Running Head: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS IN THE WORKPLACE 1

Social Constructs in the Workplace

Abstract:

Using over 100 undergraduate and graduate university business students this study sought to see

if their preferred gender to work under, would stay the same when confronted with potential

bosses of both genders. Men and women were administered a survey to see what characteristics

they associated with a good boss. Then, they were asked if they preferred to work for a man, a

women or if they had no preference. Participants were split into groups of 10 and told they

would be completing two surveys and then they’d be meeting potential new bosses for a job.

After meeting the bosses they then had to state their preference for which one they would rather

work under. Each group met a total of four potential bosses, two men and two women. One of

each set was agreeable and one of each set was offensive towards the participants. This study

builds upon previous research, which states that this preference occurs due to socially

constructed gender roles, and the choice is often a subconscious one.

Introduction

Over the past 40 years research has shown that in general, both women and men prefer a

male boss to a female one (Powell 2012). While the number of people who say that they have no

preference based on sex is becoming a more popular point of view, a male boss is still favored in

the workplace. These “preferences” are typically based on social constructs of gender and are

often expressed subconsciously by individuals. While an individuals “sex” conveys what they

biologically have been born as, male or female, a gender is often defined as “the behavioral,

cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex” often referred to as an

individuals masculinity or femininity (medlineplus.gov). To understand the reasoning behind

why more individuals prefer a male boss to a female boss based on gender roles, or what is

sometimes referred to as “social role theory,” it is important to take a look at a history of what

has been and is expected of either sex.

A questionnaire created and administered by Rosenkrantz et al. in 1968 sought to identify

the characteristics that defined masculinity and femininity (1972). Masculine characteristics

included aggressiveness, competiveness, being logical, ambitiousness, decisiveness, almost

always acts as a leader, etc. Whereas, feminine characteristics included descriptive phrases such

as emotional, easily influenced, excitable in a minor crisis, not self-confident, and almost never

acts as a leader, etc. The study also found that male characteristics where positively valued over

female characteristics. If these values or characteristics are still upheld to this day by an

individuals subconscious bias it is easy to understand why women are not preferred in

management positions to subordinates.

In regards to how social role theory can shape this subconscious bias, Eagly et al.

reported “in social role theory, perceivers infer that there is correspondence between the types of
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actions people engage in and their inner dispositions. The descriptive aspect of gender roles thus

originates in perceivers’ correspondent inferences from the observed behavior of men and

women to their personal qualities” (1987; 2000). Therefore, one can draw from this conclusion

that if a female were to display masculine qualities a perceiver may have a dislike or internal

struggle accepting this, given preconceived gender roles, and vice versa.

Generally, effectiveness of the workplace can be equated to the strength of its leadership.

However, the effectiveness of a leader may have nothing to due with their leadership skills and

may simply be equated to their sex, or more specifically, how their perceived gender should

behave. A study done on congruity theory and its role in prejudice towards women in leadership

positions states that “the prejudice against female leaders that is inherent in the female gender

role follows from its dissimilarity to the expectations that people typically have about leaders”

(Eagly et al. 2002).

While there are many different approaches to effective management, the styles listed

herein, have been reported as being more “gender” specific. Transformational leadership is

defined as a style in which leaders motivate their workers to do more than was originally

expected of them. This can be accomplished in two ways; elevating workers to put the teams

interests above their own, and by having workers self-actualize (Lunenberg and Orenstein 2012).

In laymen’s terms this leadership style is designed to distance individuals in charge from

traditional micromanaging techniques and allows the subordinate to have more trust put in them

to showcase their abilities.

An authoritarian leadership style, is defined as “a style in which the leader dictates

policies and procedures, decides what goals will be achieved, and directs and controls all

activities without any meaningful participation by its subordinates” (Business Dictionary). This
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type of leadership style is seen as a more traditional outlook of how a “boss” should behave

which is total control over all aspects of their workers decisions. Worker’s inputs and ideas are

not valued in this model.

