Competent assertiveness by a woman in mixed- sex discussions elicits non-verbal cues of negative affect from others that is misinterpreted as evidence of poor contribution. Female leaders receive fewer pleased responses and more displeased responses from fellow group members than male leaders offering the same contributions. For women, it seems that simply offering a substantive contribution is enough to elicit others' displeasure. There is a discrepancy between considered and automatic expectations for women. Considered expectations are egalitarian, but automatic expectations are still dominated by traditional stereotypes. For example, in mixed sex task discussions there is an implicit expectation for women to defer to men. Thus a woman who speaks out violates these tacit expectations, and this violation causes negative effect.
Participant's interpretation of other group member's behavior is based on schemata containing the attributes of familiar categories of situations, persons, and behavior ( Calder, 1982; Cantor and Mischel 1979; Fiske and Taylor, 1984; Miller, 1984; Pfeffer, 1977; Schank and Albeson, 1977). The interpretation occurs automatically, before the evidence registers as a conscious perception (Bargh, 1984; Campbell, 1967; Lewicki, 1986; Nauta, 1971; Rock, 1983) The same action can be seen as "good" to explain a desired event or "bad" to explain undesired one. Mandler (1982) proposed that discrepancies between expectation and evidence that require major revision of "basic" schemata produce negative effect. Women's dominance produces such a "basic schema incompatibility" to co-participants. It violates both their leadership and gender schemata, which require men as leaders and women to be status-subordinate and deferent to men. ( Bartol and Wortman, 1979; Bem, 1981; Deaux and Lewis, 1984; Schein, 1973, 1975).
Positive and negative affect produce facial expressions commonly interpreted as pleasure and displeasure, although correlations are not perfect ( Ekman, Friesen, and Ancoli, 1980; Russell and Bullock, 1986). Private cognitive reactions to intellectual authority by women are often negative (Eccles, 1983). The same competence and assertiveness accepted in a man caused a woman to be rated unattractive ( Horner, 1972), cold ( Porter and Geis, 1981), or undesirable as a group member.
Because women's leadership is unexpected, it evokes negative affect in observers that is visible to other group members. Because conscious expectations are egalitarian, the true cause of the affect is unrecognized. Thus, the affect cues are attributed to a more socially plausible cause, with misattribution to more plausible causes, has been documented ( Nisbett and Wilson, 1977). Competent, assertive women would elicit more negative facial expressions from naive group members that would equally competent, assertive men.
For women, it appears that simply offering a substantive contribution is enough to elicit other's displeasure.
Previous research (Brown and Geis, 1984; Butler, 1984) has shown that displeased expressions by fellow group members cause a leader's contribution from the same leader's contribution to be rates less valuable than the identical contribution from the same leader embedded in cues of approval. Thus, in natural situations, women's leadership may be devalued because it receives less positive or more negative nonverbal affect responses than men's contributions of the same objective quality. This study supports a more social interpretation of the devaluation of female leaders than earlier ones based on private bias. It does not diminish the importance of private stereotypes; rather, it provides evidence of their translation into affect cues that serve as a social-situational mechanism capable of arbitrarily raising or lowering the perceived value of identical performances.If affect cues serve as a nonverbal communication of group consensus about the quality of contribution, they could create or eliminate biased evaluations regardless of elevator's private biases. This would create a self-fulfilling prophecy (Snyder, 1984). Biased expectations of the majority cause the behavioral affective responses, which then produce the differential evaluations of men's and women's contributions to support initial expectations.
Hiring, salary, and promotion, including promotion to a formal leadership position, often depend on recognition as an emergent leader. Training women to be "more assertive" (or less assertive) will not eliminate discrimination. Instead, increasing positive reactions and decreasing negative ones appears to more effective. Examples include (a) providing cues of positive affect toward woman's contributions (Brown and Geis, 1984; Butler, 1984), (b) legitimizing women's leadership by authority endorsement (Brown and Geis, 1984; Eskilson and Wiley, 1976; Isaacs, 1981), and (c) increasing the number of female authority role models in the social environment (Cohen, Lockheed,and Lohman, 1976; Gies, Boston, and Hoffman, 1985; Heilman and Martell, 1986).
Source: Nonverbal Affect Responses to Male and Female Leaders: Implications for leadership Evaluatoins by Dore Butler and Florence L. Geis
