Beyond Ability: How Stereotypes Shape Success in the Workplace

Two identical resumes are mailed out. The only difference between the two is their names. One gets chosen for an interview, while the other does not get called back even though they are identical; this is no accident. This is the result of a well-known experiment wherein identical resumes with white-sounding names received 50 per cent more callbacks than identical resumes with Black-sounding names (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004). This is how stereotypes work in the professional world.

They do not wait for a person to establish their competence; they emerge as soon as a person’s name, age, or gender becomes clear. And from that point on, they silently influence who is considered competent, whom to put in a leadership position, and whom to demand double effort from to take them seriously. The current article will focus on these assumptions and their consequences. 

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The Leadership Test 

Imagine asking someone to envision what a “leader” is, and nine times out of ten, without realising it, they will envision a man. It is known as the “Think Manager, Think Male”  stereotype. In fact, in a comprehensive review spanning six decades of studies on gendered conceptions of leadership, scholars confirmed that leaders are perceived more masculinely than femininely. 

This statement reflects the idea that an observation is directly connected to an outcome, indicating that certain facts will influence that outcome. This happens because role congruity theory states that the leader should demonstrate agency (direct, strong, in charge), while women should be communal (emotional, friendly and accommodating).

A female leader exhibiting agency may be perceived as incompetent and fail to meet expectations, leading to negative consequences for her. (Eagly & Karau, 2002). If she is emotional and friendly, she will be seen as likeable, but not a leader who can make decisions. If she is firm and assertive, she will be viewed as competent, but not likeable. There are many studies devoted to the trade-off between likability and competence (Fiske et al., 2002). 

The end product is a constraint which has nothing at all to do with competence. A woman could meet every target, outperform her colleagues in every category, and yet recruiters or decision-makers could still overlook her when discussing “potential,” a concept they often use as a substitute for stereotypical perceptions of leadership ability.

Read More: A Review of the Five Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell

Judged Before You Speak

But hiring should be based on qualifications. In reality, assumptions determine everything even before the interviews begin. In the previous experiment on resumes, the racial disparity in callbacks remained constant despite changes in industries, occupations, and organisation sizes,  including those organisations that openly described themselves as equal opportunity employers  (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004). 

The same applies to age. In several recruitment experiments, recruiters evaluated applicants with profiles based on characteristics typically associated with older adults as less hireable than candidates with “young” profiles, even when the positions did not require age-related qualities and involved low-status roles (Abrams et al., 2016). These findings become even more difficult to justify because researchers have shown that these stereotypes are incorrect in the vast majority of cases. In a meta-analysis involving more than 200,000 participants, Ng and Feldman (2012) found no significant differences in motivation, health, or adaptability between younger and older workers.

Thus, recruiters often label candidates in advance as too old for innovation or view certain names as “risky” before they know the individuals personally. These judgments do not reflect the candidates’ actual capabilities; instead, recruiters form these immediate perceptions long before candidates have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.

Read More: Not Just Quirks: The Danger of Reducing Complex Disorders to Stereotypes 

The Cost to Confidence 

Stereotyping does not affect how other people see you, but it also affects how you see yourself. Researchers call this phenomenon stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is the pressure you feel because you are afraid of confirming a stereotype about your group when you make a mistake. The fear of stereotype threat is real. It can really get to you. Stereotype threat is a problem because it makes you worry about what other people think of you and your group. In the early experiments dealing with this issue, a simple reminder of a stereotype about the individual’s group before doing an assigned task had an effect on his/her performance in the very task (Steele & Aronson, 1995). 

This manifests itself in subtle ways in a workplace setting. Studies have shown that this phenomenon lowers job engagement, reduces career aspirations, and makes people less willing to seek feedback or accept criticism because they often interpret feedback as evidence that confirms the stereotype (Casad & Bryant, 2016). After years of facing such questioning, people begin to question themselves before anyone else does. The person does not raise his hand for a challenging project. They undermine their own contributions in the meeting. This is the true destructive power of stereotypes. They not only limit opportunities from the outside; they train people to limit themselves.

Read More: The Brains’ Negative Bias: Why We Anticipate the Wors

Conclusion 

All of this is not to say that competence is unimportant. All of this suggests that people judge competence through a process that has very little to do with actual performance and much more to do with a person’s name, age, gender, or the first impression they create within seconds. Once the filter is in place, everything else follows from there. 

The solution is not complex, although it is difficult in practice. It includes structured interviews using the same questions for all candidates. It also involves anonymous resume screening by stripping names and photos. In addition, it requires clearly defined promotion requirements rather than vague notions of “potential.” Such solutions won’t eliminate the bias, but they will reduce the margin of unchecked bias operations. Next time you find yourself evaluating someone, as a leader, as a recruit, or as someone worthy of your attention, consider just one thing. Are you basing your response on what they have accomplished? Or are you basing it on who they remind you of?

References +

• Abrams, D., Swift, H. J., & Drury, L. (2016). Old and unemployable? How age-based stereotypes affect willingness to hire job candidates. Journal of Social Issues, 72(1), 105–121.  https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12158 
• Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labour market discrimination. American Economic Review,  94(4), 991–1013. https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828042002561 
• Casad, B. J., & Bryant, W. J. (2016). Addressing stereotype threat is critical to diversity and inclusion in organisational psychology. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 8.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00008 
• Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders.  Psychological Review, 109(3), 573–598. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.109.3.573 
• Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6), 878–902. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022- 3514.82.6.878 
• Heilman, M. E. (2012). Gender stereotypes and workplace bias. Research in Organisational Behaviour, 32, 113–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2012.11.003 
• Koenig, A. M., Eagly, A. H., Mitchell, A. A., & Ristikari, T. (2011). Are leader stereotypes masculine? A meta-analysis of three research paradigms. Psychological Bulletin, 137(4), 616– 642. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023557 
• Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). Evaluating six common stereotypes about older workers with meta-analytical data. Personnel Psychology, 65(4), 821–858.  https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12003
• Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of  African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797–811.  https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.797