The vagaries of sex bias: Conditions regulating the undervaluation,equivaluation, and overvaluation of female job applicants

The present study sought to identify the conditions under which women are undervalued, equally valued, and overvalued relative to men when seeking nontraditional jobs. An experiment was conducted in which 241 college students reviewed the work sample of a male or female applicant for a job that was either extremely male or moderately male in sextype. In addition, the applicant was depicted as either unequivocally high in performance ability or no information about his/her performance ability was provided. As expected, results indicated that unless information of high-performance ability was provided, women's competence and likely career success were undervalued relative to men's. Also as predicted, when given high-ability information, women seeking the moderately sextyped job or the extremely sextyped job were equally valued or overvalued, respectively. Gender-related work effectiveness characterizations closely paralleled these evaluations, lending support to the idea that sex stereotypes and the cognitive distortion they promote mediate not only gender consistent but also gender contrast biases in the evaluation of women. Implications of these results, both conceptual and practical, are discussed.     

Job strain and rumination about work issues during leisure time: A diary study

Previous research has suggested that high job strain (high demand, low control at work) is associated with an inability to “unwind” physiologically after work. It was speculated that one mechanism related to the “unwinding process” is an individual's ability to “cognitively switch-off” about work related issues after work. This hypothesis was tested in a diary study of primary and secondary school teachers who were asked to keep an hourly record of their work-related thoughts over a workday evening between 17.00 hrs and 21.00 hrs. As expected both groups demonstrated a degree of unwinding and disengagement from work issues over the evening. High strain (n = 34) teachers however took longer to unwind and ruminated more about work-related issues, relative to low job strain (n = 35) teachers. High job strain teachers also reported they had less personal control over what they were doing in the evening. Across the evening all individuals reported higher ruminative thoughts about work issues when alone than when with family and friends, but high strain teachers reported more ruminative cognitions when watching television and with family and friends than low strain teachers. The results could not be explained by work patterns as there was no difference in the number of hours worked in the evening between the two groups. It is argued that one reason why high job strain teachers failed to successfully unwind after work is that they ruminated more about work issues, than did low job strain teachers.     

“For We ascend in holiness and do not descend.” Jewish ultra-Orthodox women’s agency through their discourse about media

ABSTRACT

“Permission” and “prohibition” are key terms in Jewish religious discourse. For generations they have dominated as part of the primarily male, rabbinic discourse in talmudic literature. This paper will show that men no longer hold the monopoly on these terms because contemporary Israeli ultra-Orthodox women include them in their daily conversation in multiple and varied ways. The study examines exposure patterns and perceptions of 42 ultra-Orthodox women toward sectarian and general mass media. In responses to detailed questionnaires, the words “prohibited,” “forbidden” and “a boundary” constantly recur along with a variety of negatives, such as “not permitted,” “not allowed” and “not kosher”.

This paper argues that in describing their uses of and perceptions toward mass media, ultra-Orthodox women have adopted terminology borrowed from what was previously a primarily male-dominated conversation. Some might argue that these women are simply working within the bounds of ultra-Orthodox law which they accept as universally applicable; or perhaps that these women are simply reflecting words used by their husbands or rabbis. However, this study argues that their adoption of these terms indicates they are exercising their own agency. With a combined religious and secular education, and work that is primarily outside the house, many of them are the principal breadwinners in their homes. I suggest that this discourse is a part of their highly intelligent navigation of their simultaneous roles as both gatekeepers and change agents.     

When Job Ads Turn You Down: How Requirements in Job Ads May Stop Instead of Attract Highly Qualified Women

Qualification-based targeted recruitment strategies aim to increase the number of qualified applicants from certain social groups, such as women. Typically, such strategies assume that individuals are more likely to apply for a job when they possess the requirements needed for that job. However, how job seekers react to requirements in job ads is not often considered and is explored in the present study. In two experimental studies with Belgian university students we investigated whether person requirements about which women have negative meta-stereotypes (like the trait of emotionality) and the way such requirements are formulated in job ads (i.e., using trait-like adjectives, “You are calm/not nervous,” or behavior-like verbs, “You remain calm in stressful situations”) affected women’s job attraction and decision to apply. A repeated measures ANOVA showed that job attraction was lower if women held negative meta-stereotypes about required personality traits in job ads (Study 1; 218 women; M _age = 23.44 years, range?=?21–42; 97% ethnic majorities). Moreover, qualified women applied to a lesser extent if a negatively meta-stereotyped trait was worded in a trait-like way than when it was worded in a behavior-like way (Study 2; n?=?183; M _age = 23.68 years, range?=?21–44; 58% women; 97% ethnic majorities). A practical implication is that recruiters should be sensitive to how they formulate job ads if they wish to attract a highly qualified and gender-diverse applicant pool.     

