25 September 2023

Truth and dare: The research that shows how biased we are

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Carolyn Centeno* says two very important aspects of gender stereotyping in the workplace ensure women’s and men’s work is perceived differently.


Photo: Eti Ammos

Whether we like to confront it or not, our culture has shared unconscious biases of what each gender looks like in terms of qualities and abilities and how each gender should or should not behave.

Because of this, our work is perceived differently — for better or worse — and our career paths, happiness and fulfillment are affected.

One woman who is at the helm of sex bias research in the workplace is Madeline Heilman, a social and organisational psychologist who is Professor of Psychology at New York University.

Madeline has been researching this topic for her entire career, and what she has seen in her research has not shifted a lot even with the incredible strides women have made in the workplace.

What does this mean?

It means, we have to talk about it.

Professor Heilman describes two very important aspects of gender stereotyping in the workplace — one leading to descriptive bias, and the other to prescriptive bias.

Descriptive bias as she defines it is a result of culturally shared beliefs about women and men and how they are different.

For instance, she says, women are thought to be people-people, who take an interest in other people and relationships.

They are kind and caring.

And men are thought to have qualities that are “agentic” like taking charge, getting things done, confronting conflict, and not letting emotions get in the way of their thinking.

While these characterisations may be true for some, it definitely isn’t true for all.

There are women who are not people-oriented and men who are kind and heavily invested in people.

So, why is this a problem?

Because gender beliefs about women do not fit with what we think is required to succeed at traditionally agentic roles — positions that often are the most prestigious and high status in the workplace.

So women are expected to not be very good at them.

And these expectations affect us more than we know: If women are expected to not be good at traditionally agentic roles, then women will be passed up for them and, if they are put into these roles, people are going to undervalue them.

Professor Heilman says that these expectations are widely held and we tend to “make them come true”.

So, when women are in traditionally agentic roles, we don’t notice their successes as much as men’s, don’t remember them as accurately, and explain them away as due to something other than their ability, (maybe someone helped them, or the task was easier than it appeared?).

In these situations we (both men and women, alike) also interpret women’s behaviour differently than men’s: If, for instance, a woman in a role such as sales or finance asks questions about the business pipeline, her colleagues may describe her as “worrying” or being “emotional” whereas they would describe a man behaving exactly the same way as “prudent” or “proactive.”

All of these beliefs allow the different expectations we have for women and men to persist, and even be strengthened.

But sometimes the expectations do not win out, and women are acknowledged to be competent in traditionally agentic roles.

Professor Heilman says that is when the other side of gender stereotypes kick in, and prescriptive gender bias is the result.

These are the collective shoulds and should-nots that we impose on women.

For instance, she says women are not supposed to self-promote, negotiate tough, be outspoken, or take on a directive leadership style.

And they are not supposed to succeed in areas traditionally off-limits to their sex.

There are penalties for such behaviour (from both men and women, alike) — they are not liked very much and are described in terms such as selfish, bitter, abrasive, untrustworthy, manipulative, and cold.

This has all sorts of consequences for their future path but also, she says, for how they manage themselves, as this can be quite depleting and depressing.

There are penalties not only for ignoring the should-nots, but also for not adhering to the shoulds.

She cited a study she did about helping in the workplace, a stereotypically female “should”.

Research participants were presented with a situation in which someone was asked for help with a work problem.

The results were telling.

If a man helped, he was seen as fabulous, yet if he didn’t, it did not make much difference in how he was viewed.

In contrast, if a woman helped, it made little difference in how she was viewed, but if she didn’t help she was seen as horrible.

Same behaviour, totally different reaction.

The study’s learnings make you wonder what our gender biases are towards men in traditionally female positions as well.

So I asked her, how do we get around this?

She says, we can start to bring light to some of these gender biases and how they affect the way women are regarded and evaluated in work settings.

It comes down to openly discussing how to reconcile genders in the workplace from a place of self-awareness and harmony — how do we work together to collectively become more aware of sex bias in a way that unites us rather than further divides us?

When I asked Madeline what she would share with women in the workplace today, she mentioned that we shouldn’t try to change in light of these descriptions or prescriptions, we should become more aware of them, be ourselves, and go for it.

* Carolyn Centeno is a brand strategist and founder of The We Age, a conversation series and consultancy.

This article first appeared at www.forbes.com.

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