Gendered White Lies: Women Are Given Inflated Performance Feedback Compared With Men

Are underperforming women given less truthful, but kinder performance feedback (“white lies”) compared with equally underperforming men? We test this hypothesis by using a “benchmark” of truthful (objective) evaluation of performance and then either manipulating (Study 1) or measuring (Study 2) the extent to which the feedback given to women is upwardly distorted. In Study 1, participants were asked to guess the gender of an underperforming employee who had been given more or less truthful feedback. Participants overwhelmingly assumed that employees who had been told “white lies” were more likely to be women. In Study 2, in a naturalistic feedback paradigm, participants gave both quantitative and qualitative feedback to a male and a female writer directly. Participants upwardly distorted their original, gender-blind, quantitative evaluations of women’s work and gave more positive comments to women. The findings suggest that women may not receive the same quality of feedback as men.

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Gendered white lies: Women are given inflated performance feedback compared to men

10.31234/osf.io/yq24b ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Vivian Zayas ◽

Lily Jampol

Keyword(s):

Quantitative Evaluation ◽

Performance Feedback ◽

Objective Evaluation ◽

Evaluation Of Performance ◽

Gender Information

Are underperforming women given less truthful, but kinder performance feedback (“white lies”) compared to equally underperforming men? We test this hypothesis by using a “benchmark” of truthful (objective) evaluation of performance and then either manipulate (Study 1) or measure (Study 2) the extent to which the feedback given to women is upwardly distorted. In Study 1, participants were asked to guess the gender of an underperforming employee who had been given more or less truthful feedback. Participants overwhelmingly assumed that employees who had been told “white lies” were women. In Study 2, in a naturalistic feedback paradigm, participants first provided a quantitative evaluation of work in the absence of any gender information. After learning the worker’s gender, participants upwardly distorted their quantitative feedback and expressed more positive comments to women, but not men. The findings suggest that women may not receive the same quality of feedback as men.

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Sex segregation of work in Finland and the quality of women's work

Journal of Organizational Behavior ◽

10.1002/job.4030090103 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 15-27 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Kaisa Kauppinen-Toropainen ◽

Irja Kandolin ◽

Elina Haavio-Mannila

Keyword(s):

Women's Work ◽

Sex Segregation ◽

Women’S Work

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Are parental leaves considered as work interruptions by survey respondents? A methodological note

Canadian Studies in Population ◽

10.25336/p6v02h ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 39 (1-2) ◽

pp. 31 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Chaowen Chan ◽

Dana Hamplová ◽

Céline Le Bourdais

Keyword(s):

Labour Market ◽

Parental Leave ◽

Well Being ◽

Women's Work ◽

Women’S Work ◽

Work Interruptions ◽

Do So

Parental leaves and family-related work interruptions are linked to a variety of issues, such as children’s well-being or women’s work trajectories. Yet, the measurement of periods of absence from the labour market might be imprecise, especially in retrospective surveys. To evaluate the quality of the collected information, we examine whether women who reported taking a parental leave longer than six months also mentioned a corresponding work interruption, using the 2008 Living in Canada Survey (LCS) – Pilot. Our analysis shows that nearly half of women failed to do so. We investigate the sources of the discrepancy and suggest possible avenues of change for future surveys.

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