ms. and the manager: a tale of two stereotypes

Sex Roles, VoL 22, Nos. 9/10, 1990

Ms. and the Manager: A Tale of Two Stereotypes 1

Kenneth L. Dion 2 and Regina A. Schuller University of Toronto

Recent research on the Ms. stereotype suggests a potentially important exception to the strong link between gender and managerial stereotypes observed in the 1970s. Specifically, we hypothesized that a woman who prefers "Ms." as her title of address would be seen by perceivers of both sexes as more similar in the "requisite" traits of a successful, middle manager than wouM a woman who prefers a traditional title o f address for herself. These hypotheses were tested by having respondents rate a "successful, middle manager" or other stimulus persons varying in titles o f address, sex, and marital status. Correla- tional analyses of respondents" ratings of stimulus persons yielded strong sup- port for the hypotheses. That is, a woman preferring Ms. as her title o f address was seen by adult perceivers of both sexes as possessing the "requisite" personality characteristics o f a successful, middle manager; whereas a traditionally titled woman was not. Implications o f these findings are discussed.

In several well known investigations, Virginia Schein (1973, 1975) and others (Massengill & Di Marco, 1979) found a strong association between the stereotype o f a successful, middle manager and tradi t ional gender-role stereotypes o f men but not women. That is, a successful, middle manager was perceived by male and female business persons to have personality traits more common- ly ascribed to men in general than to women in general. Schein (1973, 1975) took her findings o f a close link between gender-role and managerial stereo-

1This research was facilitated by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Sum- mer Fellowship to the second author, who is presently at York University. Thanks are also due to an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments concerning the original version of the manuscript.

2To whom reprint requests should be addressed at Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada MSS IAI.

569 0360-0025/90/0500-0569506,00/0 © 1990 Plenum Publishing Corporation

570 Dion and Schuller

types as accounting in part for the limited number of women beyond the level of lower management.

Traditional gender-role stereotypes, which ascribe traits relating to competence and independence to men and other personality traits reflecting warmth and expressiveness to women (Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clark- son, & Rosenkrantz, 1972), make it difficult for women to gain entry and acceptance in middle and upper level management positions. Research demon- strating that a person's sex can color our expectations and evaluations of that individual, especially in the work world (e.g., Nieva & Gutek, 1981), certainly supports this interpretation. In a national survey, for example, Rosen and Jerdee (1978) found that male managers viewed women as inferior to men in motivation, skill, and decision-making ability. Moreover, these male managers also believed that women were less employable or promotable than men.

Recent research on stereotypes of women as a function of their reported preference for Ms. as a title of address vs. a traditional (Miss or Mrs.) title of address suggests a potentially important exception to the link between gender and mangerial stereotypes observed in the 1970s. In testing whether the title Ms. evokes a stereotype in perceivers, Dion (1987) reported two experiments in which university students o f both sexes rated either a male stimulus person or a female stimulus person varying preferred title of address (i.e., Ms., Mrs., Miss), but with age and employment status constant in all cases. Both experiments showed that a woman who prefers the title Ms. is seen as more achievement-oriented, socially assertive and dynamic, but less interper- sonally warm than her counterparts with traditional titles of address.

Dion (1987) also noted that many traits underlying the Ms. stereotype are similar to the "requisite" characteristics Schein (1973, 1975) identified as the stereotype of the successful, middle manager. The belief that a woman lacks the necessary characteristics for success as a manager may therefore not be associated with a woman who uses the title Ms. as opposed to a traditional title of address (i.e., Miss, Mrs.), Thus, the title Ms. may evoke an image of a woman possessing the necessary traits for success as a manager in the business world, an image that in turn should foster rather than inhibit access to middle and upper level managerial positions.

From this line of thought, we expected that for perceivers of both sexes, the Ms. stereotype would overlap considerably with the "successful manager" stereotype, whereas stereotypes of women with traditional titles of address would not be similar to the stereotype of a successful, middle manager. Several experimental conditions were created to test these hypotheses. In one condition replicating Schein's, the to-be-rated stimulus person was a "successful, middle manager" with no sex specified. Other comparison conditions varied the stimulus person's title of address and sex as well as their marital status.

