Gender-role stereotypes and learner’s notion of self-identityin the capability approach

This paper focuses on social identity in the capability approach and its functions which are constantly transformed in the process of learning by categorization, cultural symbolic categories and finally stigmatization. Nowadays more and more workers are active agents and social leaders in the field of their jobs according to a strong need of change in the engagement process. However, they are ready to build their own capabilities more on the background of their practical and free choices than on the labour market’s economic transactions, they can meet ignorance, false consciousness and financial deprivation in the workplace. This empirical research based on online 46 in-depth interviews and then on focus group interviews, tries to identify “turning points” in people’s lives and their influence on building self-knowledge and definition of “social identity”. Thanks to this approach we can observe how individuals and communities are presented and distinguished in their social relations or their relationships. As Stuart Hall writes “cultural and national identities are always created and transformed within representations and in relation to them; they are always constructed within discourse, not inside it” (Hall, 1996). Being among others people creates their own reality of capabilities they have as women or men and its social symbolic structure of long-term or short-term space where these actors can participate. Defined in this way all social situations are dynamic and able to develop and should be analyzed together with such aspects as: socio-cultural conditions and experiences of examined actors.

Keywords: capability approach; learner’s notion; social roles; self-identity;

process of education; gendered-role deprivation

Theoretical Background

Social identity is one of several themes within personality study that bridge the

individual, relational and collective elements of self. It is an idea that is addressed in all major

theories of personality either explicitly or implicitly, a fact that indisputably supports the

centrality of constructs that connect individual, relational and collective aspects of the human

experience. The idea of social identity not only serves to integrate a range of theories and

theoretical propositions about the self, but also fits well as a theme for students who are

grappling with their identities as they make serious decisions about their prospective

occupations or existed roles in a company’s workplace. It’s obvious that links between social

identity theory and aspects of personality exist and that both influence citizenship. Social

identities are presented as cognitive constructs or labels that reflect identification with multiple

social niches or roles. These group memberships may include those related to an individual’s

family, neighborhood, community or social class. These aspects of identity are considered to be

broader in scope than roles, as they provide central motivational and self-regulatory functions

across time and circumstance, even as roles change significantly or disappear from view. It is

also important to note that social identities can be both general and specific in scope (e.g. social

science student vs. engineering student; rap dancer vs. classical Indian dancer) and that they

may reflect general ideas of group identification as well as highly specific implementations of

their habits. Social identities may also persist in shaping behaviors and personality, even as

roles change quite radically or disappear. As a personality construct, social identity is also

complicated because it is a noun that sounds like an object or state, but in fact represents

ongoing social cognitive processes and social interactions, especially communication. For

example, a social identity is considered to embody a type of self-categorization or labeling, but

also represents a series of social comparisons and behavioral decisions made in private self-

reflective conversation, as networks of self/other attributions, or as observable social

enactments. A good example of such processes may be made of the teenager learning to fit in

with a peer group. Acceptance and participation in the group may involve all the elements of

modeling, including among many elements, the imitation of nuanced language, dress, interests,

and attitudes toward other individuals or groups. Development of a group membership identity

is also likely to include an ongoing self-labeling process in relation to the group (being a

member of professionals who I cooperate with) and communication of these identities through

self-labeling or self presentation (clothes, badges or other extensions). Such categorization may

ensure that personality can be visible as a part of group events, and may convince others that

one is indeed committed to the group and available for participation in related activities. The

identity label may also help to resolve conflicts within the individual regarding allocation of

time and finances, as it guides priorities of actions in order to ensure status or inclusion. Finally,

self-observation and feedback from others within and outside the group may shape and hone the

identity by providing information, validation, and by modeling new or refined aspects of roles.

