The Effects of Gender and Different Business Major Concentrations on Conscientiousness
I completed this assignment for my Research Methods in Psychology course (PSY 303) at the University of Oregon. The goal of this assignment was to gain hands-on research experience by developing a hypothesis based on our professor’s existing data sets and reviewing relevant literature, analyzing the data to test those hypotheses, and reporting the results in a cohesive empirical paper.
Abstract
Stereotypes have help perpetuate discrimination in almost all aspects of life, but I am specifically interested in the negative stereotypes surrounding the capabilities of women in the business sector. I looked at the effects of gender and business major concentration on conscientiousness scores to gage whether there is a statistical difference that would help to validate these stereotypes. Our study was conducted with 7,109 participants who responded to an online personality survey at the SAPA-Project.org. We found both a main effect of gender and major choice, however, there was no significant interaction of the two on conscientiousness. My findings aid in nullifying misconceptions surrounding gender and the business world.
The Effects of Gender and Major Choice on Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness has always been a highly valued personality trait when it comes to employment, however, assumptions have been made about gender differences on how conscientious an individual actually is. Specifically, women have been scrutinized for not being conscientious enough to hold positions of power in a business environment. This study aims to provide evidence either to support or rebut these stereotypes by looking at the effects of gender and major choice on how individuals score for conscientiousness. We will look specifically at business majors with concentrations in either accounting or administration and management to see if the stereotypes are upheld across different fields of the business sector. Conscientiousness is an important trait for those specifically involved with business-based careers because someone who is high in this trait is more diligent, reliable, and achievement-oriented which generally makes for a successful businessman or businesswoman (McCrae & John, 1992).
Although laws have been put in place to dissuade discrimination in the workplace based on gender, implicit biases surrounding gender and emotional competencies still plague beliefs about women holding high-power positions. These perceptions and assumptions have in turn become a loophole to bypass anti-discrimination laws and may explain why out of all the companies on the Fortune 500 list only 33 (6.6%) Chief Executive Officers were female (Zillman, 2019). One specific study conducted by Dennis et al. observed how managers are perceived by employees based on their gender. The results of this study showed that men rated male managers higher in work competence, emotional stability, and rationality than women. However, women rated male and female managers equally for the same traits (Dennis, 2004). This study highlights the assumptions that men are better than women in positions of power even though all participants were given the same anecdotes about managers with only the gender being switched.
Further, it has been evident through prior research that there is a gendered gap in college majors which translates to career choices later in life. One study looked at how people scored on pre-college tests such as the ASVAB and what they chose to major in. The study found that these test scores account for more than half of the gender gap in students who ended up majoring in sciences (62%) and humanities (66%) (Speer, 2016). The humanities group included majors such as arts and business which then shows a gendered difference in major choice. Startling though this study also found that these gender differences were present through tests scores as early as middle school and grow with age. While conscientiousness was not a key construct in this study it does highlight the effects of gender on specific areas of study and how they are projective of the college majors chosen by these groups. Another study specifically looked at the amount of internship offers male and female business majors were given as a projective measure of future employment. The researchers found that men received more internship offers which had a positive correlation with how quickly they were hired post-graduation compared to their female counterparts (Gary, 2016). While this study showed how gender influenced opportunities for business majors, it lacked solid evidence as to why the male business majors were offered these internships. My study aims to bridge this gap in reasoning and provide solid evidence about the effects gender and business concentration have on conscientiousness which may be the trait that is influencing the results in Gary et al.’s study.
Gender and major choice have proven to be key variables in many studies and has influenced many sociocultural phenomena. The goal of this study is to build on the prior studies mentioned and to discover the truth behind the assumptions that women are less capable of being in high-power business positions. We will be looking at the effects of gender and business major concentration on how individuals score for Conscientiousness to draw generalizable conclusions about the efficacy of those stereotypes. I hypothesize that women will score significantly higher than men on Conscientiousness but no difference in how both business concentrations score. I also predict there to be no interaction between gender and business concentration on conscientiousness which would support the idea that both men and women are equally capable of holding high-power positions.
Method
Participants
Participants were drawn from a sample of respondents to an online personality survey at the SAPA-Project.org. Participants completed the survey in exchange for feedback about their personality and were not financially compensated. Data were collected from December 8, 2013 to February 7, 2017 (Condon & Revelle, 2015; Condon, Roney, & Revelle, 2017). The sample included 126,884 participants, though the participants in this study were the subsample of respondents who were above the typical age of college students. The subsample contains 7,109 participants (73.19 % female) between 20 and 39 years of age (M = 24.39, SD = 5.67, Mdn = 22). Educational attainment among the participants ranged from those who were currently in college/university (66%), had some college/university education but did not graduate (5%), had a 4 year college degree (15%), were currently in graduate/professional school (7%), or had a graduate/professional school degree (7%).
Measures
Personality was assessed with the SAPA Personality Inventory (Condon, 2018). The SAPA Personality Inventory includes scales measuring each of the Big Five traits (Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) (McCrae & John, 1992). The measure of conscientiousness includes 14 items such as “Try to follow the rules” and “Work hard”. Response choices for all items in the Conscientiousness scale range from 1 (“Very Inaccurate”) to 6 (“Very Accurate”). Major and gender were self-reported through a required drop-down field.
