Women at Work: Name Styles and Job Level

The way a person styles his or her name seems to be related, not only to an individual's sex or marital status, but to his or her job. A study of 3,735 university employees' signatures suggests that the variations form a pattern related to the social structure in the university's work setting. One implication for good counseling and personnel practices is that name styles and titles may matter a great deal at employment levels at which other sources of recognition are limited.     

Stress at Work: A Comparison of Men and Women

A research design was constructed to quantify examined estimates of stress resulting from selected work events and perceived differences of its impact among men and women.     

Women and Paid Work

A productive workforce is a prime goal of the Decade of Behavior initiative. Thanks to the women's movement that started in the 1960s, the majority of adult women today are a part of that productive workforce, demonstrating their knowledge, skills and abilities, and earning a livelihood through paid employment. Nevertheless, real equal opportunity in paid work remains an elusive goal. In this paper, two major reviews of the literature on women and paid work written 20 years apart (Cleveland, Stockdale, & Murphy, 2000; Nieva & Gutek, 1981) serve to structure a discussion of what we know about women's experiences in paid work. Selective areas of research are reviewed under four kinds of topics: (1) topics that have disappeared over the past 20 years, (2) important topics that were not studied or could not be studied 20 years ago but are now (women as leaders), (3) previously neglected topics (stereotyping), and (4) rapidly emerging topics (mentoring, effects of preferential selection, sexual harassment). It is largely from feminist scholarship on women and paid work that we have been able to separate myth from reality through the accumulation of a sizable research-based literature. Unfortunately the body of research on women and paid work is still insufficiently integrated into the body of research on the psychology of work.     

Women,Work, and Disability

This article describes career development, labor market utilization, occupational and career mobility, achievement, and attainment paths of both women and disabled women as workers.     

Work Attitudes and Values of College Women

Despite woman's fast emergence into the working world, few studies have focused on individual changing attitudes and values that become initially responsible for setting future employment trends in our society. Following a historical perspective, a survey is presented that samples the inner feelings of young college women and their personal stand on the world of work. The results indicate a general rejection of much of the traditional work ethic. Although the attitudes expressed in this survey are simply contemporary, their hidden strength hints to the shape of a future American society that will potentially change the life-style of every individual.     

Women,Work, and Life Transitions

Work is a positive force in helping women manage the issues and problems caused by separation and loss. The role of the employment counselor can be crucial during the process of transition.     

Black Women and the Pleasures of Intellectual Work

What does it mean for a Black woman to choose to do intellectual work? In the twenty‐first century, Black women, either by virtue of their academic careers or their vocations outside of institutional settings, pursue intellectual work for its own sake as well as in pursuit of collective goals. That is to say, they can acknowledge intellectual work as a source of personal fulfillment, indeed a source of joy in ways that earlier generations of Black women could not. At least that should be true. In fact, it remains difficult for Black women to own the joy that their engagement with ideas produces.     

Gender and Emotions at Work: Organizational Rank Has Greater Emotional Benefits for Men than Women

Sex Roles - The way people feel is important for how they behave and perform in the workplace. Experiencing more positive?and less negative?emotions at work is often associated with...     

Entry-Level Employment Prospects for Women in College-Student Personnel Work

Women are no longer underrepresented in student-personnel preparation programs. Although this situation is noteworthy, it may not be without potentially frustrating consequences for the increased number of female master's degree graduates who are seeking a limited number of entry-level positions. Whether the increase in women will have deleterious effects on placement remains to be seen. In the meantime, women (and men) should be made aware of the inherent free-market employment risks when contemplating a career in student-personnel work.     

Posture and Prediction on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale

A study was performed investigating the relationship between stated attitudes toward the feminist movement and willingness to help that movement. Results suggested that Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) measures of feminist commitment may be limited by a social desirability variable and that high scores on the AWS do not correlate with a behavioral measure of commitment.     

Authenticity at Work: Development and Validation of an Individual Authenticity Measure at Work

Building on the work by Barrett-Lennard (Carl Rogers’ helping system: Journey & substance. Sage, London 1998) and Wood et al. (J Couns Psychol 55:385–399 2008), this study describes the development and validation of a theory-based measure of state authenticity at work, the Individual Authenticity Measure at Work (IAM Work). Even though this construct is obviously relevant to the work context (e.g., as regards issues of work relations, leadership and well-being), none of the instruments currently available focuses on authenticity in the area of work and organizational psychology. A total sample of 646 participants was divided in two equal sized subsamples. Exploratory factor analysis supported the underlying tripartite construct of authenticity at work, resulting in the subscales authentic living, self-alienation, and accepting external influences. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the tripartite construct and showed good psychometric properties of the state-focused measure of authenticity at work. Finally, correlation analysis showed that each subscale and the total score of authenticity was positively related to commonly used work outcomes such as job satisfaction, in-role performance, and work engagement. This study concludes that the IAM Work is a reliable and valid measure of state authenticity at work. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Sex Bias at Work: The Effects of Attentional and Memory Demands on Performance Ratings of Men and Women1

The present study examined the impact of attentional and memory demands on work performance ratings accorded men and women in traditionally male jobs. Of interest was whether sex discrimination would abate in the face of individuating and job-relevant work behavior even when the demands likely to be faced in actual work settings were taken into account. Two hundred and two subjects read a vignette depicting the work behavior of a male or female police officer and then rated the individual's work performance. The attentional demands imposed on subjects while reading the vignette and the amount of time elapsed prior to issuing the performance ratings were systematically varied. As predicted, men were evaluated more favorably than women when raters were faced with an additional task requiring attention and time pressures were made salient. Only when subjects were able to carefully allocate all of their attentional resources did sex bias in work performance ratings abate. Memory demands had no effects on work performance ratings. Gender-related work characterizations paralleled the performance ratings, providing support for the idea that sex stereotypes mediate discrimination in performance appraisal judgments. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings, as well as suggestions for future research, are discussed.     

Development of a Brief Multidimensional Aversion to Women Who Work Scale

A brief multidimensional measure of aversion to women who work (MAWWWS) was developed using data collected from 175 predominantly lower income Anglo American undergraduate and graduate students attending a medium-sized university located in the southern United States. Findings indicated that the 10-item measure exhibited acceptable reliability, as well as adequate convergent and criterion validities. Consequently, the MAWWWS may be a useful measure of employment-related gender attitudes.     

Nonstandard Work Arrangements among Women and Men Scientists and Engineers

This paper draws on a sample of 48,444 scientists and engineers in the United States to analyze nonstandard work arrangements among women and men, 8,773 of whom worked in such arrangements. With few exceptions, women were overrepresented in these arrangements and particularly in those characterized by lower wages and benefits, but their overrepresentation in the worst arrangements failed to explain the gender pay gap. Unlike in the general labor force where “equality at the bottom” tends to prevail, the gender pay gap in science and engineering is greater in the worst nonstandard work arrangements than in the best, and gender equality is greater in the best arrangements than in the worst, possibly because of a selection effect.     

The Effects of a Female Role Model on Academic Performance and Persistence of Women in STEM Courses

Women are more likely to leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics compared to men, in part because they lack similar role models such as peers, teaching assistants, and instructors. We examined the effect of a brief, scalable online intervention that consisted of a letter from a female role model who normalized concerns about belonging, presented time spent on academics as an investment, and exemplified overcoming challenges on academic performance and persistence. The intervention was implemented in introductory psychology (Study 1, N?=?258) and chemistry (Study 2, N?=?68) courses. Relative to the control group, the intervention group had higher grades and lower failing and withdrawal rates.