Discrimination Against Competent Women1

Abstract

Although women have complained about job discrimination, the experimental literature has revealed little discrimination against competent women. On the thesis that discrimination would only occur when a competent woman was in interaction with a man, a 2 × 3 × 2 × 2 experiment factorially varied sex of subject, type of interaction (competition, cooperation, observation), sex of others, and competency of others. As predicted, males like the competent woman only when they observed her performance and were not involved in the interaction. Furthermore, both males and females were more likely to exclude a competent women from their group than a competent man, and to include an incompetent woman than an incompetent man. Although competent women were not discriminated against on a leadership measure, it was clear that an atmosphere conducive to low performance by women was established. These findings were interpreted in terms of the disconfirmation of stereotypic beliefs regarding the relative competencies of men and women, and ethnocentrism.