Social identities may be linked and mutually reinforcing and easily connected to broader

participation in the community or culture. Similarly, roles and identities that are located in a

particular social setting (e.g. school identities of child’s parents) may be mutually reinforcing

and conceptually connected. These roles and identities may cooperate in establishing a wide

range of behavioral attitudes and approaches that lead to a strong sense of social integrity. This

conscious engagement provides ongoing motivation even when the environment is less

supportive or when aspects of the identity are less salient or are changing (e.g. when one

changes spaces: schools or jobs and moves to another). More active actor’s personality refers to

the extent to which people are willing to take action to influence their environments. More

proactive people are relatively unconstrained by situational forces and are willing to affect

environmental change in the process of continuous education. They show initiative, identify

opportunities, act on them, and persevere until they meet their objectives which are the next

stage of conscious profess of self-learning. They are ready to face problems, and take individual

responsibility to make an impact on the world around them. They anticipate environmental

changes and take advantage of opportunities to improve their situation. That’s their freedom of

choice which was merely created in the process of life-long learning than the formal education

at school. Proactive behavior in the learner’s notion is connected with stepping forward to either

situations or circumstances or to create new ones. However, human experiences, social roles,

and self-identities of learners do not always seem to act that affirmatively. In fact, people often

experience many conflicts between common identities presented in the process of formal

education, and individual and collective experiences, related to the lifelong learning process in

their mature life. Such conflicts have been the subject of psychological inquiry because they

very often lead to individual and group fragmentation with varied consequences, some mundane

and some dire to human development issue. Both the process of categorization using cultural

symbolic categories and finally labeling through stigmatization can be a good background to

stereotypes which refer to the human tendency to categorize people into general groups based

on attributes such as capabilities or gender and then to present beliefs about characteristics and

behavior of individual members of these groups. Gender may be a universal dimension for a

special labeling - stereotyping people because it is a visually prominent physical feature that

enables people to quickly sort others into two distinct categories of social roles and sex

capabilities--men and women (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). This categorization, widely shared beliefs

about characteristics attributed to men and women are commonly held in society and well-

documented in the literature. Men and women are believed to differ on social actions (often

labeled 'communal') as well as achievement-oriented tasks (often labeled 'agented'). Women are

commonly believed to have more communal qualities (expressiveness, connectedness,

relatedness, kindness, supportiveness or sympathy) whereas men are associated with more

agented qualities (independence, aggressiveness, autonomy, instrumentality, courage). These

stereotypes tend to be oppositional in nature--the characteristics positively associated with men

(e.g. aggressiveness, autonomous) are considered undesirable for women and vice versa (e.g.

kind, supportive). They not only build the conscious background in minds to describe how men

and women are (descriptive stereotypes) but also how they should be (prescriptive stereotypes).

Descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes can’t be learnt as mutually exclusive. Instead, there is a

great deal of overlap between the two, with the behavior that is prescribed directly related to the

attributes that positively describe members of the stereotyped group by prescribing appropriate

behavior for members of two groups, as well as produce gender-role stereotypes. Expectations

and beliefs concerning the different qualities and capabilities that men and women bring to their

work often dictate the type of school subjects or jobs that are considered appropriate for them

and then those become known as typical for girls or boys in the process of lifelong learning and

gaining experience. This gender typing of school subjects and jobs as predominantly masculine

or feminine is common across different social groups in society. For example, stereotypes

related to engineering, surgery, and judiciary are predominantly masculine while those

associated with nursing and servicing tend to be largely feminine. In the organizational

literature, upper management is believed to be a 'manly business while secretarial jobs are seen

as a woman's job. These commonly-held stereotypes build gender stigma, they reflect and

promote gender segregation in employment (Cejka & Eagly, 1999), and usually serve to limit

opportunities for women. Stereotype researchers argue that gender stereotypes can have a

profound influence on people's career intentions. Stereotypes influence on people’s capabilities

and their approach to understand free choice of proper way of life. When people perceive a lack

of fit between their characteristics and the stereotypes associated with a particular task, their

intentions to pursue that task are lower than those who perceive a stronger one. Considerable

