Supervisor Gender Research Articles

Gender and conversational behaviour in family therapy and live supervision

The association between supervisors’ and therapists’ gender and the conversational behaviour of four supervisors, nineteen trainee family therapists and twenty clients before, during and after eighty‐eight live supervisory phone in events were examined in this study. Clients’ co‐operation was not directly related to the gender of therapists and supervisors. The quality of supervisors’ collaborative behaviour was highest for events in systems where male supervisors were supervising male therapists and lowest for events in systems where male supervisors were supervising female therapists. In systems containing female supervisors and male therapists, therapists engaged in frequent collaborative behaviour and less frequent teaching behaviour with their clients. The quality of therapists’ collaborative and supportive behaviour was highest in these systems. The unexpected results of this study suggest that the way supervisors interact with therapists and therapists interact with clients does not conform to gender stereotypic conversational behaviour in which males are directive and females affiliative. It may be that individuals whose conversational behaviour does not conform to gender stereotypes decide to become family therapists or that family therapy training helps people develop alternatives to gender‐stereotypical conversational behaviour.

The Structure of Supervisor-Supervisee Interactions

This study examined the extent to which the structure of supervisor and supervisee verbal interaction during supervision is enhanced or moderated by (a) the problem severity, (b) the anxiety of the supervisee and supervisor regarding the client and with respect to each other, (c) perceptions of supervisee competence, (d) amount of supervision provided to the supervisee, and (e) supervisors' years of supervision experience. “Structure” was operationalized as the degree of patterning in the verbal responding of the supervisor and supervisee. Forty-four counseling supervision dyads were analyzed. Results suggest that supervisor-supervisee interaction may be less structured than generally thought, and that anxiety, skill, and experience variables play a negligible role in influencing the amount of structure that does occur. Supervisor gender was found to be a reliable predictor of whether the supervisor or supervisee had the greater influence on the supervision structure.

Supervisor gender, leadership style, and perceived job design

Using a national sample of 7,733 young working adults, the relationship between supervisor gender and perceived job design was explored. Results indicated that a supervisor’s gender did indeed influence subordinates’ perceptions of their job, and the differences were attributed to the different leadership styles men and women frequently use in the workplace. Overall, subordinates who had female supervisors perceived greater interpersonal aspects in their jobs, while subordinates who had male supervisors perceived greater structure in their jobs.

Supervisor mentoring: Does a female manager make a difference?

Research investigating the management styles of male and female supervisors is mixed. In an effort to clarify this research, the present study examined the interaction effect of gender of supervisor and gender of subordinate on perceived mentoring. Results revealed the least amount of mentoring occurred between female supervisors and female subordinates, but the greatest mentoring took place between female supervisors and male subordinates. Results were explained in terms of managerial experience and the double‐bind of female managers. These findings challenge the traditional advice that female subordinates should seek female supervisors.

The Role of Supervisory Referral in Employee Assistance Programs

Abstract A growing number of organizations offer Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to help employees with their personal problems. Many organizations rely on their supervisors to help identify and refer troubled employees to the EAP for assistance, yet very little conclusive evidence exists regarding the factors that influence whether or not supervisors identify and intervene with troubled employees. A previous review of the literature (Nord & Littrell, 1989) found that the following variables were consistently related to referral: (a) degree of management support for the EAP, (b) gender of supervisor, (c) gender of subordinate, (d) existence of a supervisor network, (e) occupational category of the employees supervised, (f) social distance between supervisor and troubled employee, (g) supervisors' attitude toward their role in referral, and (h) supervisor knowledge of the EAP. However, results of some of the studies reviewed for the current paper were inconsistent with Nord and Littrell's (1989) findin...

