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Contextualizing the think crisis-think female stereotype in explaining the glass cliff: Gendered traits, gender, and type of crisis.

ABSTRACT: The glass cliff suggests that women are more likely to access leadership positions when organizations are facing a crisis. Although this phenomenon is well established, it is still largely unknown how variations in types of crises influence the strength of the think crisis-think female association, and whether female leaders and leaders with communal gendered traits are both affected by this association. We hypothesized that selection of stereotypically feminine traits (communal leaders) is specific to a relational crisis because of a fit between leader traits and traits required by the situation. We further expected that the selection of women also extends to other crisis situations because other factors such as their signaling change potential may play a role. We investigated the associations that participants made with candidates who varied across gendered traits and gender and between two crisis situations involving problems with either stereotypically feminine (e.g., an internal disharmony) or masculine (e.g., a financial problem) components, and a no crisis situation control. Results from three experimental studies (Ns = 319, 384, 385) supported our hypotheses by showing that communal leaders were most strongly associated with a relational crisis and least with a financial crisis, with the no crisis context situated in-between. This pattern was explained by higher relevance ratings for communal leadership behavior in the relational crisis versus financial crisis context, with the no crisis context situated in-between. In contrast, female leaders were most strongly associated with the relational crisis and least with the no crisis context, with the financial crisis situated in-between. Specific explanatory mechanisms related to the female-crisis association are explored and discussed. Our findings suggest that implicit motivations for valuing feminine/communal leadership and atypical leaders in crisis situations need further research.

SUBMITTER: Kulich C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7924740 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Contextualizing the think crisis-think female stereotype in explaining the glass cliff: Gendered traits, gender, and type of crisis.

Kulich Clara C Gartzia Leire L Komarraju Meera M Aelenei Cristina C

PloS one 20210302 3

The glass cliff suggests that women are more likely to access leadership positions when organizations are facing a crisis. Although this phenomenon is well established, it is still largely unknown how variations in types of crises influence the strength of the think crisis-think female association, and whether female leaders and leaders with communal gendered traits are both affected by this association. We hypothesized that selection of stereotypically feminine traits (communal leaders) is spec ...[more]

PMID: 33651834

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Project description:BackgroundThe principal aim of this study was to explore if biological differences between men and women can be explained by gendered mechanisms.MethodsWe used data from the 1958 National Child Development Study, including all the living subjects of the cohort at the outcome collection wave (44-45 years). We explored several biomarkers as outcomes: systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, HbA1c, CRP, and cortisol. Three conceptualizations of gender have been used to define methodological strategies: (a) Gender as an individual characteristic; (b) Gender as an effect of sex on socio-behavioural characteristics; (c) Gender as an interaction between sex and the social environment, here the early-life social environment. We estimated the total effect of sex and the proportion of total effect of sex at birth eliminated by gender, measured by 3 different ways according to these 3 concepts, using g-computation.ResultsThe average level of each biomarker was significantly different according to sex at birth, higher in men for cardiometabolic biomarkers and higher in women for inflammatory and neuroendocrine biomarkers. The sizes of the differences were always smaller than one standard deviation but were larger than differences due to early-life deprivation, except for CRP. We observed gender mechanisms underlying these differences between men and women, even if the mediation effects were rarely statistically significant. These mechanisms were of three kinds: (1) mediation by socio-behavioural characteristics; (2) attenuation by gendered mechanisms; (3) interaction with early social environment. Indeed, we observed that being born into a deprived rather than non-deprived family increased metabolic and inflammatory biomarkers levels more strongly in females than in males.ConclusionsThe biological differences between men and women seem to not be purely explained by biological mechanisms. The exploration of gender mechanisms opens new perspectives, in terms of methodology, understanding and potential applications.

Project description:According to the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), the content of stereotypes differs on two dimensions: communion and agency. Research shows that for stereotypes about the general gender categories of "women" and "men," there is an ambivalent pattern of communion and agency, where high levels on one dimension are associated with low levels on the other. For sexual minority stereotypes, a gender inversion has been found, whereas homosexual women are seen as more similar to men in general than to women in general, whereas homosexual men are seen as more similar to women in general than to men in general. However, there is limited research on how stereotype content for general groups relate to stereotype content for subgroups with intersecting category memberships. This research addresses this gap by investigating stereotype content at the intersection of gender and sexual orientation, including stereotype content for general gender groups, heterosexual groups, homosexual groups, and bisexual groups. In Study 1, a community sample from Sweden (N = 824) rated perceived communion and agency for women and men in general, as well as hetero-, homo-, and bisexual women and men. In Study 2, a nationally representative Swedish sample (N = 424) performed the same rating task, and in addition completed Single-Category IATs (SC-IATs) for warmth and competence. Results from both studies show that the stereotype content for the general categories "women" and "men" overlap with the stereotype content for heterosexual same-gender targets. Homosexual and bisexual groups were rated as more similar to their non-congruent gender category than same gender heterosexual categories were, but stereotype content for sexual minority groups did not overlap with either general gender categories, thus showing only incomplete gender inversion of stereotype content. Implicit associations between "women" and "warmth" were significantly stronger than associations between "men" and "warmth." There were no other significant relations between implicit associations to warmth/competence and gender or sexual orientation. Theoretical and methodological implications for future research into intersectional stereotype content are presented, including how the findings inform the co-dependent relationship between a binary gender structure and a heteronormative ideology.

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Contextualizing the think crisis-think female stereotype in explaining the glass cliff: Gendered traits, gender, and type of crisis.

Publications

Contextualizing the think crisis-think female stereotype in explaining the glass cliff: Gendered traits, gender, and type of crisis.

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