Ms. and Managerial Stereotypes 571

M E T H O D

Subjects

Subjects were visitors to Toronto's Ontario Science Centre, who volun- teered for a first impressions study. The sample consisted of 102 females and 85 males. Approximately 31070 resided in Canada, 66.3070 in the U.S., and 2.7070 in other countries. Ages ranged from 16 to 70, with a median of 32. Students comprised only 14.89070 of the sample. The median occupational level of the remaining respondents, categorized according to Hollingshead's (undated) 9-point occupational status scale, was approximately 7. Small business owners and minor professionals, such as sales representatives, auditors, and insurance agents are typical occupations at level 7. Thus, the sample consisted largely of adults representing a wide age range, both sexes, two nation- alities, and good representation from the business and professional world.

Procedure

Upon being seated in a theater area capable of holding 30-40 people, subjects were individually presented with a questionnaire. Typically, several people participated at the same time, with subjects randomly assigned to one of the seven experimental conditions that varied the stimulus person to-be- rated.

Questionnaire and Stimulus Persons. The cover page informed respondents that they would rate a hypothetical individual on a series of descriptive adjectives knowing only a few items of information about her or him. Instruc- tions for completing a semantic differential scale were also presented on the cover page.

The to-be-rated stimulus person was presented on the second page. All stimulus persons were identified as 23 years old and employed full-time with a large corporation in order to keep perceived age and employment status of the stimulus person constant. Seven different stimulus persons comprised the experimental conditions. Six of the stimulus persons related to the joint experimental variations of marital status [i.e., married vs. unmarried] and type of stimulus [nontraditional female title of address (i.e., Ms.), traditional female title of address (i.e., Mrs. for a married woman and Miss for an unmarried woman), and male stimulus]. For example, the description of the married female stimulus person with the Ms. title of address was: "A married woman, 23 years of age, employed full-time with a large corporation, who prefers to be addressed by the title 'Ms'." In these variations, the stimulus person's marital status was always first, followed by age and employment


status, and finally, the preferred title of address in the case of female stimulus persons. For the male stimulus persons, no mention was made of title of address. In the seventh but key experimental condition, respondents rated a "successful, middle-level manager" of the same age and employment status as the other stimulus persons, but no sex specified.

Measures. After reading the stimulus person description, respondents indicated their impression on 51 semantic differential scales reflecting mainly the competence and warmth dimensions of gender stereotyping (e.g., Brover- man et al., 1972) as well as trait dimensions taken from Stake's (1979; Stake & Orlofsky, 1981) Performance Self-Esteem Scale, an index of "agentic" aspects of self-esteem relating to ability and achievement. These scales incorpor- ated a seven-point response format and were scored 1-7. In general, higher scores indicated a more positive standing on a given dimension. The feminine- masculine dimension was keyed in the feminine direction, so that higher scores reflected greater perceived femininity. The "positive" pole (i.e., the pole scored 7) of the other 50 items were: assertive, worldly, likes competi- tion, works well under pressure, good, productive, hard-working, interested in own appearance, willing to take risks, has initiative, approachable, friendly, likes art and literature, trustworthy, leader, likes math and science, socially popular, helpful to others, strong, never cries, trusting, kind, superior, good business sense, creative, decisive, objective, active, bold, caring, physically attractive, desirable as a friend, happy, sensitive to the feelings of others, sincere, ambitious, dominant, sophisticated, nurturant, romantic, likes responsibility, independent, likes challenges, extroverted, neat in personal habits, motivated, beautiful, interesting, able to give orders, and warm.

At the end of the questionnaire, respondents indicated their sex, age, marital status, occupation, and country of residence. Female respondents were also asked to specify which title of address they generally preferred and used for themselves: Ms., Miss, or Mrs. After returning the completed ques- tionnaires, respondents received a brief, written description of the study and were thanked for their participation.