Anger and Gender Effects in Observed Supervisor-Subordinate Dyadic Interactions

This study investigates the effects of a supervisor's anger and supervisor's and subordinate's gender on evaluations made by observers of interacting supervisor-subordinate dyads. In a laboratory experiment, 370 undergraduates viewed one of eight video-tapes representing the conditions of the 2 (gender of supervisor) × 2 (gender of subordinate) × 2 (presence or absence of anger) design and then completed evaluations of the supervisor and the subordinate. A field study using 265 employees from three organizations replicated the laboratory results. In spite of constant dialogue in the interactions across all eight conditions, supervisors expressing anger were rated lower and female supervisors were rated higher by observers. Subordinates were rated higher when interacting with an angry supervisor and when interacting with a male supervisor. Main effects of supervisor's gender may reflect over-evaluation of unexpected, albeit average, performance. The joint supervisor and subordinate effects are interpreted as reflecting a dyadic rating effect in which high ratings assigned to one member of the dyad are accompanied by lower ratings assigned to the other member.

Relationship of supervisor and trainee gender to in-session verbal behavior and ratings of trainee skills.

Relationship of supervisor and trainee gender to in-session verbal behavior and ratings of trainee skills.

Female MSW Students' Satisfaction with Practicum Supervision: The Effect of Supervisor Gender

This report of a spring 1995 study involving 78 female MSW students at the University of Georgia compares the degrees of satisfaction with field practicum supervision of those with female and male field instructors respectively, using previously published measures of supervision satisfaction. One statistically significant but practically unimportant difference was revealed favoring male supervisors. The results are discussed in terms of past literature on gender in clinical supervision; areas for future research are also suggested. The little existing empirical research appears to support a gender-neutral policy for matching MSW students with practicum supervisors.

Role Models in Education

It is our hope that by assembling these papers in one place, the Review will contribute to future policy debate on the importance of role models in education. Moreover, the papers' findings may have even broader importance. In many respects, the relationship between teachers and students can be viewed as analogous to the relationship between supervisors and employees. If the race, gender, and ethnicity of teachers matter, so may the race, gender, and ethnicity of supervisors in the employment relationship. These papers thus suggest analogous types of research that could be profitably undertaken that relate to the employment relationship.

Effects of supervisor's gender on American women's trust.

(1994). Effects of Supervisor's Gender on American Women's Trust. The Journal of Social Psychology: Vol. 134, No. 2, pp. 253-255.

Influence of Attributed Expertness and Gender in Counselor Supervision

Counselor trainee ratings of supervisor expertness and competence did not differ as a function of either supervisor or trainee gender, but higher level ascribed expertness and competence were more favorably rated.

The Effects of Supervisor Sex and Work Environment on Attitude toward Older Employees

The effects of supervisor gender and work environment (public versus private sector) on supervisors' attitudes toward older employees were investigated. Participants attending a supervisory development institute completed questionnaires relating to performance appraisal practices in the public and private sectors. As part of this larger study, 120 participants were selected at random and combined in a balanced, 2 × 2 factorial ANOVA. Two independent variables — supervisor sex and type of work environment — were manipulated to assess their effects on supervisors' attitudes towards older employees. A significant main effect was found for type of work environment, confirming the hypothesis that public sector supervisors were more lenient in their evaluations of older employees. A main effect was also found for supervisor gender, but not in the predicted direction. Female supervisors were found to be more unfavorable in their evaluations of older employees. No interaction was found. Implications of findings and suggestions for future research are offered.

Effects of supervisor and supervisee degree level and gender on the supervisory relationship.

Effects of supervisor and supervisee degree level and gender on the supervisory relationship.

Affective Dispositions of Teachers in Training toward Examples of Supervisory Behavior

AbstractThe affective dispositions of men and women secondary student teachers toward the credibility and utility of supervisors depicted in recorded examples of supervisory sessions were measured using semantic differential techniques. The examples differed in approach used by the supervisor (directive and nondirective) and in supervisor gender. Factor analytic techniques were used to identify those bipolar scales that succeeded in indexing the subjects’ dispositions toward the target concepts. Composite scores of the identified scales were submitted to three-way ANOV A resulting in a significant main effect for supervisory approach favoring directive supervision and two significant interaction effects, supervisor sex x subject sex and supervisory approach x subject sex. Implications for supervisory behavior with student teachers are discussed.