Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Ph.D.
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Degree Granting Department
Psychology
Major Professor
Jennifer K. Bosson, Ph.D.
Co-Major Professor
Kristen Salomon, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Joseph Vandello, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Edelyn Verona, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Geoffrey Potts, Ph.D.
Keywords
Coping, Gender Bias, Personality, Workplace Inequality
Abstract
Women continue to face sexism in workplace contexts, especially those that are male dominated, such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Yet, women often fail to confront the sexism they experience, despite confrontation being an effective way to cope with and prevent future harassment (Fitzgerald et al., 1995; Magley, 2002). To date, no one has assessed the potential moderating role of personality differences related to approach motivation on women’s confrontation of sexism. In this study, women were exposed to either a hostilely sexist or benevolently sexist question during a mock job interview that was purportedly being conducted as part of a pilot for a STEM training program. Participants responded to both sexist and neutral questions, and their willingness to confront the sexism as well as their interview outcomes were assessed. I predicted that increased scores on a measure of behavioral activation (the Behavioral Activation Scale; Carver & White, 1994) would predict greater anger and confrontation in the HS condition and would predict better interview outcomes. I also exploratorily tested several other personality constructs that overlap with behavioral activation. Behavioral activation did not moderate anger, confrontation, or any of the interview outcomes; however, both hostile and benevolent sexism predicted greater confrontation than the control condition. Benevolent sexism also predicted better answers to the interview questions compared to the hostile condition, and exploratory analyses indicated that sensation seeking, appetitive motivation, functional impulsivity, and rebellious nonconformity may be fruitful avenues for future research on anger and confrontation in response to sexism.
Scholar Commons Citation
Kiebel, Elizabeth, "Individual Differences in Response to Hostile and Benevolent Sexism in a STEM Interview Context: The Moderating Role of Behavioral Activation" (2022). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/9388
