How to Benefit from Gender Quotas?
The Effect of Gender Quota Framing on Impostor Feelings
Master Thesis, Msc. Human Resource Management University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business Supervisor: S. Feenstra, MSc
Dewi de Lange S3254356
d.de.lange.1@student.rug.nl May 28, 2018
ABSTRACT
The use of gender quotas has rapidly grown in recent years. Besides the intended positive effects, gender quotas also tend to have negative effects. To date, however, only a small amount of research has examined when exactly, gender quotas appear to have negative effects. This study examined the negative influence of gender quotas on impostor feelings. More specifically the role of gender quota framing on impostor feelings. Impostor feelings mean that an individual does not experience high-accomplished successes internally, and that regardless of the degree of success, an individual feels the fear of being exposed as a fraud. The first aim of this research is to show the role of gender quota framing (e.g. legal pressure and voluntary) on impostor feelings. I expect that when a gender quota is framed in such a way that it is implemented by legal pressure, individuals will experience more impostor feelings, than when a gender quota is framed in such a way that it is voluntary implemented by the organization. The second aim of this study is to show the moderating role of gender on the relationship between gender quota framing and impostor feelings, such that; the
relationship between gender quota framing and impostor feelings only apply to women. However, the results of this study did not show any significant outcomes to support these hypotheses. Nonetheless, I found significant evidence that power is positively associated with impostor feelings, in an additional research. More specific, individuals in high power
positions tend to experience more impostor feelings compared to individuals in low power positions, regardless of their gender.
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, talent of women is highly underutilized, especially since not even 25% of the top positions in the Netherlands is occupied by women (Dohmen, 2017). However, not every country has such a low percentage of women in top positions. Norway and Iceland already increased this percentage of women in top positions to 40%, and they did so by implementing gender quotas (e.g. 50% women in management positions) (Dohmen, 2017). The use of gender quotas has grown rapidly in popularity in recent years, especially since it is a trendy way of supporting under-represented women in business and political positions (Dahlerup & Freidenvall, 2010). A lot of countries worldwide promote gender balanced decision-making (Krook, 2004), and organizations in more than hundred different countries have already implemented gender quotas to encourage and support women (Allen & Cutts, 2018; Krook, 2008).
The positive effects of supporting under-represented women, by gender quotas is supported by a study of Tripp and Kang (2008), in which they showed that a gender quota help reduce constraints on women’s representation in business, posed by cultural influences, and economic underdevelopment. Likewise, De Paola, Scoppa and Lombardo (2010) found that gender quotas decrease the negative stereotypes towards women in politics. Furthermore, quotas are a relative efficient system for increasing the representation of women quickly (Dahlerup, 2009).
On the other hand, research has shown that gender quotas, can also have negative effects. Heilman, Block and Lucas (1992) found that affirmative actions, such as gender quotas, increase the stigma of incompetence. Moreover, other research suggest that self-doubt, low self-perception, and low self-image are negative consequences of gender quotas
a way that individuals who acquired a management position due to quotas, do not deserve this specific position (Clayton, 2014). These intense feelings that an achievement is undeserved, and the worry to be exposed as a fraud, refer to impostor feelings (Kets de Vries, 2005; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). Subsequently, research shows that self-doubt (Oleson,
Poehlmann, Yost, Lynch, & Arkin, 2000; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011), low self-perception (Leary, Patton, Orlando, & Funk, 2000) and low self-image (Clance & Imes, 1978) have similar characteristics as impostor feelings. Therefore, these earlier research shows support that gender quotas might also have impostor feelings as a negative consequence.
Impostor feelings mean that an individual does not experience high accomplished successes internally, and that regardless of the degree of success, an individual feels the fear of being exposed as a fraud (Clance & Imes, 1978). Since, poor performance, decrease of motivation and burnouts are consequences of impostor feelings (Clance & Imes, 1978; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011), and gender quotas are increasingly used all around the world (Krook, 2008), is it important to understand the role of gender quotas for impostor feelings.
To date, however, only a small amount of research has examined when exactly, gender quotas appear to have these negative effects. Several studies show some evidence for the suggestion that the effects of gender quotas depend on the way, in which a company
education enable success at the required job. Their results suggest that women developed a greater job interest, when they believed that the company acquires people based on merit conditions.
Although, research has shown that there are no differences in the experience of impostor feelings among sexes (Langford, & Clance, 1993; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011), society often exposes women to sex stereotyping, such as that they should care for their family or that they are not suitable for the position of manager. This tends to strengthen their sense of imposture, especially when their achievements rise above these expectations (Kets de Vries, 2005). Besides, business women have to function in a male dominated environment, this could aggravate the idea that an affirmative action program, and not talent or skills, is responsible for the success of a woman (Kets de Vries, 2005). Consequently, women quotas could give the sex-role stereotypical idea that women need support to get higher management position (Clance & Imes, 1978; Meister, Sinclair, & Jehn, 2017). Since women continue to increase their share of managerial positions (Schein, 2007), it is important to understand the role of gender on the relationship between gender quotas and impostor feelings.
