Stop Trying to Fix Women: How Context Shapes and Constrains Women's Career Trajectories

In this review we examine two classes of interventions designed to achieve workplace gender equality: (a) those designed to boost motivations and ambition, such as those that aim to attract more women into roles where they are underrepresented; and (b) those that try to provide women with needed abilities to achieve these positions. While such initiatives are generally well meaning, they tend to be based upon (and reinforce) stereotypes of what women lack. Such a deficit model leads to interventions that attempt to "fix" women rather than address the structural factors that are the root of gender inequalities. We provide a critical appraisal of the literature to establish an evidence base for why fixing women is unlikely to be successful. As an alternative, we focus on understanding how organizational context and culture maintain these inequalities by looking at how they shape and constrain (a) women's motivations and ambitions, and (b) the expression and interpretation of their skills and attributes. In doing so, we seek to shift the interventional focus from women themselves to the systems and structures in which they are embedded.

Gender Inequity in the Clinical Setting

Women in surgery continue to face inequitable treatment from surgical leadership, their peers, hospital staff, and even from their patients. Despite this, women surgeons continue to produce equal, or improved, clinical outcomes for their patients, with their work being given less remuneration than that of their male peers. The cultural stereotypes and biases that drive these inequities are implicit and subtle; however, they have dramatic effects on the lives and careers of women surgeons.

Investigation of the Causes of Negative Attitudes towards Women Incompatible with Gender Stereotypes within the Context of Social Identity Theory

The primary gender stereotypes accepted in mainstream social psychology describe women as low in competence and high in warmth, men as having low warmth and high competence. Women who are incompatible with stereotypes are exposed to negative attitudes. Exposure to negative attitudes damages the psychological well-being of these group members. Stereotypes and negative attitudes towards members of social groups contribute to the persistence of their low status. Explaining the causes of gender stereotypes and negative attitudes towards women incompatible with stereotypes is an overlooked topic in mainstream social psychology. In order to change the ongoing gender system, where women have a disadvantageous status compared to men, it is necessary to understand the reasons for negative attitudes towards women who are incompatible with stereotypes. Based on the suggestions and findings of Social Identity Theory, explanations about negative attitudes towards women who are incompatible with gender stereotypes are presented in this study. It is concluded that most men reveal negative attitudes towards these women because women with high competency threaten men who can affirm their social identity through competency. Most men define their social identity through status-related traits such as competency. Due to the threat to men's social identity by women with high competence, it is concluded that negative attitudes towards these women are revealed by most of the men, based on theoretical suggestions. It is necessary to understand the identity management strategies to explain women's negative attitudes towards their fellows who are incompatible with stereotypes. According to the theoretical suggestions and related studies, it is concluded that the adoption of individual mobility and social creativity strategies reveal negative attitudes toward fellows who are incompatible with stereotypes. Although it is expected that women who adopt the social competition strategy have positive attitudes towards their fellows who are inconsistent with gender stereotypes, the level of adoption of this strategy is low. When theoretical suggestions and study findings are brought together, it is possible to understand the reasons for the negative attitudes towards women who are incompatible with gender stereotypes.

Gender Backlash and the Moderating Role of Shared Racial Group Membership

Research suggests that White women often experience more gender backlash than women of color in response to expressions of agency. We consider whether this differential in backlash is driven by the match or mismatch of the race of both perceivers and targets. Much of the existing work in this space examines the perspective of White perceivers, which might underestimate racial minority women's susceptibility to backlash if backlash occurs primarily in same-race interactions. We examine how the racial group memberships of targets and perceivers jointly affect backlash against gender-norm violating women. In analyses of Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford's accusations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh and Anita Hill's accusations against Clarence Thomas during their respective U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, an archival analysis of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and two experiments, we find that perceivers of different races tend to express more backlash toward racial in-group than out-group women.

Twitter misogyny associated with Hillary Clinton increased throughout the 2016 U.S. election campaign

Online misogyny has become a fixture in female politicians' lives. Backlash theory suggests that it may represent a threat response prompted by female politicians' counterstereotypical, power-seeking behaviors. We investigated this hypothesis by analyzing Twitter references to Hillary Clinton before, during, and after her presidential campaign. We collected a corpus of over 9 million tweets from 2014 to 2018 that referred to Hillary Clinton, and employed an interrupted time series analysis on the relative frequency of misogynistic language within the corpus. Prior to 2015, the level of misogyny associated with Clinton decreased over time, but this trend reversed when she announced her presidential campaign. During the campaign, misogyny steadily increased and only plateaued after the election, when the threat of her electoral success had subsided. These findings are consistent with the notion that online misogyny towards female political nominees is a form of backlash prompted by their ambition for power in the political arena.

