Backlash and hiring : A field experiment on agency, communion, and gender

• Gender stereotypes describe women as communal and men asagentic. Laboratory based research (Rudman & Glick 1999; 2001)suggests that trying to disconfirm such descriptive genderstereotypes (e.g., women self-promoting their agency), entails therisk of hiring discrimination due to violation of prescriptive genderstereotypes: a backlash. To examine whether backlash occurs whenapplying for real jobs, we conducted a field experiment. Gender,agency and communion were manipulated in the personal profile of5,562 applications sent to 3,342 job openings on the Swedish labormarket. The dependent variable was whether the applicationresulted in an invitation to a job interview or not. The results do notoffer any support for the backlash hypothesis at this stage in therecruitment process.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi -- Tillämpad psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology -- Applied Psychology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Psykologi

Psychology

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)