A gender perspective on Person-Manager fit and managerial advancement

This article presents two studies examining (1) the relationship between Person-Manager (P-M) fit and managerial advancement of women and men with, and without managerial aspirations and (2) the P-M fit as related to managerial and non-managerial women. The P-M fit was assessed by computing the congruence between participants' self-rated personality profile and the perceived personality profile of a manager. Sex (men show a higher P-M fit than women), gender (the higher the individual's masculine gender-role, the higher the P-M fit) and group (managers and managerial aspirants show a higher P-M fit than non-managerial aspirants and non-managers) hypotheses were tested. There was no support for the sex difference hypothesis. However, the group and gender hypotheses were confirmed showing that managers and managerial aspirants had a higher P-M fit than non-managers and non-aspirants. Further, analyses revealed that the higher the participants' masculinity scores, the higher the P-M fit. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the gendered image of the managerial role and adaptation theory.     

Social Desirability in Patients Seeking Surgical Treatment for Dentofacial Disharmony: Associations with Psychological Distress and Motivation for Treatment

The role of socially desirable responding in the report of treatment motivation and psychological distress by patients seeking surgical treatment for dentofacial disharmony was explored. Participants completed the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR; Paulhus, 1988), which measures two components of socially desirable responding (SDR): impression management (IM), which is the purposeful tailoring of answers in order to create the most positive social image, and self-deceptive positivity (SDE), which is an honest, but overly positive self-presentation. When simple bivariate relationships were examined, statistically significant inverse associations were observed between socially desirable responding and specific motives for treatment and between SDR and psychological distress. However, the relationship between socially desirable responding and motives for treatment disappeared when the effect of psychological distress was controlled. The positive relationship between psychological distress and the report of social well-being, and self-image motives for treatment remained statistically significant even after the variance attributable to socially desirable responding was removed. Implications of the findings for the evaluation of psychological distress and treatment motivation in this population are discussed.