Procedure
The participants were directed to the SAPA-Project.org website. The participants were first presented with a summary of instructions on how to complete the SAPA survey. It included qualities of the study such as, it is free, confidential, and anonymous. The summary also included information about the personality feedback the participants would receive, as well as how the accuracy of their feedback is contingent on the number of items they answer. After hitting “start” the participants were taken to a page with primarily optional demographic questions that pertained to information including their age, sex, marital status, country, education, and employment. From there, participants were presented with multiple pages of randomly ordered items and could answer as many as they wished. It was recommended they do at least 100, but they could do no more than 330. All analyses were conducted using jamovi statistical software (the jamovi project, 2019).
Results
Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Conscientiousness
A 2 x 2 analysis of variance was conducted to compare the main effects of gender and major choice, and the interaction effect on Conscientiousness. Gender included two levels (Male, Female) and business majors were split into two groups (Accounting, Business Administration and Management). Scores for Conscientiousness (M = 50.9, SD = 9.39, Range [18.3 – 71.4]) were based on item response theory-based scoring procedures and indicated high internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha at 0.86. See table 1 for further descriptive statistics.
The main effect of gender was statistically significant (F(1, 1599) = 11.94, p < .001). Post hoc analyses of gender indicated higher mean scores for Females (t(1599) = -3.45, p < .001) which is described in Table 3. The effect size was very small (η2 = .007). My hypothesis about women being more conscientious than men was supported.
Figure 1. Estimated marginal means of the effects of gender and major choice on conscientiousness scores.
The main effect of major was statistically significant (F(1, 1599) = 9.85, p = .002). Post hoc analyses of major choice indicated higher mean scores for participants that majored in business administration and management (t(1599) = -3.14, p = .002) which is described in Table 4. The effect size was very small (η2 = .006). The main effects of gender and major choice can be seen in figure 1. My hypothesis that there would be no difference in conscientiousness score based on business concentration was not supported because major showed a main effect.
When analyzed together, there was no significant effect of gender and major choice on Conscientiousness (F(1, 1599) = 1.14, p = .285). See further analyses of the interaction in Table 2. My hypothesis that there would be no effect of gender and major choice on conscientiousness score was supported by my findings.
Discussion
My findings suggest that gender and major have an effect on conscientiousness when analyzed separately, but together had no effect on conscientiousness. This evidence supports my hypotheses that women will be more conscientious than men and that there would be no interaction acting on conscientiousness scores. However, my hypothesis that there would be no effect of business major concentration was not supported but raises new questions for future research.
My findings support prior research such as Dennis et al. who found that there was a perceived difference in capability based on the gender of employees’ managers (2004). Through statistical analyses I found a significant gender difference based on conscientiousness scores which would work to debunk the misconceptions uncovered by Dennis’ work. Women on average scored higher than men for conscientiousness, meaning women would then be more qualified, or “competent”, to have high-ranking positions.
If there is no gender difference affecting conscientiousness scores in a wide field of business majors, then the idea that women are unsuitable to hold managerial positions is based on misconceptions and my findings bring reason into the discussion by providing evidence that the stereotypes do not hold up through research. However, there may be other reasonings behind believing these stereotypes, such as the fact that women are innately more caring which could be perceived as a weakness. One area of improvement in future studies could be to open up conscientiousness and analyze how people scored for a number of different measures such as emotional intelligence or another personality trait accentuated in business professionals to see where the true differences are.
Overall, as a society we should not be so quick to believe and enable stereotypes because they have detrimental effects and help perpetuate discrimination. With more research being done on these topics we should work to educate ourselves and our peers so we can one day live in a more equal and fair community.
References
Condon, D. M., & Revelle, W. (2015).
Selected personality data from the SAPA-Project: On the structure of phrased self-report items.
Journal of Open Psychology Data, 3(1), e6. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jopd.al
Condon, D. M. (2018).
doi:10.31234/osf.io/sc4p9
Condon, D. M., Roney, E., & Revelle, W. (2017).
A SAPA Project Update: On the Structure of phrased Self-Report Personality Items.
Journal of Open Psychology Data, 5(1), 3. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jopd.32
Dennis, M. R., & Kunkel, A. D. (2004).
Perceptions of men, women, and CEOs: The effects of gender identity.
Social Behavior and Personality, 32(2), 155-171. Retrieved from http://libproxy.uoregon.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/60494249?accountid=14698
Gary Blau, Theodore L. Hill, Corinne Snell, Craig Atwater, Terry Halbert & M. Michael Zuckerman (2016).
Journal of Education for Business, 91:5, 274-279, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2016.1188756
McCrae, R. R., & John, O. P. (1992).
An introduction to the five-factor model and its applications.
Journal of Personality, 60(2), 175215.http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.uoregon.edu /10.1111/j.1467-6494.1992.tb00970.x
Speer, Jamin D. (2016).
The Gender Gap in College Major: Revisiting the Role of Pre-College Factors.
Labour Economics, vol. 44, 2017, pp. 69–88.,doi:10.1016/j.labeco.2016.12.004.
The jamovi project (2019).
jamovi(Version 0.9) [Computer Software].
Retrieved from https://www.jamovi.org
Zillman, Claire. (2019).
The Fortune 500 Has More Female CEOs Than Ever Before.
Fortune, 16 May 2019, fortune.com/2019/05/16/fortune-500-female-ceos/.
Tables & Figures
Table 2
Factorial 2x2 AVOVA
Table 3
Tukey Post Hoc Comparison of Gender
Table 4
Tukey Post Hoc Comparison of Major