In authentic leadership, according to Luthans and Avolio the leader’s “authentic values,

beliefs, and behavior serve to model the development of associates” (2003, p. 243). In other

words, the individual in management is seen as a person of example whose actions and behaviors

should be mimicked or looked upon by subordinates when trying to improve behavior or

performance in the workplace. According to Rhee and Sigler, even though men and women my

have different management styles with authoritative being more closely associated with the male

gender and transformational and authentic being more closely associated with the female gender,

there are characteristics that are considered common denominators to both regardless of gender

roles, such as ethical behavior, being an effective communicator, maintaining a positive attitude,

being inspirational, confident and respected (2013).

For four decades Powell and Butterfield have administered the Bem Sex Role Inventory

(BSRI) to part-time MBA students and undergraduate business students. The BSRI includes

attributes of masculinity and femininity (Powell 2012). “Masculinity is defined as beliefs that

people have about the extent to which they possess masculine (i.e. task-oriented, agentic) traits

associated with men in gender stereotypes. Femininity is defined as beliefs that people have

about the extent to which they posses feminine (i.e. interpersonally-oriented, communal) traits

that are associated with women in gender stereotypes” (Powell). When Powell and Butterfield

first started their study in 1979 they hypothesized that a good manager would be seen as having

high levels of both masculine and feminine traits (Powell et al. 1979). However, their hypothesis

was proven wrong in that both men and women preferred a male superior over a female superior.
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A female displaying what are conceived of as masculine characteristics such as, aggressiveness,

decisiveness, or competitiveness is more often then not seen as cold or unapproachable because

she is a female and should display feminine qualities. Whereas, a male would be looked at

favorably for displaying these masculine qualities. However the question remains if subordinates

were introduced to two male and female superiors one of whom fit their gender role and the

other who did not would the subordinates still choose a male? This is what has become the

driving force behind this experiment, which hypothesizes that an individual’s subconscious bias

will remain based on the theory of role congruity. This study hypothesizes that despite societal

advances for women that have been made in the workforce, a subordinate, regardless of sex, will

always choose a male boss over a female boss based on the theory of role congruity.

Method

This study was approved by the IRB board of Long Island University and consisted of

100 participants. All participants were undergraduate and graduate business students with ages

ranging from 18-55. Students were sent an email asking for their participation in a study about

effective leadership in the workplace. The study was conducted over the course of five non-

consecutive days (One day a week for five weeks). In the end there were 55 women and 45 men

in the study. As an incentive, all participants were offered five dollars for their participation in

the study. All participants were also told they would be entered into a drawing for a $75 Visa

gift card.

After selections were made, the students were put into groups of ten with a gender ratio

of about 1:1 females to males. All students were told that they complete two surveys and would

be meeting potential new bosses for a well paying job. The only thing participants knew about
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the job was that it was in their field of interest, and paid a starting salary above average plus full

health benefits.

At the beginning of the study each group was administered the Bem Sex Role Inventory or

BSRI for short. The BSRI has 60 characteristics (asked in a Likert scale format). Traits are

divided into 3 columns. The first column represents your masculinity scale, the second

femininity and the third androgyny. At the end of taking the survey, respondents transferred

their answers to the Inventory Score Sheet. After placing the answers to each trait in the

appropriate column, each respondent tallied up the column and divided it by 20, which gave

them their masculinity, femininity and androgyny scores. The traits in each column are asked as

a question. For instance under the trait self reliance, would be bubbles for you to choose never,

rarely, neutral, often, or always.

After responses of the BSRI were collected, participants were told that they would take a

second survey related to effective traits of a leader. This survey chose 20 traits from the BSRI

and put them into a Likert Scale survey, where respondents had to choose how they felt these

traits belonged to that of an effective leader. Ten masculine traits (have leadership abilities,

assertive, willing to take a stand, ambitious, competitive, dominant, a strong personality,

forceful, act like a leader and aggressive) and 10 feminine traits (affectionate, tender, sensitive to

others’ needs, sympathetic, warm, eager to soothe hurt feelings, understanding, gentle, and

compassionate) were used in the survey. These twenty traits were randomly placed throughout

the survey. After completing the traits portion of the survey respondents were now asked which

type of leader they would prefer to work for, (male, female or no preference). These questions

were also formulated in a Likert fashion with answer choices of rarely, never, neutral, often or

always.
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After the participants were administered both surveys, they were told that participation

would again resume in a week’s time. They were told at such time, they would be broken up

into groups of ten with approximately 5 women and 5 men in each group. Participants were also

told that they would be meeting potential new bosses for a position in their preferred career field.