Sure you are ready? Gendered arguments in recruitment for high-status positions in male-dominated fields

Recruitment contexts such as STEM professorships promote clearly defined selection criteria and objective assessment. We illuminate in these contexts, the subjective interpretation of seemingly objective criteria and gendered arguments in discussions of applicants. Additionally, we explore gender bias despite comparable applicant profiles investigating how specific success factors lead to selection recommendations for male and female applicants. Implementing a mixed methods approach, we aim to highlight the influence of heuristics, stereotyping, and signaling in applicant assessments. We interviewed 45 STEM professors. They answered qualitative open-ended interview questions, and evaluated hypothetical applicant profiles, qualitatively and quantitatively. The applicant profiles enabled a conjoint experiment with different applicant attributes varied across the profiles (i.e., publications, willingness to cooperate, network recommendation, and applicant gender), the interviewees indicating scores of selection recommendation while thinking aloud. Our findings reveal gendered arguments, i.e., questioning women potentially fueled by a perception of women's exceptional status and perceived self-questioning of women. Furthermore, they point to gender-independent and gender-dependent success patterns, thereby to potential success factors particularly for female applicants. We contextualize and interpret our quantitative findings in light of professors' qualitative statements.

Gender dynamics on Twitter during the 2020 U.S. Democratic presidential primary

The Twitter social network for each of the top five U.S. Democratic presidential candidates in 2020 was analyzed to determine if there were any differences in the treatment of the candidates. This data set was collected from discussions of the presidential primary between December 2019 through April 2020. It was then separated into five sets,  one for each candidate. We found that the most discussed candidates, President Biden and Senator Sanders, received by far the most engagement from verified users and news agencies even before the Iowa caucuses, which was ultimately won by Mayor Buttigieg. The most popular candidates were also generally targeted more frequently by bots, trolls, and other aggressive users. However, the abusive language targeting the top two female candidates, Senators Warren and Klobuchar, included slightly more gendered and sexist language compared with the other candidates. Additionally, sexist slurs that ordinarily describe women were used more frequently than male slurs in all candidate data sets. Our results indicate that there may still be an undercurrent of sexist stereotypes permeating the social media conversation surrounding female U.S. presidential candidates.

Viewing entrepreneurship through a goal congruity lens: The roles of dominance and communal goal orientations in women's and men's venture interests

The objective of this research was to examine gender differences in entrepreneurial venture interests drawing on goal congruity theory, which posits that people adopt gender-stereotypic goal orientations in response to social pressures to conform to traditional gender roles. Aspiring entrepreneurs (N = 351) first wrote about what they believed made an entrepreneur successful. They then completed measures of agentic and communal goal orientations (i.e., male and female stereotypic orientations, respectively) and indicated their interests in starting ventures in stereotypically feminine (e.g., salon), masculine (e.g., auto-repair) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; e.g., software developer) ventures. Analysis of open-ended responses demonstrated that participants ascribed more agentic and, specifically, more dominance attributes to entrepreneurs than communal attributes (e.g., warmth). Bifactor structural equation modeling indicated that, as expected, agentic goal orientations included dimensions of competence, self-direction, and dominance orientations; communal goal orientations were unidimensional. Further, as expected, dominance and communal orientations partially accounted for gender differences in all three career types. We discuss implications for entrepreneurial education and practice from a goal congruity perspective and the use of bifactor modeling to improve the measurement of goal orientations.

Stereotypes as prototypes in children's gender concepts

How do gender stereotypes shape prototypes across development? In the current pre-registered study with children ages 3- to 10-years-old and adults (N = 257), participants made judgements about which members of gender categories (boys and girls) and animal categories (for comparison) were the most representative and informative about their kinds, using simplified scales of five category members varying on a stereotypical feature (e.g., girls wearing more or less pink). Young children chose boys and girls with extreme stereotypical features (e.g., the girl in head-to-toe pink) as both representative and informative of their categories and this tendency declined with age, similar to developmental patterns in prototypes of animal categories. Controlling for age, children whose parents reported more conservative social-political views also held more extreme gender (but not animal) prototypes. Thus, stereotypes play a central role in children's gender prototypes, especially young children and those living in socially-conservative households. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Stereotypes play a central role in children's gender prototypes, especially young children and those in socially-conservative households. Children ages 3-10 and adults chose which girls, boys, and animals were most representative and informative. Younger children chose category members with more extreme stereotypical features (e.g., the girl in head-to-toe pink) than older children and adults. Children with more conservative parents also held more extreme gender prototypes.

