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WOMEN IN TOP LEADERSHIP POSITIONS
ethnic groups. This threat, of the appearance of stereotypes, may have a neg¬
ative affect on performance."
The stereotype threat theory of Steele and Aronson has been confirmed in
relation to other, negatively stereotyped social groups, like the performance
of women in the field of mathematics, for example. Mara Cadinu, Anne Maass,
Alessandra Rosabianca, and Jeff Kiesner conducted tests on the subject, sur¬
veying 60 women divided in two groups, asking them to solve complicated
mathematical tasks. Their results, summarized in the study Why Do Women
Underperform Under Stereotype Threat? Evidence for the Role of Negative
Thinking, have shown, among other things, that negative thinking is one of the
possible reasons for deficits in performance. Women under the phenomenon
called stereotype threat (while they had to complete a difficult task) showed a
sharp decrease in performance, which was the result of negative, domain-spe¬
cific thinking. Thus, they have interiorised qualities assumed to be generally
true to a certain demographic (in this case, women).“5
However, not only the negative, but the positive sex categories are also
keeping women in their traditional roles. This is so-called benevolent sexism.
The problem with this phenomenon is that women only become accepted in
the eyes of society if they have feminine characteristics specific of the group.
However, these are completely incompatible with leadership features (see
leadership attitudes below).
The reasons we have discussed and their various manifestations are there¬
fore still predominantly present and hinder the career path of women. All these
difficulties are further strengthened by the male environment, the “chilling
climate”. This is based on the fact that the male majority at a particular work¬
place creates a “foreign” atmosphere for women, either through the character¬
istics of the group or the associated physical segregation. Beata Nagy sum¬
marises the situation that women are confronted with when entering the male
world in her book Hattérben™ [In the Background]. Among other things, she
highlights, for example, Gherardi’s typology of women travellers in a male
99 «
world, distinguishing their positions as “the guest”, “the marginal”, "the holi¬
» « » « 9147
daymaker”, “the snake in the grass”, “the newcomer” and “the intruder.
14 Cf. Steele, C. M. — Aronson, J.: Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of
African Americans, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 1995, 797-811, https://
doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.797
Cadinu, M. — Maass, A. — Rosabianca, A. — Kiesner, J.: Why do women underperform under
stereotype threat? Evidence for the role of negative thinking, Psychological Science, 16(7): 5,
2005, 576, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01577.x
146 Nagy, B.: Hättérben, Budapest, L'Harmattan, 2014.
47 See Czibere, I. — Takács, I.: Nagy Beáta: Háttérben: Kísérlet egy szervezeti nemi rend feltárására.
Újratervezés — a nők és a műszaki tudományok, Debreceni Szemle, 2016/3, 352—356.
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