RESULTS

Test o f the Ms. Stereotype

On the basis of the Ms. stereotype identified by Dion (1987) in two university samples, it was hypothesized that there would be considerable similar- ity between adult perceivers' impressions of a woman who prefers the title Ms. and a successful middle level manager. It was also expected that there would be little perceived resemblance between a woman preferring a tradition-

Ms. and Managerial Stereotypes 5"/3

al title of address (i.e., Miss, Mrs.) and a successful manager. Thus, it was first necessary to demonstrate that the personality trait attributions elicited by a woman's reported title of address in Dion's previous studies with university students also held for adult respondents from the general public.

Following Dion's procedure, the 51 semantic differential traits were first factor analyzed to identify several indexes defined by items with a rotated factor loading exceeding 0.40. The four resulting factor-based indexes-competence and leadership (e.g., has initiative, likes responsibility, likes challenges, motivated), warmth and likability (e.g., friendly, helpful to others, nurturant), task-oriented (e.g., productive and hard-working), and stereotypical masculinity (i.e., masculine, never cries, and likes math and science)- were analyzed in a 2 (Sex of Subject) x 3 (Type of Stimulus) x 2 (Marital Status of Stimulus) ANOVA. (Due to missing data, dfs for the denominators vary slightly from index to index).

There were no significant main or interaction effects involving the stimulus person's marital status on any index. Main effects for sex of respondent were obtained on two indexes, with female respondents rating the stimulus persons higher on competence and leadership and on task orientation than male respondents, Fs (1, 146 and 149 respectively) = 9.31 and 4.39, ps < .05. Consistent with prior findings of the Ms. stereotype, main effects for stimulus type were found on the competence and leadership index, the warmth and likability index, and the stereotypical masculinity index, Fs (2, 145-149) = 6.75, 13.00, and 58.73, ps < .01. Comparison of means by Tukey multiple range tests indicated that the Ms. stimulus person was seen as higher in competence and leadership than a woman who prefers a traditional title of address for herself, but not higher than a man. The Ms. stimulus person was perceived as less warm and likable than either a traditionally titled woman or a man. Finally, the adult perceivers rated the female stimulus person who prefers Ms. as her title of address as more masculine than a woman with a traditional title of address but less masculine than a man.

Tests of the Main Hypotheses

Two types of correlation coefficients of respondents' ratings of the different stimulus persons were obtained to test the main hypotheses. First, similar to Schein (1973, 1975), as well as Massengill and Di Marco (1979), intraclass correlation coefficients (symbolized as r ' ) were calculated between the 51 trait ratings of the successful manager and each of the other stimulus types (i.e., Ms.-titled female, traditional titled female, and male), for male and female respondents separately. Intraclass correlations were also calculated, separately for male and female respondents, for all pairwise combina-

574 Dion and Schuiler

tions of the Ms. female stimulus type, the traditionally titled female stimulus type, and the male stimulus type.

Intraclass correlations were obtained by means of randomized groups analyses of variance (see Hays, 1963, pp. 421-424), in which the classes or groups were the 51 trait items, and the item means for the pair of stimulus persons under consideration served as the observations within each class. For example, to compute the r' between Ms. and the successful manager, the mean ratings for these two stimulus persons for each of the 51 items serve as the observations. The more similar the ratings of these two stimulus persons across items, the greater the resemblance in the two sets of ratings, and the higher the resultant r'. In other words, an intraclass correlation indicates the total strength of the association, both linear and nonlinear, between two variables or entities when one of them is qualitative in nature (Kirk, 1968).

Table !. Correlation Coefficients

Source d f MS F r" Pearson r

Male subjects Ms. & Manager Between 50 1.15375 4.38755** .628773 .79627**

Within 51 .26296

Ms. & Male Between 50 .402346 2.55602** .437574 .45258** Within 51 .157411

Ms. & Traditional Between 50 .306281 1.13797 .064533 .08897 Female Within 51 .269147

Traditional Female Between 50 .277426 1.44024" .180408 .27464 & Male Within 51 .192625

Traditional Female Between 50 .587462 .90041 .00 a - . 06980 & Manager Within 51 .652436

Male & Manager Between 50 .858189 1.85810" .300235 .51237** Within 51 .461863

Female subjects Ms. & Manager Between 50 .886422 3.96413** .59711 .70915**

Within 51 .223611

Ms. & Male Between 50 .705531 3.50101** .55566 .55995** Within 51 .201522

Ms. & Traditional Between 50 .45363 1.62529" .23818 .25249 Female Within 51 .279107