A matter of style? Testing the moderating effect of driving styles on the relationship between job strain and work-related crashes of professional drivers

Different empirical studies suggest that both job strain and driving styles are significant contributors to the work-related traffic crashes suffered by professional drivers. Nevertheless, the current evidence falls considerably short when explaining why driving styles may modify (or not) the relationship between occupational stressors and professional drivers’ safety outcomes. The aim of this study was to examine whether driving styles moderate the effect of job strain on professional drivers’ Work Traffic Crashes (WTCs). This research was performed using the data collected from a sample of 753 professional drivers, responding to a self-report questionnaire on job strain (work stress indicator of the Job Demand-Control model), driving styles and work-traffic safety outcomes suffered in the past two years. Regression-based moderation analyses suggest that the job strain of professional drivers is positively associated with the occupational traffic crashes they suffer, and that such association is stronger in drivers with “reckless & careless”, “anxious”, and “angry & hostile” driving styles. Meanwhile, the “patient & careful” (positive) driving style was not associated with a lower risk of suffering a WTC, nor with a lower vulnerability to stress-related WTCs. The results of this study support the hypothesis that driving styles exert a statistical moderation between the job strain and the occupational traffic crashes suffered by professional drivers. These findings may support the design of evidence-based interventions in both the organizational and individual levels, focused stress-related factors and driving styles as predictors of work traffic crashes.     

Some Problems Concerning the Assessment of Job Characteristics in Nursing Work

Abstract

The question of whether one should use subjective rather than “objective” assessments of job characteristics is still the subject of a vigorous discussion in analytical studies of jobs and in job design. In nursing work situations, too, the attention of managers and researchers for such studies is growing. In this article the results of a study are presented in which a comparison is made between two kinds of assessments: job characteristics as judged by task performers (nurses) and job characteristics as judged by non-task performers (nursing management). Differences and agreements between mean scores as well as between correlations with dependent variables like job satisfaction were analysed. Most agreement seems to be on the ratings of “complexity and difficulty”, “work pressure”, and “promotion and growth opportunities”. As to “feedback and clarity”, “autonomy”, and “patient caring opportunities”, differences between the ratings have been found. It appears that a larger number of correlations between the nurse-rated job characteristics and the reaction variables is found to be statistically significant than between the management-rated job characteristics and the reaction variables. Social, organizational, and methodological reasons for the observed differences are put forward.     

The perils of protection: vulnerability and women in clinical research

Subpart B of 45 Code of Federal Regulations Part 46 (CFR) identifies the criteria according to which research involving pregnant women, human fetuses, and neonates can be conducted ethically in the United States. As such, pregnant women and fetuses fall into a category requiring “additional protections,” often referred to as “vulnerable populations.” The CFR does not define vulnerability, but merely gives examples of vulnerable groups by pointing to different categories of potential research subjects needing additional protections. In this paper, I assess critically the role of this categorization of pregnant women involved in research as “vulnerable,” both as separate entities and in combination with the fetuses they carry. In particular, I do three things: (1) demonstrate that pregnant women qua pregnancy are either not “vulnerable” according to any meaningful definition of that term or that such vulnerability is irrelevant to her status as a research participant; (2) argue that while a fetus may be vulnerable in terms of dependency, this categorization does not equate to the vulnerability of the pregnant woman; and (3) suggest that any vulnerability that appends to women is precisely the result of federal regulations and dubious public perceptions about pregnant women. I conclude by demonstrating how this erroneous characterization of pregnant women as “vulnerable” and its associated protections have not only impeded vital research for pregnant women and their fetuses, but have also negatively affected the inclusion of all women in clinical research.     

“Sandwiched generation” couples: A cross-cultural,cross-gender comparison

Maintaining a job while managing family responsibilities has become a major issue for much of today's workforce. Working couples who care both for dependent children and aging parents constitute a fast growing and understudied group called “the sandwiched generation.” Because of their multiple roles, these workers tend to be highly stressed and likely to have burnouts. The article presents the results of an exploratory study that compared 40 Israeli “sandwiched generation” couples living on a kibbutz, 80 Israeli couples living in small towns and 75 American men and women. The methodology involved a self-report questionnaire that included measures of social support, work–family conflict (WFC) and burnout. The findings revealed both cross-cultural and cross-gender differences: Americans reported higher WFC than Israelis whereas Israelis reported higher family–work conflict (FWC) than Americans. In addition, men received more support from their spouse than women with both work and family problems, Israelis received more help from their spouse with both home and work problems than Americans, and Israeli kibbutz members received more help from their spouse with both home and work problems than Israeli city dwellers. Support from the spouse for both work and home problems was found to be negatively correlated with burnout. These findings, as tentative as they are, demonstrate the theoretical and practical importance of studying “sandwiched generation” couples.     

