Hans-Joachim Wolfram

Spillover Between Work and Home, Role Importance and Life Satisfaction

This study of n = 201 knowledge workers examines positive and negative spillover between work and home and its interrelation with life satisfaction. Additionally, it accounts for the direct effect of role importance on life satisfaction and its moderating effect on the interrelation between spillover and life satisfaction. Central to role importance is the degree of attachment that an individual places on family role and career role. Positive spillover from home is interrelated with higher life satisfaction, whereas negative spillover from work is related to lower life satisfaction. Family role importance and career role importance are associated with higher life satisfaction. For respondents with higher family role importance, there is a stronger interrelation between negative spillover from home and lower life satisfaction.

Gender role self-concept, categorical gender, and transactional-transformational leadership: implications for perceived workgroup performance

Prior research has shown that female managers are more likely to display transactional–transformational leadership, but they are less likely than their male colleagues to benefit from this in terms of leadership effectiveness. The aim of this study is to address this intriguing finding. Our expectations were that female managers need masculinity so that their leadership can display positive effects on perceived workgroup performance, whereas androgyny would be advantageous in male managers. We collected data from 67 workgroups, and asked managers to report on their gender role self-concept as well as workgroup performance, and 473 workgroup members to report on their manager’s leadership style. Our analyses revealed that, expectedly, androgyny might be advantageous in male managers using contingent reward, intellectual stimulation, and charisma/inspiration. For female managers, however, a lack of gender-typical attributes might be disadvantageous, especially when using charisma/inspiration.

Ethnic harassment, ethnic identity centrality, and well-being

In this study, we examined the direct effect of (positive vs. negative) evaluation of potentially harassing experiences due to ethnic background on impaired well-being as well as the moderating effect of ethnic identity centrality on the relationship between (lower vs. higher) frequency of potentially harassing experiences and impaired well-being. Using a gender-balanced sample with equal proportions of black and minority ethnic and white undergraduate students (N = 240), we found that, expectedly, ethnic identity centrality intensified the effects of higher frequency of potentially harassing experiences on lower self-esteem and lower positive affect. Unexpectedly, however, gender identity centrality buffered the effects of higher frequency as well as more negative evaluation of potentially harassing experiences on lower self-esteem, indicating that gender identity centrality may be a protective resource, even though it is not specific to ethnic harassment. Exploratory analyses revealed that for black and minority ethnic respondents with high ethnic identity centrality and for white respondents with low ethnic identity centrality, there were associations between more negative evaluation of potentially harassing experiences and lower self-esteem and lower positive affect. This finding might indicate that ethnic identity centrality was a risk factor in black and ethnic minority respondents, but a protective factor in white respondents.

Modern prejudice and strength of conjunction error : overestimating proportions of minority employees

Purpose Modern prejudice was examined as a potential predictor of overestimating proportions of minority employees in gender-typed occupations. Strength of conjunction error was considered as an indicator of distorted perceptions of these proportions. Furthermore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the association between modern prejudice and strength of conjunction error was weaker for gender-untypical than for gender-typical targets. Design/methodology/approach Modern prejudice was considered as a predictor of overestimations of black female employees in Study 1 (n=183) and black female older employees in Study 2 (n=409). Data were collected using internet-mediated questionnaires. Findings In Study 1, modern racism, but not modern sexism, was associated with greater strength of conjunction error when respondents were presented with gender-typical targets. In Study 2, using a sample scoring higher on modern prejudice than in Study 1, modern racism, but not modern sexism and modern ageism, was associated with greater strength of conjunction error, irrespective of target occupation. Furthermore, there was an unexpected association between lower sexism and greater strength of conjunction error for gender-typical targets, but not for gender-untypical targets. Research limitations/implications The findings lend support to the ethnic-prominence hypothesis in that modern racism, but not modern sexism or modern ageism, was associated with greater strength of conjunction error. Furthermore, empirical evidence suggests that target non-prototypicality can dilute the effect of modern prejudice on strength of conjunction error. Originality/value This is one of the rare studies examining attitudes and conjunction error in a work-relevant context, thereby bridging the gap between social cognition and applied psychology.