Tailoring the intervention to the self: Congruence between self-affirmation and self-construal mitigates the gender gap in quantitative performance

Jennifer Y. Kim, Joel Brockner and Caryn J. Block

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2022, vol. 169, issue C

Abstract: There is a gender performance gap in the MBA classroom, in which men perform better than women, particularly in quantitative courses. We examined whether greater congruence between participants’ self-construal levels and the self-affirmation in which they engaged would mitigate the gender performance gap. In Study 1, participants varying in their self-construal levels were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: 1) an individual self-affirmation condition in which they wrote about a value that is important to them, 2) a collective self-affirmation condition in which they wrote about a value that is important to them and their ingroup, and 3) a control condition in which they wrote about a value important to someone else. We found that: 1) the gender performance gap was mitigated among those who individually self-affirmed and 2) the gender performance gap was particularly likely to be diminished under conditions of congruent self-affirmation (when those who were relatively high in independent self-construal engaged in individual self-affirmation and when those who were relatively high in interdependent self-construal engaged in collective self-affirmation). Conceptually analogous results emerged in Study 2 conducted on a considerably larger on-line sample. The discussion centers on: (1) the implications of our findings for the emerging literature on wise interventions, and (2) the practical value of encouraging individuals to engage in self-affirmation to counteract the harmful effects of stereotype-threat.

Keywords: Gender differences; Wise interventions; Stereotype threat; Self-affirmation; Self-construal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:169:y:2022:i:c:s0749597822000024

DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104118

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