empirical evidence confirms that women aspire to tasks that are associated with their gender,

while preferring to stay away from those that are not associated with it. The theory of stereotype

threat (Steele, 1992, 1997) highlights the important role of negative stereotypes in undermining

the aspirations and performance of targets of stereotype. According to this theory, people from

negatively stereotyped groups (e.g. women entrepreneurs) are considered to see themselves as

salient; they show constant decrease in performance and aspirations on the targeted task, both at

school and workspace. When people are made aware of stereotypes related to their social group

and they believe that they may be judged based on these stereotypes, they become more

addicted to the threat of the gendered stigma (Steele, 2005). Some researchers believe that

entrepreneurship is stereotypically positively associated with masculine characteristics and

negatively with feminine characteristics (Ahl, 2006; Fagenson & Marcus, 1991). Furthermore,

they argue that when women are presented with a male attribute about managers society are

more ready to let them think to disengage from entrepreneurship. What’s more, it can decrease

their intentions to become an entrepreneur in a close future. This sociologically created

perception which mainly focuses on what others believe or of how others treat managerial

women is similar to the concept of stereotype threat (Steele, 1997). This concept has been

defined as “the social-psychological threat that arises when one is in a situation for which a

negative stereotype about one’s group applies” (p. 614). Stereotype threat is nothing more than

a "situational predicament" experienced only when the negative stereotype applies in such

circumstances of learner’s notion in the process of self-education (Steele, 1997). In other words,

stereotype threat is felt only in situations where one person is vulnerable to negative stereotypes

about other group. When people act that, they damage the empowerment of the prospective task

and confirm the strength of well-known and widely-held stereotypes such as math capabilities

or leadership attitudes (Steele, 1995). Research on proactive personality informs us that more

proactive people tend to have a greater sense of self-determination in their work and career

(Seibert, 1999). They are highly motivated to do well on given tasks and seek to improve their

work outcomes. Prior research has found that people who are more proactive have higher

entrepreneurial intentions (Spencer-Oatey, H., 2008). Proactive people have higher intentions of

becoming self-employed and starting their own business rather than working for somebody else

compared to less proactive people. Women who have a proactive personality are more

positively oriented towards taking initiative and affecting change in their circumstances

compared to less proactive women. These researchers believe that when more proactive women

have higher entrepreneurial intentions, they will also tend to be more affected by stereotype

threat. The prediction that stereotype threat will affect proactive women more than other women

is supported by research that indicates that women who expect to be seen negatively because of

their gender are more likely to forego opportunities to perform better and prove their ability

compared to other women (Pinel, 1999). Additionally, there is some evidence to suggest that

proactive people are more sensitive to the impressions others have of them and are less likely to

associate themselves with controversial issues when they believe that it will create an

undesirable impression about them (Hecht M. L., 2002). They tend to be more careful about the

social costs of their actions and the potential risks to their social image. Taking managerial

learning skills among adults into consideration, when they are self-conscious of being the good

students, the ones likely to perform better, who tend to engage in self-handicapping behavior-

such as staying out late the night before an important high school test- to protect their image in

the eyes of others or to deceive themselves that their performance is not a true reflection of their

ability and capability approach (Hecht, M. L.; Warren, J. R.; Jung, E.; Krieger J. L. 2005).

After reading these believes, it is likely to assume that proactive women may be more sensitive

to stereotype threat and be more concerned about maintaining their image. In this study we will

examine if proactive personality moderates the relationship between stereotype threat and

entrepreneurial intentions. Specifically, we hypothesize that more proactive women will be

more vulnerable to stereotype threat compared to women who are less proactive. Some

managerial scholars suggest that widely-held stereotype associating entrepreneurs with

traditionally masculine characteristics may be responsible for low entrepreneurial intentions

among women (Fagenson & Marcus, 1991). These commonly-held stereotypes about managers

may lead women to negatively evaluate their ability to become an entrepreneur as well as

perceive negative evaluations by others whose support they may need to pursue

entrepreneurship, thereby suppressing their intentions to pursue entrepreneurship. Thus, we

believe that women's intentions to become an entrepreneur may be an important outcome that is

affected by stereotype threat.

