Abstract
An industrial “employee-testing” situation was simulated in two laboratory studies to determine if differential attributions would be made for the causality of success and failure, as a function of the sex of the “supervisor” and of the “employee.” The saliency of the relative success of the performance was confirmed in both studies, as was the importance of the sexual composition of the dyad. Two surprising results were the general lack of derogation of females by themselves and others, as was generally found in prior research, and the different self-attributional patterns made in the presence and absence of a supervisor. The latter result calls into question the ipsative conception of attributions.
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This article is based on the first author's thesis, done under the guidance of the second author, submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Science at Colorado State University. Thanks are due to Drs. George C. Thornton, III, Ross Loomis, and Eleanor Stevens, thesis committee members, for their aid and guidance in this research. Thanks are also due to Jeffrey Walsh and Shirley Feldman-Summers for their comments on an early draft of the manuscript.
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Kaufman, C.G., Shikiar, R. Sex of employee and sex of supervisor: Effect on attributions for the causality of success and failure. Sex Roles 12, 257–269 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287592
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287592