Worth Less?: Why Men (and Women) Devalue Care-Oriented Careers

Frontiers in Psychology
Katharina BlockToni Schmader

Abstract

In the present research, we applied a goal-congruity perspective - the proposition that men and women seek out roles that afford their internalized values (Diekman et al., 2017) - to better understand the degree to which careers in healthcare, early education, and domestic roles (HEED; Croft et al., 2015) are devalued in society. Our first goal was to test the hypothesis that men, relative to women, are less interested in pursuing HEED careers in part because they are less likely than women to endorse communal values. A second, more novel goal was to extend goal congruity theory to examine whether gender differences in communal values also predict the belief that HEED careers add worth to society and are deserving of higher salaries. In three studies of undergraduate students (total N = 979), we tested the predictive role of communal values (i.e., a focus on caring for others), as distinct from agentic values (i.e., a focus on status, competition, and wealth; Bakan, 1966). Consistent with goal congruity theory, Studies 1 and 2 revealed that men's lower interest in adopting HEED careers, such as nursing and elementary education, was partially mediated by men's (compared to women's) lower communal values. Extending the theory, al...Continue Reading

References

Mar 20, 2002·Psychological Reports·John HoustonDientje Francis
Jun 18, 2002·Journal of Advanced Nursing·Dave Holmes, Denise Gastaldo
Oct 17, 2003·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology·Andrea E Abele
Dec 26, 2006·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Susan T FiskePeter Glick
Nov 4, 2009·Psychological Bulletin·Rong SuPatrick Ian Armstrong
Aug 24, 2011·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology·Amanda B DiekmanMia Steinberg
Dec 20, 2011·Journal of Personality Assessment·Paul D Trapnell, Delroy L Paulhus
Jan 13, 2015·Personality and Social Psychology Review : an Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·Alyssa CroftKatharina Block
Sep 29, 2015·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology·Amy J C CuddyMichael I Norton
Apr 8, 2016·Personality and Social Psychology Review : an Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·Amanda B DiekmanEmily K Clark
May 15, 2018·Current Directions in Psychological Science·Susan T Fiske
Jun 23, 2018·Psychological Science·Katharina BlockAndrew Scott Baron

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Citations

Jun 27, 2020·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Elaine Pelley, Molly Carnes
May 16, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Miriam K Zehnter, Erich Kirchler
Aug 25, 2020·Gender, Work, and Organization·Bobbi Thomason, Inmaculada Macias-Alonso
Jul 9, 2021·Neuron·Anaïs LlorensNina F Dronkers

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