Lisa Slattery Walker

Gender and Perceptions of Leadership Effectiveness: A Meta-Analysis of Contextual Moderators

Despite evidence that men are typically perceived as more appropriate and effective than women in leadership positions, a recent debate has emerged in the popular press and academic literature over the potential existence of a female leadership advantage. This meta-analysis addresses this debate by quantitatively summarizing gender differences in perceptions of leadership effectiveness across 99 independent samples from 95 studies. Results show that when all leadership contexts are considered, men and women do not differ in perceived leadership effectiveness. Yet, when other-ratings only are examined, women are rated as significantly more effective than men. In contrast, when self-ratings only are examined, men rate themselves as significantly more effective than women rate themselves. Additionally, this synthesis examines the influence of contextual moderators developed from role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Our findings help to extend role congruity theory by demonstrating how it can be supplemented based on other theories in the literature, as well as how the theory can be applied to both female and male leaders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Status, Participation, and Influence in Task Groups:

Status generalization theories describe how society’s status advantages and disadvantages can structure group inequality and also can suggest ways to design interventions to overcome its undesirable effects. We address problems of interaction as affected by the status characteristic race, which often disadvantages black members of work teams. Following the lead of Goar and Sell, we devised mixed-race task groups of women aimed at equalizing influence over the groups’ decisions. In baseline groups, white women exerted greater influence than did black women. In experimental groups, we artificially increased the participation of black women, and thereby increased their influence over group decisions. We consider some implications for diversity in natural settings including business organizations.

The Neutralization and Denial of Sexual Violence in College Party Subcultures

ABSTRACT Heavy drinking and sexual assault are prevalent among college students who attend parties hosted by fraternities and athletic teams, and accusations often produce victim blaming and disbelief. We provide a symbolic interactionist explanation of how subculturally held sentiments shape students’ perceptions. We find that fraternity or athletic team party attendees (but not those who drink in other settings) are more likely than abstainers to hold stereotypical definitions of rape, rate sexual assault as less likely, and are less likely to acknowledge an assault as rape. This study offers a potential mechanism—meanings transmitted and sustained within subcultures—for explaining the denial of rape among students who attend parties hosted by fraternities or athletic teams.

Length of residence, age and patterns of medicinal plant knowledge and use among women in the urban Amazon

BackgroundThis paper explores patterns of women’s medicinal plant knowledge and use in an urban area of the Brazilian Amazon. Specifically, this paper examines the relationship between a woman’s age and her use and knowledge of medicinal plants. It also examines whether length of residence in three different areas of the Amazon is correlated with a woman’s use and knowledge of medicinal plants. Two of the areas where respondents may have resided, the jungle/seringal and farms/colonias, are classified as rural. The third area (which all of the respondents resided in) was urban.MethodsThis paper utilizes survey data collected in Rio Branco, Brazil. Researchers administered the survey to 153 households in the community of Bairro da Luz (a pseudonym). The survey collected data on phytotherapeutic knowledge, general phytotherapeutic practice, recent phytotherapeutic practice and demographic information on age and length of residence in the seringal, on a colonia, and in a city. Bivariate correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the inter-relationships among the key variables. Three dependent variables, two measuring general phytotherapeutic practice and one measuring phytotherapeutic knowledge were regressed on the demographic factors.ResultsThe results demonstrate a relationship between a woman’s age and medicinal plant use, but not between age and plant knowledge. Additionally, length of residence in an urban area and on a colonia/farm are not related to medicinal plant knowledge or use. However, length of residence in the seringal/jungle is positively correlated with both medicinal plant knowledge and use.ConclusionsThe results reveal a vibrant tradition of medicinal plant use in Bairro da Luz. They also indicate that when it comes to place of residence and phytotherapy the meaningful distinction is not rural versus urban, it is seringal versus other locations. Finally, the results suggest that phytotherapeutic knowledge and use should be measured separately since one may not be an accurate proxy for the other.

The Theories of Status Characteristics and Expectation States

Theories of Status Characteristics and Expectation States use those concepts to understand the development and maintenance of power and prestige inequality structures in task groups. Expectations, roughly equivalent to ideas of task ability, emerge through interaction or from inferences based on status; once they exist they determine all features of inequality structures. These theories describe how and why that happens. They also identify ways to intervene, either to overcome inequalities or to intensify them. Applications to gender and race and to juries and sports teams illustrate the processes. This chapter presents and explains the theories and related issues in theory building, and identifies areas in which new research is extending this family of theories.

Revisiting the beauty is beastly effect: examining when and why sex and attractiveness impact hiring judgments

We contribute to the body of literature on the what is beautiful is good heuristic (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285–290), the beauty is beastly effect (Heilman & Saruwatari, 1979, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 23, 360–372) and lack of fit theory (Heilman, 1983, Research in Organizational Behavior, 5, 269–298) by reconciling previous discrepancies in the literature and by examining the circumstances in which attractiveness may and may not be detrimental for female job applicants. First, we perform a review of studies which have previously tested the beauty is beastly effect, and we provide and test explanations for previous discrepancies in the literature. Next, we conduct two new studies on the beauty is beastly effect using corporate types of jobs, and empirically test Heilmans lack of fit theory (1983) as an explanation for the effect. We find support for the effect in a general population sample, and partial support for the effect in a sample of human resource professionals. We also provide support for a mediated moderation model showing that applicant sex is related to job suitability for a male-typed job through the indirect effect of perceived agency, which is moderated by applicant attractiveness.

Expectations, Status Value, and Group Structure:

We report a replication and extension of theory and experimental tests reported by Stuart J. Hysom. That earlier work added status value of rewards to established theories of status generalization processes. We extend that work to cases in which both the status positions of actors and the status value of their rewards function in status generalization. Overall experimental results show confirmation of the theory, but fine-grained analyses reveal some weaknesses in experimental operations. Besides improving the experimental techniques, future work might explore effects of multiple statuses and rewards, and legitimacy effects that may be raised by inconsistent combinations of status and rewards.

Developing Your Experiment

This chapter addresses several important elements in conducting experiments: design, pretesting and pilot testing, and data interpretation. Good design requires attention to variables, conditions, and manipulations. Pretesting and pilot testing help to avoid costly errors. Issues in data interpretation include power statistics and experimenter effects.

Behavioral versus Questionnaire Measures of Expectations

The goal of the present research is to determine the degree of correspondence between the observed behavior in an experiment and the attitudes expressed in a questionnaire administered after an experiment. To do so, we replicate Driskell and Mullen’s study using more data from multiple experiments and conduct more sophisticated analyses. The attitudinal measures are questionnaire items regarding study participants’ views of themselves, a partner, and their task performance, measured after interaction. The behavioral measure records the participants’ resistance to influence from their partners and is thought to reflect underlying expectations for competence. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we find that there is a strong relationship between attitude and behavior, such that they appear to represent a single construct. Implications of this finding for experimental methodology are discussed in support of more concise approaches.

Racial double standards and applicant selection

Using double standards to judge job applicants can prevent the selection of qualified candidates who possess disadvantaged status characteristics. Experimental studies have shown that when assessors compare equally qualified women and men for jobs, the men are more likely to be recommended for hiring. We propose that the theoretical processes affecting choices by gender also will apply with candidates differentiated by race. We test that and other predictions using a modification of the application folders design used in double standards research. We found that double standards affected job recommendations and judged suitability of candidates, but not their judged competence. We believe that the process operates outside of conscious choice of candidates, and we used that insight to test an intervention to overcome using double standards in situations of race-differentiated candidates.