Masculinity contest cultures lead to self-group distancing in women

Abstract

Past work has shown that personal experiences of gender discrimination are associated with a tendency among women to distance themselves from the gender ingroup. We propose that merely encountering workplace cultures with strong norms aligned with masculinity (i.e., a “masculinity contest culture,” or MCC) can produce a self-group distancing response. In four studies (total n = 3955) we demonstrate that MCCs devalue the female social identity, which undermines women's personal sense of status, leading them to self-group distance in these workplaces. In Study 1, women (not men) were more likely to conceal their gender in a workplace with strong (vs. weak) MCC and reported stronger self-group distancing. In Study 2, which included employees across industries that varied in MCCs, we found that MCC correlated with self-group distancing for women (not men), and lower personal status mediated this relationship. We further tested the causal chain in two experiments. In Study 3, participants perceived the female (vs. male) social identity as lower status in workplaces with strong (vs. weak/control) MCC, and ingroup status perceptions mediated the negative effect of MCC on personal status for women more strongly than men. In Study 4, experimentally elevating the status of the female social identity reduced the gender gap in self-group distancing via an increase in women's personal status. These findings illuminate how women's personal status in MCCs is strongly rooted in their gender ingroup status, and is a key mechanism whereby this subtle form of workplace bias triggers self-group distancing in women.