This document discusses gender stereotypes and their influence on career aspirations and performance. It provides background on social identity theory and how social identities are formed through group memberships and self-labeling. Gender is a common basis for social categorization and stereotyping. Descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes associate men with agentic traits like independence and women with communal traits like kindness. These stereotypes influence the types of jobs seen as appropriate for each gender. The theory of stereotype threat posits that making negative stereotypes salient can undermine performance and aspirations for those targeted by the stereotype. Research data from interviews and focus groups at an IT company revealed common gender stereotypes held among employees regarding women's leadership potential and skills.

1. Gender-role stereotypes and learner’s notion of self-identity
in the capability approach
Marta Zientek, PhD student Jagiellonian University / Cracow University of Economics
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 defined 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. student vs. engineering student;
dancer vs. classical Indian dancer) and that they may reflect general ideas of group identification as
well as highly specific implementations of 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
labelling, 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 modelling, 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-labelling process in relation to the group (being a member of professionals which I
cooperate with) and communication of these identities through self-labelling or self presentation
(clothes, badges or other extensions). Such labelling may ensure that one is notified 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 prioritisation of actions in order to ensure status or
inclusion. Finally, self-observation and feedback from others within and outside the group may shape

2. and hone the identity by providing information, validation, and by modelling 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. family identities of spouse and parent) may be mutually reinforcing and
conceptually connected. These roles and identities may work together in establishing a broad array of
behavioral patterns that lead to a strong sense of social integrity. This deeper and conscious
engagement may provide 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 jobs or moves to another
city). Proactive 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. They show initiative, identify opportunities, act on them, and
persevere until they meet their objectives. They confront and solve 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. Proactive behavior involves stepping
forward to either improve current situations and circumstances or to create new ones. However, human
experiences, social roles, and identities do not always align so neatly. In fact, people often discover
intense conflicts between common identities, and personal, relational, and collective experiences. Such
conflicts have long 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 gender and then to
develop 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--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 traits (often labeled 'communal') as well as
achievement-oriented traits (often labeled 'agentic'). Women are commonly believed to have more
communal qualities (expressiveness, connectedness, relatedness, kindness, supportiveness, timidness)
whereas men are associated with more agentic 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 describe how men and women are
(descriptive stereotypes) but also how they should be (prescriptive stereotypes). Descriptive and
prescriptive stereotypes are not 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
that men and women bring to their work often dictate the type of jobs that are considered appropriate
for them, leading to a situation in which the requisite characteristics for some jobs are defined in terms

3. of gender, and those jobs become known as men's work or women's work. This gender typing of 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. 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 fit. If people believe that there is a lack of fit between themselves and task-
related stereotypes, they negatively evaluate their ability to engage in that task and also perceive
negative evaluations by others whose support they may need to perform well on the task. These
negative evaluations reduce their likelihood of pursing the stereotyped job. 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 their gender. 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) for whom task-related stereotypes are made salient, show a
decrement in performance and aspirations on the targeted task. 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 vulnerable to the threat of the stereotype (Steele, 2005). Scholars argue that
stereotype threat leads to decrease in performance on the stereotyped task because people
psychologically disengage from that task (Crant, 1997). If stereotype threat can lead to disengagement
from stereotyped tasks, it is likely that it may also cause people to disengage from traditionally
stereotyped career domains. Entrepreneurship and self-employed managers’ researchers believe that
entrepreneurship is stereotypically positively associated with masculine characteristics and negatively
with feminine characteristics (Ahl, 2006; Fagenson & Marcus, 1991). Thus, when women are
presented with a masculine stereotype about managers, we expect them to socialy disengage from
entrepreneurship, which in turn, should decrease their intentions to become an entrepreneur. It is
sociologically maintained that this perceptionof what others believe or of how others treat managerial
women, specifically when consideredfrom the viewpoint of 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, scholars emphasize, is a "situational predicament" experienced only when
the negative stereotype applies (Steele, 1997). In other words, stereotype threat is felt only in
situations where one is vulnerable to negative stereotypes about one's group. When people believe that
a negative or unfavorable stereotype about their group applies in the situation, they disengage from the
task and confirm the stereotype (Steele, 1995). If the influence of the stereotype is situational,
elimination of the situational factors that generate the threat should help alleviate the threat. When the
factors that create the threat in the first place are eliminated, people are able to psychologically relate

4. to the task again and perform to their actual potential (Steele, 2002). When the stereotypes are well-
known and widely-held (e.g. math, leadership), stereotype threat tends to be strong and enduring.
Ironically, stereotype threat is most keenly felt by those who care most about doing well on the
stereotyped task (Steele, 1998). Individuals who believe in their ability to do well on the stereotyped
task or who care about the social consequences of being judged incompetent on that task are more
likely to disengage themselves from the task, and confirm the stereotype (Steele, 1997). 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 intrinsically motivated to do well on
the task and seek to improve their work outcomes. This leads us to expect that stereotype threat has a
stronger impact on those who are more, rather than less, proactive. In other words, stereotype threat is
likely to have a significantly detrimental effect on entrepreneurial intentions of women who are more
proactive, compared to those who are less proactive. 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 dispositionally 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 (Crant, 1999). 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 (Hecht, M. L.; Warren, J. R.; Jung, E.; Krieger J. L. 2005). We
believe it is likely 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

5. affected by stereotype threat.
Research data
Data for this study was collected from employees of an international, outsourcing IT firm who were
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 were 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.
Opinions of respondents and statements about women’s leadership potential.
„Women managers are sometimes promoted only because they are women”
“Compared to male managers, female managers success is more dependent upon having a good
mentor.”
“Compared to male managers, female managers are too .people oriented. and caring
to move up in the company.”
“It is not acceptable for women to assume leadership roles as often as men.”
Beliefs regarding the degree to which women possess various traits thought to be useful in managerial
positions.
“Women are not ambitious enough to be successful in the business world.”
“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.”
“Women are less capable of learning mathematical and mechanical skills than are men.”
Opinions about managerial skills among women.

