Motivated to penalize: women's strategic rejection of successful women

Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin
Elizabeth J Parks-StammKrystle A Hearns

Abstract

Two studies tested the hypothesis that females penalize women who succeed in male gender-typed jobs to salvage their own self-views regarding competence. The authors proposed that women are motivated to penalize successful women (i.e., characterize them as unlikable and interpersonally hostile) to minimize the self-evaluative consequences of social comparison with a highly successful female target. Results supported the hypothesis. Whereas both male and female participants penalized successful women, blocking this penalization reduced female--but not male--participants' self-ratings of competence (Study 1). Moreover, positive feedback provided to female participants about their potential to succeed (Study 2) weakened negative reactions to successful women without costs to subsequent self-ratings of competence. These results suggest that the interpersonal derogation of successful women by other women functions as a self-protective strategy against threatening upward social comparisons.

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Citations

Sep 14, 2015·Artificial Intelligence in Medicine·Shipeng YuBalaji Krishnapuram
Mar 9, 2013·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Elizabeth J Parks-Stamm
May 10, 2017·Journal of Health Organization and Management·Sophie SoklaridisCatherine Zahn
Jul 15, 2015·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Ekaterina NetchaevaLeah D Sheppard
Jun 4, 2011·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Maria AgtheJon K Maner
Oct 4, 2018·The New England Journal of Medicine·Sophie SoklaridisCynthia Whitehead
Dec 5, 2018·The Journal of Social Psychology·Gili FreedmanJennifer S Beer
Oct 19, 2019·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Michelle H MonizReshma Jagsi
Sep 10, 2020·Perspectives on Psychological Science : a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science·June GruberLisa A Williams
Dec 21, 2018·Frontiers in Psychology·Christiane R Stempel, Thomas Rigotti
Jan 2, 2013·Journal of Youth and Adolescence·Danielle R BusbyNicholas S Ialongo
Sep 3, 2011·The British Journal of Social Psychology·Belle DerksKim de Groot
Dec 5, 2013·The Journal of Surgical Research·Marie N DuschNancy L Ascher

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