Representation at Work: Perceived Representation and Belonging Predict Female Representation Across Occupations Público

Abstract

Women remain underrepresented across many fields, and much research has focused on understanding why this may be the case. The field-specific ability beliefs (FAB) hypothesis aims to provide such an account, proposing that women are underrepresented in fields that emphasize brilliance—raw, innate intellect or talent (Leslie, Cimpian, et al., 2015). The present research challenges the FAB hypothesis, however, and suggests that individuals’ perception of the gender representation in a field may be a more fundamental and generalizable explanation for real-world gender representation. We find that across a novelly expansive variety of occupations—both layperson and academically-oriented jobs—participants’ perceptions of the proportion of women in a job robustly predict actual female representation. We also replicate past research which has suggested that the role of brilliance may be better accounted for by the broader construct of anticipated belonging. These results suggest that valuable interventions to encourage gender equity in the workforce should focus on highlighting women’s membership in various domains and fostering conditions that elevate feelings of belonging.

Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................1

Method.............................................................................................................................................6

Participants...........................................................................................................................6

Materials and Procedure......................................................................................................6

Results..............................................................................................................................................8

Discussion......................................................................................................................................11

References......................................................................................................................................17

Main text table and figures……....................................................................................................22

Supplemental Materials…….........................................................................................................26

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, General
Palabra Clave	representation FAB hypothesis gender demographics belonging
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Stella Lourenco, Emory University
Committee Members	Stu Marvel, Emory University Arber Tasimi, Emory University

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