Our Grandmothers' Legacy: Challenges Faced by Female Ancestors Leave Traces in Modern Women's Same-Sex Relationships

Investigations of women's same-sex relationships present a paradoxical pattern, with women generally disliking competition, yet also exhibiting signs of intrasexual rivalry. The current article leverages the historical challenges faced by female ancestors to understand modern women's same-sex relationships. Across history, women were largely denied independent access to resources, often depending on male partners' provisioning to support themselves and their children. Same-sex peers thus became women's primary romantic rivals in competing to attract and retain relationships with the limited partners able and willing to invest. Modern women show signs of this competition, disliking and aggressing against those who threaten their romantic prospects, targeting especially physically attractive and sexually uninhibited peers. However, women also rely on one another for aid, information, and support. As most social groups were patrilocal across history, upon marriage, women left their families to reside with their husbands. Female ancestors likely used reciprocal altruism or mutualism to facilitate cooperative relationships with nearby unrelated women. To sustain these mutually beneficial cooperative exchange relationships, women may avoid competitive and status-striving peers, instead preferring kind, humble, and loyal allies. Ancestral women who managed to simultaneously compete for romantic partners while forming cooperative female friendships would have been especially successful. Women may therefore have developed strategies to achieve both competitive and cooperative goals, such as guising their intrasexual competition as prosociality or vulnerability. These historical challenges make sense of the seemingly paradoxical pattern of female aversion to competition, relational aggression, and valuation of loyal friends, offering insight into possible opportunities for intervention.

The role of sexual orientation and the perceived threat posed by men in the acceptance of sexism

We aimed at examining the differences between straight (N = 583) and gay (N = 112) people in terms of the acceptance of ambivalent sexist attitudes not only toward women (ASI) but also toward men (AMI) and how the level of perceived threat posed by men (Realistic Threat Scale) influences these attitudes' acceptance. The study results showed that gay men endorsed hostile sexism at the same level as straight men, while lesbian women were more hostile toward men than straight women. In this study, gay people manifested significantly lower levels of benevolent (sexist) attitudes toward both genders than straight people. While a positive relationship was identified between the perceived threat posed by men and hostility toward men, there was a reciprocal correlation in the case of hostile sexism. Men who recognized the threat men can pose to women were less accepting of hostile sexism and more accepting of hostile attitudes toward their own gender group. Moreover, straight men who recognized this threat endorsed less benevolent attitudes toward their own gender group than those who failed to admit it. Our results showed that heterosexual interdependence and recognizing the threat posed by men highly influence the extent to which hostile and benevolent (sexist) attitudes toward women and men are accepted or rejected. The implications and practical relevance of our study are also discussed.

Leader gender, country culture, and the management of COVID-19

As early as two months into the COVID-19 pandemic, popular media started reporting that women leaders, compared to men leaders, were managing COVID-19 better. This paper empirically examines the impact of women leaders in managing pandemic health outcomes one year after the onset of the pandemic. Further, we consider leader effectiveness within the context of country culture. We find that women's leadership is indeed associated with better containment of the pandemic. We also find that certain country-level cultural traits play a significant role in pandemic outcomes. More hierarchical societies experience higher COVID-19 cases and death. Individualistic cultures and masculine cultures are associated with more deaths from the pandemic. Some cultural traits modulate women's ability to manage COVID-19. Our findings have implications for health policy and provide rationale for promoting gender equity in political leadership.

