Abstract
The backlash avoidance model (BAM) suggests women insufficiently self-promote because they fear backlash for behavior which is incongruent with traditional gender roles. Avoiding self-promoting behavior is also potentially related to associating success with negative consequences. In two studies we tested whether self-promotion and fear of success will be predictors of lower salaries and anticipation of lower chances of success in an exam. In study 1, prior to the exam they were about to take, we asked 234 students about their predictions concerning exam results and their future earnings. They also filled scales measuring their associations with success (fear of success) and tendency for self-promotion. The tested model proved that in comparison to men, women expect lower salaries in the future, anticipate lower test performance and associate success with more negative consequences. Both tendency for self-promotion and fear of success are related to anticipation of success in test performance and expectations concerning future earnings. In study 2 we repeated the procedure on a sample of younger female and male high school pupils (N = 100) to verify whether associating success with negative consequences and differences in self-promotion strategies are observable in a younger demographic. Our results show that girls and boys in high school do not differ with regard to fear of success, self-promotion or agency levels. Girls and boys anticipated to obtain similar results in math exam results, but girls expected to have higher results in language exams. Nevertheless, school pupils also differed regarding their future earnings but only in the short term. Fear of success and agency self-ratings were significant predictors of expectations concerning future earnings, but only among high school boys and with regard to earnings expected just after graduation.
Highlights
Compensation statistics gathered in Europe and the United States (Blau et al, 2014; Eurostat, 2016; Kijewska, 2017) invariably suggest a significant pay gap between men and women
As research indicates that women do not differ from men in their self-appraisals concerning their abilities (Freund and Kasten, 2012) but following backlash avoidance model (Moss-Racusin and Rudman, 2010) we expect that men and women will differ with regard to self-presentation strategies and that women will tend to be more modest than men and less likely to self-promote (Moss-Racusin and Rudman, 2010) and that women will associate success with more negative consequences and will rate their fear of success as higher than men (Feather and Raphelson, 1974; Zuckerman and Allison, 1976; Pedersen and Conlin, 1987; Fried-Buchalter, 1997)
The results of Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test showed that the distribution of anticipated exam results as well as distributions of anticipated earnings in three time periods were significantly different among men and women
Summary
Compensation statistics gathered in Europe and the United States (Blau et al, 2014; Eurostat, 2016; Kijewska, 2017) invariably suggest a significant pay gap between men and women. As research indicates that women do not differ from men in their self-appraisals concerning their abilities (Freund and Kasten, 2012) but following backlash avoidance model (Moss-Racusin and Rudman, 2010) we expect that men and women will differ with regard to self-presentation strategies and that women will tend to be more modest than men and less likely to self-promote (hypothesis 2) (Moss-Racusin and Rudman, 2010) and that women will associate success with more negative consequences and will rate their fear of success as higher than men (hypothesis 3) (Feather and Raphelson, 1974; Zuckerman and Allison, 1976; Pedersen and Conlin, 1987; Fried-Buchalter, 1997). In order to verify this hypothesis we conducted our studies in two age groups – students (study 1) and high school pupils (study 2)
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