Gender, interpersonal power, and social influence

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 1999 by Linda L. Carli

Although self-promotion is costly for women, women who are too modest are also disadvantaged; they evoke more favorable reactions from others, but they also appear less competent (Rudman, 1998). As a result, women end up experiencing a double bind. They can either convey modesty and be appealing to others but perceived as less competent, or they can self-promote and convey competence and risk rejection.

These findings demonstrate that women who have expert power, because they are perceived to be competent, are likely to be resisted as leaders or agents of influence because they lack legitimate power. The consequences for women can be quite serious. For example, Foschi and her colleagues reported that, when undergraduates are given the task of hiring another student for a campus job, both men and women prefer hiring a man over a woman if the two are equally qualified (Foschi, Lai, & Sigerson, 1991) and men prefer hiring a man, even when he is less qualified (Foschi, Sigerson, & Lembesis, 1995). Moreover, a meta-analytic review of 75 studies of mixed-gender groups revealed that women are less likely than men to become leaders both in laboratory studies using student samples and in naturally occurring groups with other adults (Eagly & Karau, 1991). Even when women acquire a position of leadership, they continue to lack the legitimacy of men and, consequently, experience resistance to their authority. For example, Eagly, Makhijani, and Klonsky (1992) conducted a meta-analysis of 61 leadership studies using a variety of different samples: high school students, college students, graduate students, managers, and employees. The authors reported that subordinates react more negatively to women leaders than men leaders, particularly when the subordinates are male, when women use a directive leadership style, or when women lead in a male-dominated domain, such as business or athletics (Eagly et al., 1992). Apparently, directive leadership and leadership in male domains is considered inappropriate for women because such behavior is too masculine and too status asserting - in effect, illegitimate for women.

Women's lower levels of legitimate power may, in part, account for the preferential treatment of male executives over women executives. Ragins and Sundstrom (1989) have noted that, for women, obstacles to power are compounded at every career transition. Research on women in management indicates that even at the highest levels of management with comparable education, experience, and time at work, women receive fewer rewards than men (Morrison & Von Glinow, 1990; Stroh, Brett, & Reilly, 1992). In fact, women executives do report relatively more obstacles at higher executive levels than at lower levels; yet these women are likely to have achieved their rank because of their exceptionally high level of competence (Lyness & Thompson, 1997).

Gender Differences in Referent Power

According to Guttentag and Secord (1983), whereas men's power derives from their structural advantages and their access to external resources, women's power derives from their domestic roles and their relationships with others. Referent power is relationship-based. Because a person's referent power is based on how much others like and want to associate with him or her, those possessing referent power should be perceived as socially skilled, pleasant, and agreeable, essentially possessing the communal traits more typically associated with women than with men (Eagly, 1987). Research on student and nonstudent samples has revealed that people consider women to be warm, expressive, understanding, compassionate, and concerned about others' feelings (Broverman et al., 1972; Martin, 1987; Ruble, 1983; Williams & Best, 1990). More important, people actually report having more positive feelings toward women than toward men (Eagly & Mladinic, 1989) and liking women more than men (Fiske & Ruscher, 1993). Women's greater likeableness gives them greater referent power than men.