Attitudes toward Women as Managers: Sex or Role-Differences?

Abstract

women are increasingly finding themselves confronted with new opportunities (and problems) in the work world. More women than ever before, for example, are assuming managerial positions of one type or another. One result of this phenomenon has been an increased interest in studying the attitudes held by both sexes toward women in managerial roles. An attitude instrument, the Women as Managers Scale, has been developed for this purpose (Peters, Terborg, & Taynor, 1974). As part of a larger study, the attitude scale was one of several instruments administered to 108 managerial level employees from a number of organizations in the health services field. As expected, females (n = 69) scored higher than males (a = 39). indicating more favorable attitudes on the part of females toward women in managerial positions. Sex was, in fact, the best single predicror of atritude score with a correlation of .61 between sex of respondent and total score. Of more interest, however, was the negative relation (r = -.27, p < .Ol) for the total sample between number of years of work experience and total artitude score, with the effects of age partialled out. The same correlation (again, with age partialled out) is evident for women as well (r = -.25, p < .05). This occurred in spite of the significant positive relationship between sex and total score and suggests the possibility that irrespective of sex and age, the more experience the individual has the less positive will be his or her attitude toward women as managers. Both the explanation and implications of such a phenomenon, if true, are of significant interest. Are the less positive attitudes toward women, for example, simply reflections of actual sex differences? That is, do women really make less effective managers than men and therefore attitudes toward women in these roles are less positive? Or is it because some women, consciously or unconsciously, adopt the stereotypic roles they believe men see for women' And, if they do, is it because they have learned that playing that role is associated with orgnn~zational success? Or at best, failure to play that role impedes success? Finally, what ere the practical consequences of these attitudes on actual behavior? Are less positive attitudes toward women as managers, for example, associated with discriminatory behaviors? And if so, do women with less positive attitudes discriminate against other women as much and/or in the same way as men? It has been previously suggested (Macteson, McMahon, & McMahon, 1974) that some attitudinal differences commonly associated with sex may be more adequately explained as role differences instead. It may well be that differences here in attitudes toward women as managers reflect not actual sex differences but rather roledifferences based heavily on sexual stereotypes. Furure research could profitably be directed toward these and similar questions.