Traditional Female Between 50 .401925 1.34622 .147565 .18702 & Male Within 51 .298558

Traditional Female Between 50 .49334 1.12002 .056612 .22854 & Manager Within 51 .440475

Male & Manager Between 50 .893945 6.84958** .745209 .81726** Within 51 .130511

"qChen the mean square that r ' = O.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

within is larger than the mean square between, Hays (1963) suggests


Second, to assess the extent of linear relationships in perceivers' ratings, Pear- son product moment correlation coefficients were also computed between all possible pairings of the different stimulus types, for female and male respondents, respectively.

The correlational analyses aimed at gauging the similarities in percep- tions of the different types of stimulus persons are presented for female and male respondents, respectively, in Table I. As hypothesized, both male and female respondents perceived significant resemblances between their trait ratings of (a) a woman who prefers Ms. as her title of address and a successful, middle manager, (b) a male and a successful, middle manager, and (c) the Ms. stimulus person and the male stimulus person. On the other hand, as also predicted, neither male nor female perceivers saw much of a resemblance in relevant personality traits between a woman who prefers a traditional title of address and a successful, middle manager in a corporation. Finally, as shown in Table I and other analyses not reported here, there was considerable agreement in the way male and female perceivers rated each of the four types of stimulus persons, respectively.

DISCUSSION

The preceding experiment, along with those previously reported by Dion (1987), indicates that a woman's preference for title of address can act as a stereotypic cue for adult perceivers. Specifically, a woman preferring Ms. as her title of address is seen by adult perceivers as possessing the "requisite" characteristics of a successful, middle manager, whereas her traditionally titled female counterpart is not. In the present experiment, the Ms. title was not associated with the traditional gender stereotype attributions concerning the putative traits of women vs. men. Rather, like the traditional stereotype of males, the Ms. stereotype evoked images and expectations of competency, leadership, and stereotypical masculinity. In terms of trait attributions in these domains, there was little difference between a man and a Ms. titled woman as an object of perception.

Where traditional gender stereotypes of women are problematic or present perceptual barriers to a woman's successful evaluation, it may be to a woman's advantage to employ Ms. as her title of address. One factor that increases a perceiver's reliance on stereotypes is the salience of the target person's group membership (Fiske & Taylor, 1984). In the corporate world, women are still in a numerical minority, thus rendering them especially likely to be judged and evaluated on the basis of gender stereotypes (Dion, 1985; Kanter, 1977). As such, the impression associated with a woman who uses the title Ms. may lead to evaluations and expectations of success rather than failure, since it depicts a woman who possesses attributes highly valued in the corporate world, such as competence and leadership.


Indeed, one survey conducted by an executive recruiting firm in Chicago found that a majority of female executives under 40 preferred to be addressed by the title of Ms. (Call me Madam?, 1987). The preceding findings of close resemblances in the eye of the beholder between a woman titled Ms. and a successful middle manager would seem to justify this practice by female business executives. It may also be the case that businesswomen who prefer and use the title Ms. are seen as being primarily interested in their careers, whereas those preferring more traditional titles of address are perceived as oriented to both career and family (Schwartz, 1989). If so, other nontraditional forms of personalidentification, such as a hyphenated surname or a woman's retention of her maiden name following marriage, may also elicit similar impressions, if they are attended to by the perceiver.

The different titles of address for women in our society give them an advantage in being able to choose the title of address that accentuates the image or expectations they may want to convey in a particular situation. Where competence or leadership is called for, the Ms. title may be preferable for a woman who wants to project that aspect of her personality. This may be especially important in situations involving written communication (e.g., job applications, written correspondence) and during initial establishment in a firm, since the less information available about an individual the more likely she or he will be judged and responded to on the basis of stereotypes. However, if a woman wants to highlight her warmth and expressiveness, which may encompass other aspects of her life, a traditional title of address may serve better. In sum, women's freedom to choose Ms. or a traditional title of address gives them some flexibility to accent different aspects of their personal and professional identities.

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ms. and the manager: a tale of two stereotypes

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