Laura Heijnen – Organisational Psychology: Performance at Work
Problem 8. Gender differences in the workplace
How and why do gender differences and female underrepresentation exist in
the workplace? Are there differences between professions?
ü Browne (2006) – Evolved sex differences and occupational segregation
Introduction
- Last century mostly behaviourism (nurture): no inheritance à humans capacity of
culture, which is largely arbitrary + actually defined by culture itself. Capable of
absorbing + no intrinsic nature.
- Natural scientists: structural + functional comparisons of humans + non-human
primates. Natural selection à human is product of evaluation à applied to
organisational psychology.
- Also evolutionary psychology à idea that human mind is sexually dimorphic: sexes
differ in temperamental + cognitive traits à effect on social behaviour + patterns
(e.g., in workplace).
- Theory of work adjustment: optimal match between individual’s abilities/values +
occupation’s demands/rewards.
- Discussion: average gender differences OR unequal opportunities (= demand problem)
explaining variability in gender workplace choices
The sexually dimorphic mind
- Competitiveness, dominance + status-striving:
o Competition higher + more positive males. Men behaving more competitively.
Competition increases intrinsic motivation for males, not females. Improved
performance men, not for women. Women more stress, having different
means + end.
o Men engage more in dominant behaviours: intended to achieve/maintain
position of high relative status = obtaining power/influence/resources. Women
showing ‘prosocial’ dominance (= acts to maintain social relationship), men
‘egoistic’ dominance (= acts to increase status in social group). Men endorse
ideologies approving hierarchical relationships between social groups.
- Risk-taking:
o Men greater (non-)physical risk preference, disproportionately involved in risky
recreational activities (e.g., car racing, sky diving) à sex most predictive
variable for risk recreation.
o Men overrepresented in physically risky employment (90% workplace deaths).
o Risk-taking correlated with other male traits: high achievement + dominance;
negatively correlated with feminine traits: affiliation, nurturance + deference.
o Females more averse to physical + social risk à responsible for differences in
achievement-orientation. Greater risk aversion women à less involved in
career risk = more in ‘staff’ jobs (HR, corporate communications), rather than
‘line’ jobs (running a plant/division), because may affect prospects for
advancement.
- Nurturance + interest in children:
o Females more nurturing behaviours cross-culturally, inside + outside family,
primary caretakers, more person-oriented (men more object-oriented).
1
, Laura Heijnen – Organisational Psychology: Performance at Work
o Women’s self-identity + self-esteem centred on sensitivity + relations others;
men centred on task performance, skills, independence + superiority.
- Spatial ability: men better, especially on 3D rotation à effect sizes around/above 1.0.
Females better on spatial ‘object location’ = remembering where object located.
- Mathematical ability:
o Men better, especially abstract thinking. Women better (in smaller margins) in
arithmetic calculation à difference small in broad samples (males more
variable performance + larger effect sizes in more select samples).
o Females better computation.
- Mechanical ability: effect sizes around/above 1.0, with men being better (Air Force
Officer Qualification Test, Differential Aptitude Test).
- Verbal ability: females better in spelling, grammar + verbal memory (= even more
advantage than men in math ability in broad samples). Select samples =
declination/disappearance of female advantage, because greater male variability
(outscoring women on verbal SAT).
Sex differences in evolutionary perspective
- Men + women same driving forces of nature/evolution à are still divergent because
of pressures relating to mating + reproduction = different reproductive strategies =
relative parental investment. Less-investing sex = male = increase reproductive
success through numerous partners; women have demands of gestation + lactation =
necessarily investing more in offspring.
- Sexually selected traits exhibit greater variability à many phenotypic traits show
more variability in males than females.
- Male strategy is multiple mating, BUT: other males same strategy, so competing with
physical power, or through skill at forming male coalitions.
- Female mate choice driven by genetic gift but also by ability + willingness to invest in
female and offspring.
- Higher stakes of mating game men because of greater variability in reproductive
success à males greater dominance- and status-seeking + risk-taking behaviour.
- Not same strategy for women because…
o Multiple mates don’t produce increased number of children for women the
way they do for men.
o Achievement of status + political power often associated with reduced
reproductive success for women.
o Risk-taking + dominance-seeking related to testosterone = decreased fertility
women (because limit on ability to pass on genes).
o Risk-taking = lesser reproductive rewards for women + prospect of greater cost
for children because more impaired life child if mother dies than father.
- Natural selection also responsible for differences in cognitive abilities:
o Men hunting + warfare à spatial perception. Following route of prey = spatial
sense, finding back way better.
o Women gathering more à object location, because returning repeatedly to
same location (= landmark recognition).
à Cross-cultural evidence for these differences.