Establishing the content of gender stereotypes across development

Gender stereotypes shape individuals’ behaviors, expectations, and perceptions of others. However, little is known about the content of gender stereotypes about people of different ages (e.g., do gender stereotypes about 1-year-olds differ from those about older individuals?). In our pre-registered study, 4,598 adults rated either the typicality of characteristics (to assess descriptive stereotypes), or the desirability of characteristics (to assess prescriptive and proscriptive stereotypes) for targets who differed in gender and age. Between-subjects, we manipulated target gender (boy/man vs. girl/woman) and target age (1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, or 35). From this, we generated a normed list of descriptive, prescriptive, and proscriptive gender-stereotyped characteristics about people across the early developmental timespan. We make this archive, as well as our raw data, available to other researchers. We also present preliminary findings, demonstrating that some characteristics are consistently ungendered (e.g., challenges authority), others are gender-stereotypic across the early developmental timespan (e.g., males from age 1 to 35 tend to be dirty), and still others change over development (e.g., girls should be submissive, but only around age 10). Implications for gender stereotyping theory—as well as targets of gender stereotyping, across the lifespan—are discussed.

Understanding Evaluations of Kamala Harris in 2020: Political Ideology Qualifies Perceived Communality Effects when Communal Cues are Present

Women of color (vs. White women) are underrepresented in the United States government. Identifying factors that affect evaluations of these women is important to understand their underrepresentation. Deviating from communal expectations contributes to backlash against women. Being perceived as prioritizing communality thus appears key for women to receive support. Little work, however, has examined this relation in actual politicians and how perceiver political ideology may affect it. We examined how gendered trait inferences and political ideology affected evaluations of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color elected to the executive branch, before the 2020 election. People perceived Harris as more agentic than communal (Studies 1–2). Communal trait inferences and having a more liberal political ideology each positively related to evaluations of Harris. More liberal relative to more conservative perceivers had weaker positive communality effects when evaluating her expected success (Studies 1–2) and when a description conveyed Harris’s communality (vs. agency; Study 2). These findings highlight communality effects on evaluations of Harris and suggest a context under which she was likely more supported by co-partisans. Moreover, these studies identify potential sources of bias toward female candidates of color, illustrating a need for gendered trait inferences to be thoroughly considered in campaign strategies. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843221104383 .

Gender Differences in the Perceived Behavior of Narcissistic Leaders

Although narcissists often emerge as leaders, the relationship between leader narcissism and follower performance is ambiguous and often even found to be negative. For women, narcissism seems especially likely to lead to negative evaluations. Since narcissists have the tendency to be impulsive and change their minds on a whim, they may come across as inconsistent. We propose "inconsistent leader behavior" as a new mechanism in the relationship between leader narcissism and follower performance and argue that leader gender plays an important role in whether narcissistic leaders are perceived as inconsistent. Specifically, we expect leader narcissism to have a negative relationship with follower performance through perceived inconsistent leader behavior, especially for female leaders. Thus, we examine leader gender as a personal factor moderating the relationship between narcissism and perceived inconsistent behavior. Also, as perceived inconsistency is likely less problematic when a good relationship exists, we examine leader-member exchange (LMX) as a contextual condition moderating the relationship between leader behavior and follower performance. We test our moderated mediation model in a multi-source study with 165 unique leader-follower dyads. As expected, leader narcissism was positively related to perceived inconsistent leader behavior, and this relationship was stronger for female leaders. Inconsistent leader behavior was negatively related to follower performance, but only when LMX was low. Our research highlights that perceived behavioral inconsistency can be problematic and-for female leaders-provides an explanation of the negative relation of leader narcissism with follower performance and of the inconsistencies in evaluations of narcissistic leaders' effectiveness.

Pragmatic bias impedes women's access to political leadership

Women remain underrepresented in political leadership in the United States and beyond. While abundant research has studied the possible impact of gender stereotypes on support for women candidates, our research finds that voters also withhold support for women candidates because they perceive practical barriers to women successfully attaining political leadership positions. We find that providing Democratic primary voters with evidence that women earn as much electoral support as men in US general elections increased intentions to vote for women candidates. Our results suggest that women face complex barriers that prevent gender equity in politics, and these barriers can be reduced when voters believe that Americans not only want but also will take action to support women candidates.

