Matching faces to expectations : the impact of political and business domain differences in gendered expectations on preferred appearance for leaders
Author(s)
Yang, Hee Jin (Hee Jin Heather)
DownloadFull printable version (3.960Mb)
Other Contributors
Sloan School of Management.
Advisor
John S. Carroll.
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Prior research has demonstrated that feminine appearance is penalized in business contexts. However, a separate body of research, predominantly centered on electoral outcomes, has put forth conflicting results demonstrating that feminine appearance can be beneficial. In a series of experimental studies, I aim to resolve the conflict in the literature by proposing an expectation-matching theory. I propose that, although both domains of politics and business are associated with masculine characteristics, contexts within the political domain are associated with fewer masculine characteristics than contexts within the business domain and, as a result, perceivers expect and prefer less masculine facial appearances for political leaders than for business leaders. The findings of the studies add to the face perception literature and the gender bias literature that examines the impact of circumstances that make gender and professional roles discrepant in their impact on consequential outcomes, such as hiring and electoral outcomes.
Description
Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2017. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 56-60).
Date issued
2017Department
Sloan School of ManagementPublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Sloan School of Management.