2
, Laura Heijnen – Organisational Psychology: Performance at Work
Sex differences in the workplace
- Men-s orientation toward achieving status in hierarchies à take career risk necessary
to achieve top positions + work greater hours. Combined with women’s greater desire
to take care of children à glass ceiling + gender gap in compensation
- Sex differences in occupational interests:
o RIASEC: men higher on realistic, investigative + enterprising; women higher on
artistic + social. Conventional only modest sex differences.
o Individuals exhibit varying amounts of 3 themes, but usually 3 dominant ones.
o Personal styles: women more ‘people’ work style, men more ‘ideas, data,
things’ end.
o Also differences in risk/taking + adventure.
- Relationship between occupational preferences + distributions: sex differences
influence workplace patterns.
o Low representation women in scientific (physical science) + blue-collar
occupations = ‘non-traditional’/’traditionally male à ‘hostile
culture’/discrimination.
o Difference because of characteristics of occupations + sex differences.
o Women more in occupations where using verbal ability.
Women in science + technology
- Less women in scientific fields, but not uniformly low: wide variation à ‘softer’
scientific field = higher frequency women. Many in anthropology + sociology, not so
many in economics.
- Less female doctorate s in mining/mineral engineering, biophysics + psychometrics,
but more in bioengineering, nutritional sciences + developmental child psychology.
- In line with theory of work adjustment: less women = lowest social dimension.
- Benbow & Morewlock: organic vs. inorganic à women avoid fields with math + spatial
demands.
- Exclusive focus on individual’s cognitive abilities unlikely to yield accurate predictions
of occupational interest, persistence, or success à SIA = unlikely going into IRE
occupation, even if having enough math ability.
Women in blue-collar occupations
- Integration in white-collar, but not blue-collar: remaining stable.
- Results in large part from sex differences: ‘realistic’ dimension = interest in building,
repairing + working outdoors, which is in most blue-collar occupations. Also high
degree of mechanical ability + interest, which also has large sex differences.
- Importance of physical strength in these occupations, which is less in women.
- Attributes of many blue-collar jobs disfavoured by women: prefer safe + clean working
environments, flexible hours + social contracts. Also dangerous environments
(correlated with blue-collar occupations).
Competing explanations for the origins of cognitive + temperamental sex differences: is the
explanation ‘purely social’ or social + biological?
- Modern social science: observable sex differences are consequence not of inherent
difference, but rather of societal conditions à channelled behaviour into preassigned
directions = notion that human mind is sexually monomorphic.
3
Problem 8. Gender differences in the workplace
How and why do gender differences and female underrepresentation exist in
the workplace? Are there differences between professions?
ü Browne (2006) – Evolved sex differences and occupational segregation
Introduction
- Last century mostly behaviourism (nurture): no inheritance à humans capacity of
culture, which is largely arbitrary + actually defined by culture itself. Capable of
absorbing + no intrinsic nature.
- Natural scientists: structural + functional comparisons of humans + non-human
primates. Natural selection à human is product of evaluation à applied to
organisational psychology.
- Also evolutionary psychology à idea that human mind is sexually dimorphic: sexes
differ in temperamental + cognitive traits à effect on social behaviour + patterns
(e.g., in workplace).
- Theory of work adjustment: optimal match between individual’s abilities/values +
occupation’s demands/rewards.
- Discussion: average gender differences OR unequal opportunities (= demand problem)
explaining variability in gender workplace choices
The sexually dimorphic mind
- Competitiveness, dominance + status-striving:
o Competition higher + more positive males. Men behaving more competitively.
Competition increases intrinsic motivation for males, not females. Improved
performance men, not for women. Women more stress, having different
means + end.
o Men engage more in dominant behaviours: intended to achieve/maintain
position of high relative status = obtaining power/influence/resources. Women
showing ‘prosocial’ dominance (= acts to maintain social relationship), men
‘egoistic’ dominance (= acts to increase status in social group). Men endorse
ideologies approving hierarchical relationships between social groups.
- Risk-taking:
o Men greater (non-)physical risk preference, disproportionately involved in risky
recreational activities (e.g., car racing, sky diving) à sex most predictive
variable for risk recreation.
o Men overrepresented in physically risky employment (90% workplace deaths).
o Risk-taking correlated with other male traits: high achievement + dominance;
negatively correlated with feminine traits: affiliation, nurturance + deference.
o Females more averse to physical + social risk à responsible for differences in
achievement-orientation. Greater risk aversion women à less involved in
career risk = more in ‘staff’ jobs (HR, corporate communications), rather than
‘line’ jobs (running a plant/division), because may affect prospects for
advancement.
- Nurturance + interest in children:
o Females more nurturing behaviours cross-culturally, inside + outside family,
primary caretakers, more person-oriented (men more object-oriented).
