Think manager – think male, think follower – think female: Gender bias in implicit followership theories.
Because of the overlap between the social roles of women and followers we predicted that people would favor female followers over male followers.To support this hypothesis, we conducted two studies: An explicit test of the bias using a scenario design and an implicit association test (IAT)-based study.Both studies show that the role of an ideal follower is more strongly associated with the female gender role, which seems to becaused partly by a more communal connotation of the follower role. This effect might contribute to the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions as they are perceived to be an ideal fit for followership positions; but it may also push men away from being followers and into leadership positions.
Veröffentlicht
Braun, S., Stegmann, S., Hernandez Bark, A., Junker, N.M., & Van Dick, R. (2017). Think manager – think male, think follower – think female: Gender bias in implicit followership theories. Journal of Applied Social Psychology , 47, 377-388. DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12445.