Perceptions of Asian American and Female Leadership Candidates: The Impact of Descriptive and Prescriptive Stereotyping

<p>Although Asian Americans and women tend to be relatively well represented in professional roles, they continue to be underrepresented in executive-level leadership positions. This paper examined a combination of factors believed to contribute to the shortage of Asian American and female leaders in organizations – in particular, descriptive and prescriptive stereotyping. Thus, the current study examined how participants responded to an Asian American or White, male or female applicant being considered for a leadership role. All targets were qualified, but varied on levels of warmth and/or dominance. Overall, it was hypothesized that the Asian American and female candidates behaving counterstereotypically (e.g., dominantly) would be subject to backlash, in the form of more negative affective reactions and lower leadership ratings compared to similar White and/or male candidates. A study was conducted online with White male participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Ultimately, the results of the study did not support the predicted hypotheses. A discussion of the results and potential reasons for these findings are included.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Lim, Jane I.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Harold Goldstein

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Charles Scherbaum
• Joel Lefkowitz
• Samuel Johnson
• Logan Watts

• Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Leadership
• Gender
• Race
• Stereotyping

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2293

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-3341