Progress toward gender equality is thwarted by the underrepresentation of women in political leadership, even as most Americans report they would vote for women candidates. Here, we hypothesize that women candidates are often disadvantaged by pragmatic bias, a tendency to withhold support for members of groups for whom success is perceived to be difficult or impossible to achieve. Across six studies (N = 7,895), we test whether pragmatic bias impedes women’s access to a highly significant political leadership position—the US presidency. In two surveys, 2020 Democratic primary voters perceived women candidates to be less electable, and these beliefs were correlated with lower intentions to vote for women candidates (Studies 1 and 2). Voters identified many reasons women would be less electable than men, including others’ unwillingness to vote for women, biased media coverage, and higher requirements to prove themselves. We next tested interventions to reduce pragmatic bias. Merely correcting misperceptions of Americans’ reported readiness for a woman president did not increase intentions to vote for a woman (Study 3). However, across three experiments (including one preregistered on a nationally representative sample), presenting evidence that women earn as much support as men in US general elections increased Democratic primary voters’ intentions to vote for women presidential candidates, an effect driven by heightened perceptions of these candidates’ electability (Studies 4 to 6). These findings highlight that social change efforts can be thwarted by people’s sense of what is possible, but this may be overcome by credibly signaling others’ willingness to act collectively.

Mean girls, queen bees and iron maidens? Female leadership and accusations of workplace bullying

We examined whether female leaders would be evaluated less favorably compared to male leaders regarding workplace bullying. Previous research has demonstrated that women violating prescriptive gender norms of communality experience backlash, and that female leaders are stereotyped of having a communality deficit. Building on that, we hypothesized (1) more moral outrage against and (2) more intentions to punish a female leader compared to a male leader. We further hypothesized (3) the accusations of workplace bullying against a female leader were going to be judged as more accurate than against a male leader. Further, defendants that stereotypically fit to the crime they are accused of were found to be judged guilty more often. So, we assumed, (4) a suspected bully that is a female leader was going to be judged as less credible, while (2) the suspected victim of a female leader bully was going to be judged as more credible compared to a male leader. Participants (N = 202) read a workplace bullying scenario with a female employee accusing either a female or a male leader of bullying. No effect of gender of suspected bully was found for moral outrage measures, punishment intention judgments, and credibility judgments. Contrary to our predictions, participants found the accusations against the male leader significantly more accurate than against the female leader. Gender and sex-role scores of participants were found to be linked to judgments. Implications for future research are discussed.

How gender shapes interprofessional teamwork in the operating room: a qualitative secondary analysis

BACKGROUND

Despite substantial implications for healthcare provider practice and patient outcomes, gender has yet to be systematically explored with regard to interprofessional operating room (OR) teamwork. We aimed to explore and describe how gender and additional social identity factors shape experiences and perceptions of teamwork in the OR.

METHODS

This study was a qualitative secondary analysis of semi-structured interviews with OR team members conducted between November 2018 and July 2019. Participants were recruited across hospitals in Ontario, Canada. We conducted both purposive and snowball sampling until data saturation was reached. Transcripts were analyzed thematically by two independent research team members, moving from open to axial coding.

RESULTS

Sixty-six interviews of OR healthcare professionals were completed: anesthesia (n=17), nursing (n=19), perfusion (n=2), and surgery (n=26). Traditional gender roles, norms, and stereotypes were perceived and experienced by both women and men, but with different consequences. Both women and men participants described challenges that women face in the OR, such as being perceived negatively for displaying leadership behaviours. Participants also reported that interactions and behaviours vary depending on the team gender composition, and that other social identities, such as age and race, often interact with gender. Nevertheless, participants indicated a belief that the influence of gender in the OR may be modified.

CONCLUSIONS

The highly gendered reality of the OR creates an environment conducive to breakdowns in communuication and patient safety risks in addition to diminishing team morale, psychological safety, and provider well-being. Consequently, until teamwork interventions adequately account for gender, they are unlikely to be optimally effective or sustainable.

Facial Prominence of Political Candidates: Gender Differences in Private and Public Pages on Facebook Profile

The face of a person is an important source of communication and information especially for politicians who are continuously portrayed through media. Voters may use this information to form an impression about the candidates and several inferences may be drawn. Within this frame, research has largely investigated gender differences. One line of research has focused on the facial prominence of people portrayed in pictures, describing a tendency to portray men with a higher face prominence as compared to women. This bias has been defined as the face-ism effect and it has a key influence on the perception of dominance, competence, intelligence, and ambition of the portrayed individuals. Several studies in recent years analyzed the differences between the self-representation of men and women in social media, but no study specifically focused on politicians directly comparing two different types of profiles: private vs. public. In two studies, we analyzed differences in face-ism index comparing male and female politicians both for pictures posted in private and public Facebook accounts. In Study 1 results showed that no difference emerged between men and women engaged in politics when considering public pages; however, when private profiles are analyzed, women displayed a higher face-ism index than their male counterparts. Study 2 partially confirmed results from Study 1 considering Italian politicians. Overall, current results showed a different pattern as compared to previous studies suggesting an increase in perceived agency and dominance for female candidates, particularly emphasized in their private profiles.