Need for achievement and women's careers over 14 years: evidence for occupational structure effects

Previous research has demonstrated that achievement-motivated people perform better under working conditions of challenge, autonomy, and rapid feedback. These achievement-congenial conditions characterize entrepreneurial business and, among those occupations traditionally filled by women, teaching. Achievement motivation was measured in 117 women as college seniors and again 14 years later. Senior-year achievement motivation predicted later employment in teaching (including college). Career-involved women who had been highly achievement-motivated in college valued status mobility and working with people and reported job satisfaction from competition with a standard of excellence; however, women in different career situations differed in the relations between their achievement motivation in college and their later work values, job perceptions, and sources of satisfaction. Women highly achievement-motivated in adulthood valued achievement-congenial working conditions and status mobility and described job satisfaction from competition with a standard of excellence, especially if they were supervisors. Professors and businesswomen showed larger increases in achievement motivation over 14 years than did women otherwise employed. Thus, achievement motivation predicts women's career outcomes when their values and work situations, along with sex-differentiated occupational structures, are considered. Occupational structure effects on motives over time are discussed.     

Aging,Identity, and Women: Constructing the Third Age

The “Third Age” offers a conceptualization of the lives of those who are retired and beyond middle age but not facing any disability stereotypically associated with the “old.” Emphasizing good health, freedom from the responsibilities of younger adulthood, and continuing engagement with the world, it articulates a specific form of positive aging that has received very little attention within psychology. We adopted a feminist and critical discursive approach in exploring how eight women, who fit the Third Age profile, understand their lives and who they are. Audiotaped semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analyzed. The participants drew on four pairs of interpretative repertoires in constructing the meanings of aging. Their identity work involved positioning themselves as “not old” and establishing continuity between who they have been in the past and who they are now. The results highlight the women’s agency as they negotiated between the discursive resources available to them. Drawing on a framework for feminist therapy that incorporates an emphasis on social change, we discuss the implications of these results.     

Job aspects in the School Psychology Service: Empirically distinct associations with positive challenge at work,perceived control at work,and job attitudes

Activities within the Norwegian School Psychology Service traditionally concentrate on assessment of individuals in need and report writing (individual-level treatment). In recent years, a more “systemic” job aspect, providing preschool/school staff with tools to prevent the emergence of problems (systemic-level prevention) has been in demand. This study investigates the predictive value of these distinct aspects of work behaviour in the School Psychology Service using the outcome variables job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment among employees. It also looks at to what extent such associations may be mediated by positive challenge at work and perceived control at work. Self-reported data were collected from 470 School Psychology counsellors within 121 offices. Structural equation modelling suggested that the preventive aspect of the job was positively related to job attitudes, while the traditional job aspect was not. Furthermore, these associations were partially mediated by positive challenge at work and perceived control at work. Control for age did not alter the magnitude or pattern of regression coefficients in any substantive way. Occupational group did not moderate the associations. Alternative models were tested. Implications are discussed.     

Gender and Racial Stereotypes in Daily Newspaper Comics: A Time-Honored Tradition?

This study was designed to examine gender and minority roles in daily newspaper comics. Fifty comics from four daily newspapers were sampled during a month-long period. Gender roles were found to be stereotypical; women were underrepresented, more likely than men to be married and have children, and not as likely as men to have a job. More attention was paid to women's appearance, and female characters, when they did work, had lower job status than did male characters. Activities and behaviors were also divided along gender lines. Female characters did more of the domestic work such as child care and household chores, and male characters did more yard work. Female characters were more verbally aggressive, and most of the physical aggression was confined to “adult dramas” where men dominated. Minorities were basically nonexistent, save for a few strips that included or focused upon African Americans.     

Integrating turnover reasons and shocks with turnover decision processes

We interviewed and classified 186 quitters from many jobs and organizations via a theoretically-based protocol into five decision process types. We then tested exploratory hypotheses comparing users of these types on their propensity to report certain turnover reasons and turnover shocks. “Impulsive-type quitters,” with neither a job offer in hand nor turnover plan when they quit, reported poor management, work stress, and family demands as frequent turnover reasons, with manager conflicts and family events as frequent shocks. “Comparison quitters,” who had a job offer in hand and no plan, reported pay and advancement opportunities as top reasons with information about an alternative job being the most frequent shock. “Preplanned quitters,” who had a definite plan to quit well in advance, reported relocation and life/career changes as frequent reasons, with increasing family demand, relocation, and school starting as frequent shocks. “Satisficing quitters,” who made a plan conditional on getting an acceptable job offer, reported pay, poor management, work responsibilities, and work schedules as frequent reasons. Implications of these and other findings are discussed.     

