Gender Bias in Employment Contexts: A Closer Examination of the Role Incongruity Principle

This research extends the role incongruity analysis of employment-related gender bias by investigating the role of dispositional and situational antecedents, specifically political ideology and the salience of cues to the traditional female gender role. The prediction that conservatives would show an anti-female candidate bias and liberals would show a pro-female bias when the traditional female gender role is salient was tested across three experimental studies. In Study 1, 126 participants evaluated a male or a female job applicant with thoughts of the traditional female gender role activated or not. Results showed that when the gender role is salient, political ideology moderates evaluations of the female candidates such that conservatives evaluate her negatively and liberals evaluate her positively. Study 2 (89 participants) replicated this effect and showed that this political ideology-based bias does not occur when the non-traditional female gender role is made salient. Study 2 also demonstrated that the observed effects are not driven by liberals' and conservatives' differing perceptions regarding the female applicant's qualifications for the job. Finally, Study 3 (159 participants) both replicated the political ideology-based evaluation bias for female candidates and demonstrated that this bias is mediated by conservatives' and liberals' attitudes toward the roles of women in society. 3 GENDER BIAS AND ROLE INCONGRUITY Gender bias in employment contexts: A closer examination of the role incongruity principle Gender bias in workplace evaluations and hiring decisions is subtle yet pervasive (Heilman & Eagly, 2008). The prejudice experienced by women in employment contexts often stems from gender stereotypes and the perceived mismatch between these gender-based expectations and perceptions of what is required to effectively fulfill the job role (Eagly, 2004). Previous workplace discrimination research has highlighted the gender requirements of the job or the gendered aspects of the applicants to demonstrate the bias at the intersection of inconsistent beliefs regarding group member attributes and social role requirements. The present research extends this work by testing the prediction that situational cues that serve to highlight the mismatch, or incongruency, between gender roles and workplace roles will result in gender-biased responses. Specifically, this research examines whether biased responses can be elicited by situational cues making the traditional female gender role salient during employment-related decision-making episodes. Additionally, this research tests the proposition that reactions to the perceived incongruency between gender stereotypes and role requirements can vary as a function of the perceiver. Namely, people who believe in and support the status …