Stigmatization of Voluntarily Childfree Women and Men in the UK

Abstract. People who choose not to have children may face negative social judgment. Using a UK sample, Study 1 ( N = 199) successfully replicated Ashburn-Nardo’s (2017) finding that childfree targets are perceived as less psychologically fulfilled than targets with children. The effect, however, appeared limited to expected decision regret rather than general fulfillment, which was later confirmed in Study 2 ( N = 329). In contrast to Ashburn-Nardo , our results did not indicate that moral outrage mediates the effect (Study 1), but exploratory findings suggested that perceivers who intend to have children of their own perceive the childfree as morally inferior and less likable (Study 2). Participants’ endorsement of conservative values was not consistently related to negative perceptions of childfree targets.

Categories convey prescriptive information across domains and development

Young children display a pervasive bias to assume that what they observe in the world reflects how things are supposed to be. The current studies examined the nature of this bias by testing whether it reflects a particular form of reasoning about human social behaviors or a more general feature of category representations. Children aged 4 to 9 years and adults (N = 747) evaluated instances of nonconformity among members of novel biological and human social kinds. Children held prescriptive expectations for both animal and human categories; in both cases, they said it was wrong for a category member to engage in category-atypical behavior. These prescriptive judgments about categories depended on the extent to which people saw the pictured individual examples as representative of coherent categories. Thus, early prescriptive judgments appear to rely on the interplay between general conceptual biases and domain-specific beliefs about category structure.

The Voice Gives It Away

Abstract. Two experiments examined the impact of voice pitch on gender stereotyping. Participants listened to a text read by a female (Study 1; N = 171) or male (Study 2, N = 151) speaker, whose voice pitch was manipulated to be high or low. They rated the speaker on positive and negative facets of masculinity and femininity, competence, and likability. They also indicated their own gendered self-concept. High pitch was associated with the ascription of more feminine traits and greater likability. The high-pitch female speaker was rated as less competent, and the high-pitch male speaker was perceived as less masculine. Text content and participants’ gendered self-concept did not moderate the pitch effect. The findings underline the importance of voice pitch for impression formation.

Individual variation in role construal predicts responses to third-party biases in hiring contexts

We theorize that individuals’ pre-existing beliefs about the hiring manager role (role construal) are associated with their tendency to condone bias accommodation in hiring contexts, in which a person aligns hiring decisions with the perceived biases of others. In two studies, we focus on human resources (HR) professionals’ endorsement of the role demand to prioritize candidate fit with others (e.g., supervisor) when making hiring decisions. Study 1 examined bias accommodation from a vicarious perspective, revealing that role demand endorsement is positively associated with viewing it as acceptable and common for another hiring manager to accommodate third-party bias against women. Study 2 examined bias accommodation experimentally from an actor’s perspective, showing lower preference for and selection of a female (vs. male) job candidate in the presence of cues to third-party bias against women, but only when role demand endorsement is relatively high. HR professionals in both studies indicated that third-party bias influences in hiring are relatively common. Responses in Study 2 provide preliminary evidence that the phenomenon of third-party bias accommodation might be relevant in the context of employment discrimination based on group characteristics other than gender (e.g., race/ethnicity, age). We discuss the practical implications of our findings for hiring professionals and for organizations seeking to increase diversity in their workforce.

When jurors' moral judgments result in jury nullification: moral outrage at the law as a mediator of euthanasia attitudes on verdicts

In a mock-trial study, jurors read evidence about a doctor who had killed a terminally ill patient at the patient's request. We tested whether instructing jurors about jury nullification (ie jurors' power to return a not-guilty verdict even when legal guilt is beyond doubt, often because the law would result in unjust convictions) would exacerbate the effect of pre-trial euthanasia attitudes on their verdicts - compared to standard, pattern jury instructions. We also hypothesized that anti-euthanasia pre-trial attitudes would result in moral outrage at the defendant and higher conviction rates, but pro-euthanasia attitudes would prompt feelings of moral outrage at the law and lower conviction rates. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that nullification instructions bolstered the effect of attitudes on verdicts by encouraging jurors to rely on their feelings of moral outrage toward the defendant. Jurors' moral outrage toward the law mediated the effect of attitudes on verdicts regardless of nullification instructions.