When participants returned, they were randomly assigned into groups of 10 with a near 1:1 ratio

of women to men. Their responses on the previous two surveys had no bearing on which group

they would be placed in.

All bosses were intentionally given gender-neutral names. The first group was exposed

to the potential bosses Corey and Jamie. Corey was the female potential boss and Jamie was the

male. In this first scenario, participants were exposed to both Corey and Jamie as being

presented as nice pleasant bosses to work under. The participants were first exposed to Corey.

She was well dressed and possessed a nice demeanor. She informed the participants that she was

excited to meet them and potentially bring them onto her team. She informed them that she saw

a bright and successful future for all, as her team had been the top grossing team in her division 3

years running.

After being exposed to Corey participants were now presented with Jamie. Jamie was

similar to Corey in that he too was nicely dressed and a demeanor to match. He also informed

the participants how eager he was to get the chance to work with them and bring them onto his

team. He informed them that at his company (a separate one from Corey’s), his team was also

the top grossing for the last 3 years.

Both bosses also shared with their participants their thoughts on the collaborative

leadership model. They shared how they saw the team as everyone working together towards a

goal rather than them barking orders down to those below. They stressed the importance of a life
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work balance and understood the need for employees to use the vacation time they are given by

the company. They told participants that more than half of all workers in the United States do

not use all the vacation time given to them, and they felt that was wrong. They told participants

that rested employees have the clearest heads and will in turn make the team the most money.

After meeting Corey and Jamie they had to choose which boss they would rather work

for. Their choices were Corey, Jamie or no preference. If they chose either Corey or Jamie they

had to then choose 5 traits (from the 20 listed in their last survey) that they would give to the

boss they chose and to the boss they didn’t. If they chose no preference, then they had to choose

just 5 traits they felt fit for both.

Participants were thanked for their time and the following week they met with their next

two bosses Jordan and Jesse. Both Jordan (female) and Jesse (male) were considered terrible and

unpleasant bosses to work for. Just like in the prior experiment, participants did not know

whether Jordan or Jesse would be pleasant or unpleasant to work for.

Jordan was well dressed, but had an unpleasant demeanor. She started off by informing

participants that if she was even going to consider any of them for the job they better make sure

that the next time she met them they were dressed professionally (participants were not given a

dress code for the sessions, but most were at least in business causal attire). “Just because the

department store said they sold you a suit it doesn’t mean that’s what you’re actually wearing.”

She saw some of the younger members in the group and told them that if they were single

they should plan on staying that way because this job would take up any free time they thought

they had. She also informed them that as per company policy all employees were entitled to 2

weeks of paid vacation. Jordan then stated that using any of that time was frowned upon in her

division. She said that her team had the highest grossed earnings last quarter and she maintained
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this through 80-hour workweeks. She also told participants that while they were all fairly

intelligent people, their ideas and thoughts on how to improve earnings were not welcome. Her

team had been the top for the last 3 years because of her proven system that didn’t need any

improvements. The message conveyed is high salary comes at a high personal price on Jordan’s

team. They had to choose which is more important to them (salary or personal time).

After meeting Jordan participants met Jesse. Jesse was as nicely dressed as Jordan and

equally as unpleasant. Jesse told participants that he wanted to work with winners. If

participants didn’t see themselves as such, then they were going to be working for the wrong

team. Jesse informed participants that to be a winner meant work number one and everything in

their lives would come second to it. He mentioned that it seemed some of the participants were

either engaged or newlyweds (based on Jewelry they wore and their ages). He said while they

seemed happy, he hoped that they didn’t see any children in their futures. “This team doesn’t

have time to stop for diaper changes.”

