Person:

Wilmuth, Caroline

The current experiment tested whether changing one‘s nonverbal behavior prior to a high-stakes social evaluation could improve performance in the evaluated task. Participants adopted expansive, open (high-power) poses, or contractive, closed (low-power) poses, and then prepared and delivered a speech to two evaluators as part of a mock job interview, a prototypical social evaluation. All speeches were videotaped and coded for overall performance and hireability, and the potential mediators of speech quality (e.g., content, structure) and presentation quality (e.g., captivating, confident). As predicted, high power posers performed better and were more likely to be chosen for hire, and this relationship was mediated only by presentation quality, not speech quality. Power pose condition had no effect on body posture during the social evaluation, thus highlighting the relationship between preparatory nonverbal behavior and subsequent performance.

Women are significantly underrepresented in senior-level positions within organizations. A great deal of research has provided evidence that both demand-side factors (e.g., bias and discrimination) and supply-side factors (e.g., the different behavioral tendencies of men and women) significantly contribute to this gender disparity. However, demand- and supply-side factors are inextricably linked, such that differences in supply-side behaviors are often elicited in response to the divergent demand-side treatment that members of each gender receive. The aim of the current research was to investigate whether men and women’s goals, which are a strong predictor of downstream behavior, are similarly affected by differences in the ways that men and women are evaluated and treated. Thus, across 12 studies, employing a total of 6,245 participants, we examined differences in the professional advancement goals, perceptions, and behaviors exhibited by men and women. Our findings reveal that, compared to men, women view attaining power at work as less of a goal and opportunities for professional advancement as less desirable. To explore what may be shaping these differential objectives, we examined four potential contributing factors: (i) perceived attainability, (ii) perceptions of negative outcomes, (iii) perceptions of resistance and backlash to one’s ideas and abilities, and (iv) perceived belonging among one’s coworkers. While we found no gender difference for perceptions of attainability, resistance and backlash, or belonging, women did anticipate more negative outcomes (i.e., conflict amongst one’s goals, trade-offs, time constraints, and sacrifice) being associated with a promotion or high-power job opportunity. Moreover, these perceptions explained the relationship between women’s reduced desire for and pursuit of opportunities related to career advancement. These results are in line with the disproportionate level of domestic responsibilities placed on women as well as the conflicting nature of what it means to be a leader and what it means to be a woman from a societal expectations standpoint. Past research has shown that women’s perceptions of this imbalance and incongruity exert considerable influence over their behavior, but the current research suggests that this role conflict manifests itself on an even deeper level, by influencing the underlying goals that women have for themselves.