Consequently, the purpose of this research is twofold. This present research examines the role of gender quotas on impostor feelings. Specifically, the first aim of this study is to show the role of gender quota framing on impostor feelings, in such a way that participants in the legal pressured gender quota framing condition experience more impostor feelings
compared to participants in a voluntary gender quota framing condition (Allen & Cutts, 2018; Heilman & Herlihy, 1984).
The second aim of this study is to show the moderating role of gender on the
This paper contributes to the understanding of the role of gender quota framing on impostor feelings in several ways. Firstly, earlier research mainly suggests that personality dimensions are predictors of impostor feelings (Chae, Piedmont, Estadt, & Wicks, 1995; Clance & Imes, 1978; Langford & Clance, 1993; Sonnak & Towell, 2001; Want & Kleitman, 2006), which shows that research on impostor feelings is mainly focused on the individual level. By examining the effect of gender quota framing, which is a contextual variable, on impostor feelings, this study will add new perspectives on theoretical knowledge, in such a way that besides personality dimensions, also contextual variables have an effect on the degree of an individual’s impostor feelings.
Secondly, this research has important implications for organizations, which are using gender quotas or which are planning to implement them. The present research informs practitioners about the way they can frame gender quotas, in such a way that they will not have negative effects on (potential) employees. Since gender quotas are mainly implemented within organization to encourage women or men (Lombardo & Meier, 2006), is it important to be aware of how gender quotas could be implemented and communicated best. Knowing how to frame gender quotas the best, will help organizations benefit the most from this affirmative action.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Gender Quotas and Impostor Feelings
regulations (Heilman & Herlihy, 1984). Secondly, voluntary gender quotas can be
operationalized as the active recruitment and promotion of women, for management position (Heilman & Herlihy, 1984). Altough, Terjesen et al. (2015) suggest that voluntary quotas are less effective, than legally pressured quotas in increasing percentages, Allen and Cutts (2018) assumed that legally pressured quotas will reduce the positive outcomes of quotas, due to the negative attitude towards women in business that will arise. Hence, both legal pressured and voluntary gender quotas have negative and postive outcomes. However, pressured quotas have more negative outcomes in terms of attitudes and perceptions, and voluntary quotas have more negative outcomes in terms of effectiveness (Allen & Cutts, 2018; Terjesen et al., 2015).
Some scholars have recognized the role of gender quotas on self-image (Heilman et al., 1992; Unzueta et al., 2010). These scholars showed that gender quotas could lead to a women’s negative self-image, due to the beliefs of these women that they are beneficiaries of these quotas. Likewise, Dahlerup and Freidenvall (2010) recognized that gender quotas
contribute to the idea that women have been promoted, due to their sex rather than their talent. People around the individual, mostly women, promoted within a company that uses gender quotas, could stigmatize these individuals as ‘quota women’. Subsequently, this could lead to the self-perception of women that they are not able to function well within their position. Accordingly, the perception of not being able to function well in a position refers to self-doubt, which in its turn taps into the experience of impostor feelings (Bechtoldt, 2015). For this reason, these scholars show some evidence to assume that gender quotas are positively associated with impostor feelings.
regard to the beneficiaries of quota. This could be explained by a study of Kets de Vries (2005), in which he found that individuals themselves and their colleagues might assume that the gender quota, and not talent or skills, was responsible for as success or achievement, such as acquiring a management position. These intense feelings that an achievement is
undeserved, or that an success is realized due to luck, charm or contacts refers to impostor feelings (Kets de Vries, 2005; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011; Sonnak & Towell, 2001).