Research data

Data for this study was collected from employees of an international, outsourcing IT

firm who was participating in in-company workshops, managed by me. I asked them for filling

and resending early prepared online in-depth interviews and then, after receiving the acceptance

of senior management, I decided to continue research by organizing in-company focus groups

interviews. Data revealed that this company had a historically male-dominated atmosphere,

though promotion of women and minorities of female workers had been emphasized in the

previous two decades. The workforce was between 10-15% managerial and approximately 22%

female. Before the data collection, I held sixty four in depth interviews and then two focus

groups interviewing some managerial men and women as well as non-managerial women, so

that the unique experiences of managerial women, as different from male managers or all

women employees could be more thoroughly understood. I recruited participants for the

interviews and focus groups by sending electronically an introductory letter to approximately

200 randomly selected managerial men and women and non-managerial women. A randomly

selected subset of those who responded to the letter was contacted via telephone to schedule a

meeting. All interviews were conducted on their workplace and were related to the workplace

change (e.g., layoffs, reengineering) at this time.

Examples of some opinions of respondents about women’s leadership potential

„Women managers are sometimes promoted only because they are women, they do not have

leading attitudes. Their potential is too weak because of early-stage socializing.” (Man, 34,

System Engineer / Java Specialist)

“Being compared to male managers, female managers’ success is more dependent upon having

a good mentor because they aren’t educated to be decisive in making decisions.” (Woman, 30,

Graphic Designer)

“According to my point of view, female managers are people too oriented on giving support and

caring to others. They are unconscious how to move up in the company.” (Man, 23, Software

Development Manager)

“It is not acceptable for women to assume leadership roles as often as men. Their assumptions

are too emotional and unpredictable. Women act to get better communication not to get the best

results of trade.” (Man, 28, IT Project Specialist)

“Women are not ambitious enough to be successful in the business world. They do not show

their potential because the system of teaching and education, I think. Their natural leadership

approach was deprived by social roles and pressure of human environment” (woman, 26, web

designer)

Beliefs regarding to the degree which women possess various traits thought to be

useful in managerial positions

“On the average, a woman who stays at home all the time with her children is a better

mother than a woman who works outside the home at least half time.” (Woman, 33, IT

System Support Specialist)

“Women are less capable of learning mathematical and mechanical skills than are

men.” (Woman, 25, Graphic Designer)

Opinions about managerial skills among women

“Women are not naturally effective. They often adapt their behavior have a tendency to

adapt some male behaviors” (woman, 45, IT middle management)

“Men have a natural tendency for leadership.” (Man, 56, Software Department Supervisor)

“Men trust in themselves. This creates a more relaxed and natural leadership.” (Man,

31, IT middle management)

“Men are much better at many of these leadership skills.” (Woman, 45, top management/ IT

core position)

“Men are naturally thought and very results and income oriented.” (Man, 40, System

Engineer)

“In my last job I observed that women were so obsessed with trying to out-perform their

male counterparts that they often neglected the needs of their team.” (Woman, 39, Web

Designer, Supervisor of Web Department)

“Sometimes I get the impression they are playing “tough” although this is not their

natural preference. This can be perceived as artificial and a bit unnerving, especially

when they are quite caring and soft in private.” (Man, 36, Online Sales Manager)

“My experience with women leaders is that they are “turf tenders” because they have

had to adopt that behavior to get where they are and do not know how to get out of that

mode.” (Woman, 35, IT Product Manager)

“Women are caught in a Catch-22 situation regarding leadership. If they are strong

they are seen to be aggressive, and if they work more in a consultative way they are

seen to be weak...” (Woman, 35, Software Project Manager)

“A lot of women managers still want to be liked, especially by their subordinates. They are not

as prone to managing up." (Woman, 36, IT Support Specialist)

„Women can be effective leaders as long as they are not impaired by wanting to be nice.”