6. “Women are not naturally effective. They often adapt their behavior have a tendency to
adopt some male behaviors” (woman, age 41-45, middle management)
“Men have a natural tendency for leadership.” ( man, age 56-60, top management)
“Men trust in themselves. This creates a more relaxed and natural leadership.” (man, age 31-35,
middle management)
“Men are much better at many of these leadership skills.” (woman, age 45-54, top management/core
position)
Men can be naturally tough and very results oriented ( man, age 36-40, middle management)
“Women were so obsessed with trying to out-perform their male counterparts that they often
neglected the needs of their team.” (man, age 35-44, professional non-managerial position)
“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, age 36-40, middle management)
“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,age
45-54, top management)
“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, age
46-50, top management)
„Women can be effective leaders as long as they are not impaired by “wanting to be nice.”
(woman, age 36-40, top management)
“A lot of women managers still want to be liked, especially by their subordinates. They are not as
prone to “managing up." (woman, age 65+, top management)
“Women are very much focused on “being liked, being good” instead of making harsh and tough
decisions.” (man, age 36-40, middle management)
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, age
46-50, top management)
“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, age 45-54, middle management)
“Too many women managers assume that the leaders above them will take care of them.” (woman,
age 45-54, top management)
“When women act in gender-consistent ways, they are perceived by others as being weak leaders and
entrepreneurs.” (woman, age 30, top management)

7. 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 whe 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

8. 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.
References
Ajzen, I. (1987). Attitudes, traits and actions: Dispositional prediction of behavior in personality and
social psychology. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, 20(1),
Academic Press Inc., San Diego
Becherer, R. C., & Maurer, J. G. (1999). The proactive personality disposition and entrepreneurial
behavior among small company presidents. Journal of Small Business Management, 37(1)
Brewer, M. B. and Gardner, W. (1996) Who is this “we”? Levels of collective identity and self
representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71(1)
Cejka, M. A., & Eagly, A. H. (1999). Gender stereotypic images of occupations correspond to the sex
segregation of employment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(4)
Davies, P. G., Spencer, S. J., & Steele, C. M. (2005). Clearing the air: Identity safety moderates the
effects of stereotype threat on women's leadership aspirations. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 88(2)
Hall, S (1996). Questions of Cultural Identity : SAGE Publications Ltd.
Hecht, M. L. (1993) 2002 - A research odyssey: toward the development of a communication theory
of identity. Communication Monographs 60

9. Hecht, M. L., Warren, J. R., Jung, E., and Krieger, J. L. (2005). A communication theory of identity:
development, theoretical perspective, and future directions. In: W.B. Gudykunst (Ed.), Theorizing
about Intercultural Communication. Sage, Thousand Oaks
Fagenson, E. A., & Marcus, E. C. (1991). Perceptions of the sex-role stereotypic characteristics of
entrepreneurs: Women's evaluations. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 15(4)
Fiske, S. T.,& Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Company.
Krueger, N. F. (2000). The cognitive infrastructure of opportunity emergence. Entrepreneurship
Theory and Practice, 24 (3)
Mitchell, R.K., Smith, B., Morse, E.A., Seawright, K.W., Peredo, A.M., McKenzie, B. 2002. Are
entrepreneurial cognitions universal? Assessing entrepreneurial cognitions across cultures.
Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 26 (2)
Mueller, S. L., & Thomas, A. S. (2000). A case for comparative entrepreneurship: Assessing the
relevance of culture. Journal of International Business Studies, 31
Pinel, E. C. (1999). Stigma Consciousness: The psychological legacy of social stereotypes. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 76(1)
Schlenker, B.R. and Pontari, B.A. (2000) The strategic control of information: impression
management and selfpresentation in daily life. In: A. Tesser, R. B. Felson and J. M. Suls (eds.)
Psychological Perspectives on Self and Identity pp.199–232. Washington DC: American
Psychological Association.
Seibert, S. E., Crant, M. J., & Kraimer, M. L. (1999). Proactive personality and career success. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 84(3)
Simon, B. (2004). Identity in Modern Society. A Social Psychological Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2007) Theories of identity and the analysis of face. Journal of Pragmatics 39
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2008) Face, identity and interactional goals. In: F. Bargiela-Chiappini and M.
Haugh. Face, Communication and Social Interaction, London: Equinox Publishing.
Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance.
American Psychologist, 52(6)
Steele, C. (1998). Stereotyping and its threats are real. American Psychologist, 53
Zhao, H. S., Seibert, S. E., & Hills, G. E. (2005). The mediating role of self-efficacy in the
development of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90