Date of Award
5-2000
Honors Thesis Number
010173
Major
Psychology
Abstract
People are often called upon to make decisions about someone with whom they are unfamiliar. While not always the norm, in a business situation, managers frequently base those decisions on information presented to them by a third party. This study was an attempt to ascertain whether participants in the role of manager would punish female stimulus persons who fail at a masculine occupation, and if they would be reluctant to hire another female to the same masculine job. The occupations of nurse and pilot were used as traditionally female and male occupations, respectively. Participants read scenarios and assumed the role of Human Resources Executive. The scenarios described a stimulus person who failed as either a pilot or nurse with either severe or non-severe consequences. A small same-sex bias was discovered in that male participants chose to punish a female target more often than a male target when the error was severe. Participants were also required to rank-order three potential applicants (2 males, 1 female) for the same position. It was hypothesized that they would not choose another female pilot. The findings did not support that hypothesis as 33% of participants chose the female pilot applicant.