Going into that, impostor feelings, in this paper, can be defined as the experience of feeling incompetent (Langford & Clance, 1993), not being able to experience high
accomplished successes internally (Clance & Imes, 1978), and regardless of the degree of success, an individual feels the fear of being exposed as a fraud (Clance & Imes, 1978; Sonnak & Towell, 2001). Kets de Vries (2005) found in his research that many skilled accomplished executive managers have this fear of not being competent enough. This shows that, individuals who experience impostor feelings are successful in their position; however, they feel doubt about their abilities in comparison to the requirements of the job (Bechtoldt, 2015). The doubts about own abilities, which individuals with impostor feelings experience refers to self-doubt (Bechtoldt, 2015; Clance & Imes, 1978; Oleson et al., 2000; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). In addition, research of Leary et al. (2000) showed that individuals with high impostor feelings tend to give themselves low self-appraisals, which indicates that
individuals with impostor feelings have a lower self-perception. To continue, Clance and Imes (1978) also make the link between impostor feelings and low self-image. More specifically, they state impostor feelings create the self-image of being a phony and incompetent. Taken together, these studies suggest that impostor feelings have similarities with the feeling of self-doubt, low self-perception and low self-image, and therefore these phenomenon help
To continue, recent research suggest that the way in which quotas are framed plays an important role in this regard (Heilman & Herlihy, 1984). Therefore, a closer look at both ways of gender quota framing is necessary. Subsequently, this paper makes a distinction between legal pressured and voluntary gender quotas. Previous studies have shown that women who believed to be selected on the basis of legal pressured quotas, instead of voluntary quotas, tend to have a more negative self-perception about their performance, and took less credit for their successful outcomes as a leader (Heilman et al., 1992, 1987). To continue, women’s selected on the basis of legal pressured gender quotas also tend to perceive themselves as less sufficient in terms of general leadership skills (Heilman et al., 1987). These consequences could be explained by a woman’s initial level of confidence with regard to her competence and doubt about her own abilities, caused by legal pressured quotas (Kravitz, 2008).
Furthermore, Heilman and Herlihy (1984) examined in their study the relationship between the communication of affirmative actions, such as gender quotas, to enhance an individual’s career and job attractiveness. The results suggest that women developed a greater job interest, when they believed that the company acquires people based on merit conditions, rather than preferential treatment conditions. These merit conditions and preferential treatment conditions are comparable to what I call voluntary gender quotas and legal pressured gender quotas, in this study.Therefore, previous research suggest that women develop greater job interest, when they believe that the company acquires people based on voluntary quotas, instead of legal pressured gender quotas. Considering this, I assume that there will also be a difference in the degree of impostor feelings when individuals believe the company acquires people based on voluntary quotas in comparison to legal pressured gender quotas.
successful outcomes and have more doubt about their own abilities as leader, which are characteristics of impostor feelings (Bechtoldt, 2015; Leary et al., 2000). Therefore, I propose:
Hypothesis 1: Gender quota framing influences impostor feelings; such that, participants in a legal pressured gender quota framing condition experience more impostor feelings compared to participants in a voluntary gender quota framing condition.
The Moderating Role of Gender
In the early beginning of impostor feeling research, studies mainly focused on females, in such a way that data was only gather from highly successful women, and even only women were mentioned in the definition of impostor feelings (Clance & Imes, 1978). Langford and Clance (1993) explain this thought by pointing out that females are less likely to expect success, and therefore might attribute their success to other factors than their ability, such as luck and effort. However, more recent impostor feelings scholars states that there are no differences in the experience of impostor feelings among sexes (Langford, & Clance, 1993; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). Additionally, Gravois (2007) even suggests that 70% of the people will experience impostor feelings at least once in their lives, regardless of their gender (Sakulku & Alexander, 2011).
Nonetheless, Hillary Clinton once said, in an interview with ABC in 2014: “When you’re in the spotlight as a woman, you know you’re being judged constantly. I mean, it is just never ending.” This quote points out the sex role stereotyping of women (Ragins &
society often confronts women with gender socialization, such as that women should care for the family, and that they do not have the capabilities to be a good leader (Kets de Vries, 2005). Kets de Vries (2005) stated that this kind of gender socialization could develop inner confusion into many women, especially with regard to the decision to pursue a career instead of staying home. Due to this inner confusion, one could suggest that gender bias is a great obstacle for the advancement of female candidates for management positions (Vial, Napier, & Brescoll, 2016). Moreover, this inner role confusion makes women more vulnerable to the feeling of being an impostor (Kets de Vries, 2005).
In addition to this inner role ambiguity caused by sex-role stereotyping, women also have to deal with the perception of women being less competent than men in a management position (Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972). Subsequently, Heilman (2012) suggest that the stereotypical though of women, and the male-typed
leadership competences which are required in business, could create the experience of misfit between a female’s own abilities and the work-place related leadership requirements.
Therefore, the promotion progress of women often depends on negative attitudes about their management qualities by others (Schein, 2007). These stereotypical thoughts about women, could lead to more negative thoughts of women about their own abilities (Cadinu, Maass, Rosabianca, & Kiesner, 2005; Heilman, 2012; Nater & Sczesny, 2016), and therefore create circumstances which cause impostor feelings (Sakulku & Alexander, 2011).
Subsequently, Ford and Pande (2011) found that when a woman obtained a position due to gender quotas, it could lead to an even more sex-role stereotypical idea that women are less qualified (Ford & Pande, 2011), and that they need support to get in higher management positions (Clance & Imes, 1978; Meister et al., 2017). Especially, when a colleague of the concerned women already had an experience with a female leader, who was selected through quotas, and appeared to be less qualified than the colleague’s previous leader, it might affect impression of the colleague about the concerned women before she even started (Ford & Pande, 2011).