Emotional job demands and burnout among oncology care providers

Abstract

Recent studies by Söderfeldt et al. (1996) and de Jonge et al. (1999) have demonstrated that Karasek's operationalization of job demands in his well-known Job Demands-Control (JD-C) Model (Karasek, 1979), i.e. quantitative demands, cannot capture the complexities of working with patients or clients in health care work. In the current study on burnout among 816 Dutch oncology care providers, the “traditional” JD-C Model was extended by including two types of emotional job demands. Moreover, “susceptibility to emotional contagion” was included as a potential moderator of the relationship between emotional job demands and burnout. Emotional job demands significantly contributed to the prediction of burnout, after controlling for quantitative job demands and job control. In addition, care providers' susceptibility to emotional contagion moderated the relationship between “confrontation with death and dying” and burnout. Care providers high in susceptibility to emotional contagion were more “vulnerable” to the stress associated with high emotional demands than their counterparts.     

“Bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy”: Labels that keep women out of the canon

Efforts to include women in the canon have long been beset by reactionary gatekeeping, typified by the charge “That's not philosophy.” That charge doesn't apply to early and mid-analytic female philosophers—Welby, Ladd-Franklin, Bryant, Jones, de Laguna, Stebbing, Ambrose, MacDonald—with job titles like lecturer in logic and professor of philosophy and publications in Mind, the Journal of Philosophy, and Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. It's hopeless to dismiss their work as “not philosophy.” But comparable reactionary gatekeeping affects them, this paper argues, typified by the labels “bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy.” Virtue and vice epistemology help explain why these women have been neglected and why their own approaches are epistemically virtuous. Their contemporaries and historians are deficient in scholarly virtues in labelling these women's work “bad” or derived from male mentors with no or specious justification. Their disparaged qualities—intellectual humility, modesty, critical self-reflection, disclosing biases—are often epistemic virtues.     

Careers for Women In Accounting

Progress is being made in improving employers' attitudes toward women accountants. A few years ago, most organizations did not actively recruit women accountants. Recently, however, accounting firms have become aware of the increasing number of women accounting graduates and are sending women recruiters to college campuses to recruit prospective women applicants. To analyze the progress in employment opportunities available to women during the past five years, a follow-up of a survey was conducted. Chi-square contingency tests were used to analyze some of the results. The survey showed that most accounting firms are either actively trying to solve the problem of discrimination or are at least interested in seeking solutions. Some companies indicated that they would hire more women college graduates if they were qualified accountants. Women need better career planning and counseling. They should be encouraged to study job market forecasts in view of their personal abilities and goals. Many women either have not been aware of job opportunities in accounting or have been interested in the field but discouraged by the attitudes of parents, professors, or guidance counselors, or overt discrimination by employers. In the past, such attitudes may have caused many capable women to select the more traditional “feminine” professions instead.     

Counselor Predictive Skill and Rated Counselor Effectiveness

Prediction is a fundamental part of counseling. Although counselors differ in their ability to predict accurately, there is no evidence that those who predict most accurately do the best job of counseling. Using 3 different sets of case data, 14 counselors predicted whether students would graduate and whether they would keep the “major” program selected at the time of admission. 3 supervisors agreed on the counselors rated “most” or “least” effective in their work with students. Although the amount of case data available to the counselors was unrelated to predictive accuracy, the counselors rated “most” effective predicted significantly better than those rated “moderately” or “least” effective.     

Need-Reinforcer Correspondence As a Predictor of Job Satisfaction

The “good fit” principle was applied to the prediction of job satisfaction, based on a proposition of the theory of work adjustment that satisfaction is a function of “correspondence” between individual needs and job reinforcers. Measures of needs, job reinforcers, and job satisfaction were administered to three groups of store employees. Five indices of need-reinforcer correspondence were calculated for each individual and applied as predictors of job satisfaction. For cashiers and sales clerks, correspondence measures correlated as high as .37 and .45, respectively, with job satisfaction; “hit rates” were as high as .68 and .73, respectively. Results for the checker-markers were not significant.     

The Credentialing Problems of Foreign Trained Personnel from Asia and Africa Intending to Make their Home in Canada: A Social Psychological Perspective

This study examined the experiences of a sample of skilled immigrants to Canada from Asia and Africa who were currently experiencing credentialing problems (N?=?180). Most respondents had advanced postsecondary training and a job requiring a high level of skill prior to emigrating, but many were unable to obtain equivalent work in Canada. In reaction, they took work for which they were overqualified, volunteered, had their qualifications assessed, and upgraded their training. Most respondents were surprised and upset that it was so difficult for them to obtain a suitable job in their profession, and many felt that immigrants were discriminated against by Canadian employers. The policy implications of this “brain waste” are discussed.