The Unequal Burden of Positive Gender Stereotypes on Women's and Men’s Sense of Autonomy

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Seven studies (N = 3,536) examine the conditions under which individuals experience expectations about their social category as a threat to their sense of autonomy and the consequences of autonomy threat elicited by such expectations. Across both work contexts and non-work contexts, women experienced expectations associated with their gender category as more threatening to their sense of autonomy compared to men, even when expectations were positively valenced (Studies 1a-2b). This gender difference was explained by gendered expectations playing a more significant role in women’s lived experiences than men’s and by men tending to encounter more agentic (control-affording) gendered expectations than women (Study 1b). Autonomy threat explained, in part, why women experienced more negative emotions in response to, and reported lower motivation to comply with, positive gender stereotypes about their group at work than men did (Studies 2a-b). Consistent with the notion that highly agentic stereotypes provide a buffer against feelings of autonomy threat, Asian Americans responded more negatively to low agency positive stereotypes about their group than high agency positive stereotypes about their group, explained in part by how much autonomy they felt the stereotype provided (Study 3). Communal expectations felt more controlling to women when explicitly gendered (Study 4) and prescriptive rather than descriptive (Study 5). Overall, results show that women and men’s feelings of autonomy are differentially impacted by society’s expectations about the (positive) qualities they possess, contributing to an unequal psychological burden placed on women at work and beyond.