1
, Laura Heijnen – Organisational Psychology: Performance at Work
o Women’s self-identity + self-esteem centred on sensitivity + relations others;
men centred on task performance, skills, independence + superiority.
- Spatial ability: men better, especially on 3D rotation à effect sizes around/above 1.0.
Females better on spatial ‘object location’ = remembering where object located.
- Mathematical ability:
o Men better, especially abstract thinking. Women better (in smaller margins) in
arithmetic calculation à difference small in broad samples (males more
variable performance + larger effect sizes in more select samples).
o Females better computation.
- Mechanical ability: effect sizes around/above 1.0, with men being better (Air Force
Officer Qualification Test, Differential Aptitude Test).
- Verbal ability: females better in spelling, grammar + verbal memory (= even more
advantage than men in math ability in broad samples). Select samples =
declination/disappearance of female advantage, because greater male variability
(outscoring women on verbal SAT).
Sex differences in evolutionary perspective
- Men + women same driving forces of nature/evolution à are still divergent because
of pressures relating to mating + reproduction = different reproductive strategies =
relative parental investment. Less-investing sex = male = increase reproductive
success through numerous partners; women have demands of gestation + lactation =
necessarily investing more in offspring.
- Sexually selected traits exhibit greater variability à many phenotypic traits show
more variability in males than females.
- Male strategy is multiple mating, BUT: other males same strategy, so competing with
physical power, or through skill at forming male coalitions.
- Female mate choice driven by genetic gift but also by ability + willingness to invest in
female and offspring.
- Higher stakes of mating game men because of greater variability in reproductive
success à males greater dominance- and status-seeking + risk-taking behaviour.
- Not same strategy for women because…
o Multiple mates don’t produce increased number of children for women the
way they do for men.
o Achievement of status + political power often associated with reduced
reproductive success for women.
o Risk-taking + dominance-seeking related to testosterone = decreased fertility
women (because limit on ability to pass on genes).
o Risk-taking = lesser reproductive rewards for women + prospect of greater cost
for children because more impaired life child if mother dies than father.
- Natural selection also responsible for differences in cognitive abilities:
o Men hunting + warfare à spatial perception. Following route of prey = spatial
sense, finding back way better.
o Women gathering more à object location, because returning repeatedly to
same location (= landmark recognition).
à Cross-cultural evidence for these differences.
2
, Laura Heijnen – Organisational Psychology: Performance at Work
Sex differences in the workplace
- Men-s orientation toward achieving status in hierarchies à take career risk necessary
to achieve top positions + work greater hours. Combined with women’s greater desire
to take care of children à glass ceiling + gender gap in compensation
- Sex differences in occupational interests:
o RIASEC: men higher on realistic, investigative + enterprising; women higher on
artistic + social. Conventional only modest sex differences.
o Individuals exhibit varying amounts of 3 themes, but usually 3 dominant ones.
o Personal styles: women more ‘people’ work style, men more ‘ideas, data,
things’ end.
o Also differences in risk/taking + adventure.
- Relationship between occupational preferences + distributions: sex differences
influence workplace patterns.
o Low representation women in scientific (physical science) + blue-collar
occupations = ‘non-traditional’/’traditionally male à ‘hostile
culture’/discrimination.
o Difference because of characteristics of occupations + sex differences.
o Women more in occupations where using verbal ability.
Women in science + technology
- Less women in scientific fields, but not uniformly low: wide variation à ‘softer’
scientific field = higher frequency women. Many in anthropology + sociology, not so
many in economics.
- Less female doctorate s in mining/mineral engineering, biophysics + psychometrics,
but more in bioengineering, nutritional sciences + developmental child psychology.
- In line with theory of work adjustment: less women = lowest social dimension.
- Benbow & Morewlock: organic vs. inorganic à women avoid fields with math + spatial
demands.
- Exclusive focus on individual’s cognitive abilities unlikely to yield accurate predictions
of occupational interest, persistence, or success à SIA = unlikely going into IRE
occupation, even if having enough math ability.
Women in blue-collar occupations
- Integration in white-collar, but not blue-collar: remaining stable.
- Results in large part from sex differences: ‘realistic’ dimension = interest in building,
repairing + working outdoors, which is in most blue-collar occupations. Also high
degree of mechanical ability + interest, which also has large sex differences.
- Importance of physical strength in these occupations, which is less in women.
- Attributes of many blue-collar jobs disfavoured by women: prefer safe + clean working
environments, flexible hours + social contracts. Also dangerous environments
(correlated with blue-collar occupations).
Competing explanations for the origins of cognitive + temperamental sex differences: is the
explanation ‘purely social’ or social + biological?
- Modern social science: observable sex differences are consequence not of inherent
difference, but rather of societal conditions à channelled behaviour into preassigned
directions = notion that human mind is sexually monomorphic.
3
