The Influence of Social Status on Token Women Leaders' Expectations About Leading Male-Dominated Groups

Prior research has shown that women report mostly negative expectations about being a gender-token in male-dominated work groups. We speculate that this is partially caused by the socially ascribed status devaluation of women. In this study we investigated the degree to which elevated social status may lessen negative expectations of gender-token women assigned to leadership positions. Sixty-three undergraduate women participated in 1 of 3 tokenism conditions: (1) nontoken, (2) gender-token, and (3) high-status gender-token. In all conditions participants were led to believe that they would be leading a group of men in a decision-making exercise. Leader expectations were then assessed. The results suggest that increased social status may help prevent gender-token women from developing negative expectations about interactions with male-dominated work groups.