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Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice Toward Female Leaders

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A role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders proposes that perceived incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles leads to 2 forms of prejudice: (a) perceiving women less favorably than men as potential occupants of leadership roles and (b) evaluating behavior that fulfills the prescriptions of a leader role less favorably when it is enacted by a woman. (View Highlight)

Because women who are effective leaders tend to violate standards for their gender when they manifest male-stereotypical (…) they may be unfavorably evaluated for their gender role violation (…) A woman who fulfills a leader role may thus elicit negative reactions, even while she may also receive some positive evaluation for her fulfillment of this role. (View Highlight)

New highlights added 2023-02-25

yields an effective organizing framework for a very large number of empirical findings (View Highlight)

Gender Roles: Expectations About the Actual and Ideal Behavior ofWomen and Men (View Highlight)

  • Note: Descriptive and prescriptive norms as in the Madeline survey

the role incongruity principle allows for prejudice against male leaders, to the extent that there exist leader roles whose descriptive and injunctive content is predominantly feminine. Because leadership is generically masculine, such leader roles are rare, and ordinarily women but not men are vulnerable to role incongruity prejudice in relation to leadership. (View Highlight)

Conforming to their gender role would produce a failure to meet the requirements of their leader role, and conforming to their leader role would produce a failure to meet the requirements of their gender role. (View Highlight)

men often have a more masculine construal of leadership than do wome (View Highlight)

people who are in a small minority in a group on the basis of their sex attract more attention and in general are perceived more stereotypically (Kanter, 1977; Taylor & Fiske, 1978). Given (View Highlight)

adding communal features to leadership behavior, even though these are not required by the leader role, could allow women leaders to fulfill aspects of the female role (View Highlight)

New highlights added 2023-02-27

These two forms of disadvantage would produce the consequences that are demonstrated by the findings that we have presented in this article: (a) less favorable attitudes toward female than male leaders, (b) greater difficulty for women in attaining leadership roles, and (c) greater difficulty for women in being recognized as effective in these roles. (View Highlight)

Critics of the evidence we have provided might take the position that, given the small size of the prejudicial effects demonstrated in many of the meta-analyses and individual studies that we have cited, often accounting for between 1% and 5% of the variability, prejudice cannot explain the lack of women in high-level leadership positions (e.g., Arvey & Murphy, 1998; Latham, 1986). In concert with Martell (1999), we disagree with any such judgment and point out that small biases, when repeated over individuals and occasions, can produce large consequences. Using computer simulation, Martell, Lane, and Emrich (1996) demonstrated that a small bias against women of 1% of the variance in initial performance ratings produced senior management levels with only 35% women, and a 5% initial bias produced only 29% senior women. Martell (1999) subsequently showed that introducing a very small bias against women at each yearly review readily creates the tiny proportions of female senior executives that are typical of corporations. Slight prejudice that is consistently acted on greatly reduces women’s chances of rising to high-level positions in organizations (View Highlight)

Morrison, White, and Van Velsor (1987) noted the “narrow band of acceptable behavior” (p. 87) allowed for women leaders—behaviors that are somewhat feminine but not too feminine and somewhat masculine but not too masculine. (View Highlight)

the extent that women have internalized the traditional female gender role, they may be less attracted to leadership roles (Lips, 2000), especially top management positions, and therefore be less likely to strive for promotion into such positions (Van Vianen & Fischer, 2000). (View Highlight)

A lessening of the prejudice that is directed toward female leaders and potential leaders would require change in gender roles or leader roles or both. (View Highlight)

unfavorable reactions may dissipate at least partially when women complement their agentic repertoire with communal behaviors that are consistent with the female gender role, as long as these behaviors do not violate the relevant leadership role (View Highlight)

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