Similar to Jordan, Jesse informed his potential team that their workweeks would be at

least 80 hours long. He also told them of his past successes and his desire to keep that track

record going. Jesse informed participants that my or the highway was not just a saying on his

team. He knew the formula for making people money and that formula left no room for changes.

Over the next two weeks they would meet their next round of bosses that would be

pleasant vs. unpleasant, and unpleasant vs. pleasant.

Week four had the participants meeting two more bosses, Alex and Jayden.

Alex was the female boss and Jayden was the male. Alex was congenial while Jayden was very

unpleasant.
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Alex informed participants that she was a real team player and expected her team

members be up for collaboration. In her words, “There’s no I in team.” Alex was nicely dressed

and came off as personable and approachable. She told participants that she felt a work-life

balance was key to maintaining the success of the team. She too had top earnings like previous

bosses.

Jayden was as sharply dressed as Alex. He started off by informing participants that he

had just purchased himself a Bentley convertible. His intention he told participants, was to

encourage them to see what could possibly attain by being on his team. This came at a price

however. Jayden informed participants that he discouraged them from taking time off and that

unless they were in the hospital they weren’t too sick to come to work. “If you can walk, you can

work.” Eighty-hour workweeks were also standard for Jayden and his team.

The last two sets of bosses were Frances and Ashley. Frances was the female boss and

Ashley was the male boss. Frances was also the unpleasant boss and Frances was the pleasant

one.

Frances was no nonsense. She told participants that if the workday started at 9 am she

expected to be in no later than 8. She also said that she didn’t understand why people took

“lunch breaks.” The name break implies you stop working and for Frances that meant you

stopped making money. Frances also said that for members of her team to call in sick they must

be physically incapacitated.

Ashley was a businessman through and through but he was fair. He told participants that

he could remember what it was like to first start out in the business world and he saw his role as

a mentor to his team members. He said by sharing his knowledge and combing it with their
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talent they could be an unstoppable team. Ashley said that while work was important it

shouldn’t be the only important thing in their lives.

At the end of the study all surveys were collected and tallied to see the participants

preferences and if they held true with their gender preferences stated at the beginning of the

experiment.

Limitations
This study is not without it’s limitations. One such limitation is the amount of people in

the study that have worked for both a male and female boss and can speak from experience. If a

participant has only worked for a male boss or only for a female boss this can taint their

responses. For instance if a participant worked for a male boss whom they disliked and would

not want to work for again this may taint their view of male bosses in general. Conversely if a

participant worked for an amazing male boss they may not want to work for the opposite gender

despite how qualified the boss may be.

Another limitation of this study is the preconceived notions of gender roles and biases

that can be held by participants. If a participant feels that gender roles show men in leadership

roles over women, they may feel that the female boss is already inferior simply because of a

gender bias. This bias may even be subconscious based on the participants past experience, how

they grew up and what they were exposed to. Since this survey was open to all undergraduate

and graduate students this included foreign exchange students. Some students may come from

cultures where one gender is the dominant leader throughout all facets of society and the

workplace, and therefore a leader of the opposite gender would be seen as anomaly.

The sample size of this study is also quite small. In the future the study should be

replicated with a larger sample size of at least 1,000 participants. These participants should also
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come from different parts of the country instead of all being students at a university in the

Northeastern United States.

Lastly university students (with work-study jobs) may have different perspectives versus

other adults who are employed full time in the workplace (in their chosen careers). Some

university students may be employed in on campus work-study jobs where they did not have to

interview and the job was not of their choosing. Their jobs are also not rated for performance,

which can lead to potential raises and other fringe benefits. Thus they don’t have the perspective

as someone working to increase their salary and benefits.

When you know a job is temporary and not related to your future career you have a

different view of your boss. Even if it is a negative one you may tend to overlook some of the

negative qualities you see because you realize this job is not forever. Conversely if you are

working in your chosen career your view of your boss holds more weight. You may see yourself

one moving into management and may consider will this be a possibility under your current boss.

If you think no they would never give me the opportunity for advancement, and they are male

this can taint your views on a male boss. This would be same for a female boss if the current

boss were a female.

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