(Man, 30, System Engineer)

“Women are very much focused on “being liked, being good” instead of making harsh and

tough decisions.” (Man, 36, System Administrator)

“Too many women managers assume that the leaders above them will take care of them.”

(Woman, 33, IT Sales Specialist)

“When women act in gender-consistent ways, they are perceived by others as being

weak leaders and entrepreneurs.” (Woman, 30, Web Designer)

“Many women lack personal confidence and this [affects] their ability to effectively inspire....

They are often defensive, more so than male colleagues, when challenged constructively.”

(Man, 40, IT Senior Manager)

“Women I have worked with tend to be excellent planners, good team builders. Many, however,

Have a tendency to do more work than they need to as they are not always comfortable

delegating.” (Woman, 43, IT Software Designer)

Conclusion

Proactive personality is an important determinant of individual, organizational, and team

outcomes, and plays an important role when the environment is challenging or unfavorable,

such as the one that most entrepreneurs face. The primary goal of this research was to examine

the role of proactive personality in moderating entrepreneurial intention responses to the

commonly-held masculine stereotype about entrepreneurs. Self-employed managers are

commonly attributed stereotypically masculine characteristics and women may not be perceived

to fit the image of an entrepreneur (Fagenson & Marcus, 1991). Some research supports this

prediction that proactive personality would moderate entrepreneurial intention responses

including research showing that stereotype threat is most acutely felt by women who are most

likely to do well on the stereotyped task (Simon, 2004). In this study I predicted that more

proactive women would be more negatively influenced by the masculine stereotype about

entrepreneurs whereas less proactive women will be less vulnerable to the influence of the

stereotype. Thus, entrepreneurial intentions of more proactive women were believed to decrease

significantly when exposed to the stereotype, while no such decrement was expected for less

proactive women. The above predictions were empirically tested and the results presented here

support the prediction that women who are more proactive will be less inclined to become an

entrepreneur after exposure to the stereotype. These data, taken together with the research

suggesting that negative stereotypes have more detrimental influence on people who are more

identified with the stereotyped domain (Steele, 1998), underscore the powerful impact of

stereotype threat on people belonging to marginalized groups (e.g. women). It is notable that

less proactive women did not show a significant decrease in their entrepreneurial intentions

when exposed to the negative stereotypes. It should also be noted that less proactive women had

low entrepreneurial intentions overall compared to more proactive women. Thus, even as this

research confirms the earlier finding that proactive personality may be positively related to

entrepreneurial intentions, it also highlights the 'double-edged' nature of proactive personality.

The same proactive personality that provides advantage in many individual and organizational

contexts can become a handicap in stereotype threat situations. There are a number of

theoretical and practical implications of this study. In terms of theoretical implications, this

research advances our understanding of gender stereotypes as an important influence on

women's entrepreneurial intentions. Specifically, this research points to the threatening role of

gender stereotypes in depressing women's entrepreneurial intentions. Additionally, our findings

extend the stereotype threat literature beyond academic performance to entrepreneurial

intentions. Though stereotype researchers acknowledge the two-pronged consequence of

stereotype threat (Steele, 1998)--undermining both performance and aspirations among

stigmatized individuals in targeted domains--there has been an almost complete lack of research

on how stereotype threat can influence attitudes and aspirations of stigmatized individuals.

Summing up, through a number of materials which have been investigated in the stereotype

threat literature (Steele, 1998; Pinel, 1999; Spencer-Oatey, 2008), this research’s aim was to

examine the moderating role of proactive personality in the process of social identity change

finding out that the impact of stereotype threat on women's entrepreneurial intentions is related

to proactive personality extends the scope of stereotype threat research.

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