Additionally to what is described above, the forming of socially shared reality (e.g. women being less qualified for management positions than men) is based on the perception of others, which consequently affects the perception of one about one’s own abilities (John & Robins, 1994). Therefore, I assume that gender quotas might also affect one’s perception about him or her own abilities. Therefore, I assume that the negative consequences of gender quotas have a greater effect on women.
Hypothesis 2: The relationship between gender quota framing and impostor feelings only applies to women; such that, only female participants in a legal pressured gender quota framing condition experience more impostor feelings compared to female participants in a voluntary gender quota framing condition.
Figure 1 shows the graphical representation of hypothesis 2. In this figure, I show the relationship between gender quota framing and impostor feelings, moderated by gender.
FIGURE 1
The interaction effect of gender quota framing and gender on impostor feelings
Additional Research
Going into that, power has mainly been associated with positive outcomes for an individual, such as optimism (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006), confidence (Fast, Sivanathan, Mayer, & Galinsky, 2012a), an decrease in stress (Schmid & Schmid Mast, 2013) and other outcomes which are associated with approach behavior (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). In addition, power holders tend to experience more positive than negative emotions (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002).
However, some little research suggests that power might also be associated with negative outcomes for an individual. Clance and Imes (1978) found in their research that accomplished successes, such as increased hierarchical power lead to increased impostor feelings. This can be explained by the idea that individuals who acquired a management position deny to relate their success to their own abilities (Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). Additionally, Scholl et al. (2018) found in their research that power-holders might experience power as a responsibility rather than an opportunity. Scholl et al. (2018) explain this by the perception that power relates to ‘taking care of things’ instead of ‘making things happen’. Therefore, power holders experience more threat when they become aware of the
responsibility that goes along with their power. Perceived threat, in its turn, can have the experience of fear as a result (Levin, Dato-on, & Manolis, 2007), and the experience of fear is a characteristic of impostor feelings (Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). Therefore, I expect that participants in the high power condition experience more impostor feelings than, the participants in the low power condition.
manager (Clance et al., 1995; Kets de Vries, 2005), which causes inner role confusion (Kets de Vries, 2005).
The propositions described in this paragraph, with regard to power, gender and impostor feelings, is examined explorative besides the main analysis. First the method and result section of the main analysis are described and analyzed, and second the explorative additional research is described and analyzed in this paper. Finally, the outcomes of both main analysis and additional analysis are included in the discussion.
METHOD Participants
Initially 157 students participated in this experiment. However, I excluded some participants from the final analysis. Firstly, after the first day of running this experiment, I changed something within the setup of the experiment, and therefore, these first 39
participants could not be used anymore, and had to be excluded. Secondly, I excluded 36 participants who filled in the attention check and the role checks incorrectly. Hence, the final sample of this study consisted of 82 male and female students of the University of Groningen (Mage = 21.53, SD = 2.286; 43.9 % Female). These participants took part in the experiment in
exchange for four research points or €8,-. The majority of the participants were Dutch
(54.8%), who completed the experiment in separate cubicles. Subsequently, the survey system randomly assigned the participants to one of the two conditions (legal pressured quota
framing, voluntary quota framing). Procedure
Participants were invited to participate in a group study, in which they were going to complete a ‘Business Simulation’. The participants arrived in the FEB Research Lab at the University of Groningen. I, or one of the other researchers, namely two male Human
participants signed the informed consent, which informed the participants about
confidentiality, and the goals of the research. Secondly, the researcher guided the participants one by one towards a cubicle. While walking towards the cubicle, the participants passed a poster with the text ‘Business Simulation’, which I attached to a door, before the experiment started. The researcher told participants that the business simulation would be later in another room, together with another participant, and that he or she first had to fill in a questionnaire. When a participant entered very early, the researcher told them that they could already start the questionnaire, and that the other participant would start soon too. When a participant arrived late, the researcher told the participant that the other participant already started. When only a single participant registered for a certain time slot, the researcher acted that another participant would enter the lab later or that the other participant already started. This to increase the credibility of the research. Lastly, the researcher filled in the participant’s ID number and instructed the participant to start the experiment.
Subsequently, the management position was manipulated by telling participants that together with another participants, they would take part in a business simulation, in which they would either be a manager or an employee (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002). It was shown on the computer that the manager would have complete control over the work process and will direct and evaluate the employee, and that the employee would be controlled by the manager and would only have an operating role. Participants were told that they would complete a leadership test that would determine which of the two participants would be the manager.
Next, participants filled in the question about their gender and received feedback that seemed to be based on the test, but in reality, the survey system randomly assigned the
Subsequently, participants filled in a questionnaire containing measures of impostor feelings, and general information, such as gender and age. Finally, they completed checks of the manipulation of gender quota.
Manipulation and Measures
Gender quota manipulation. It was shown on the computer to all participants that ‘They had performed poorly on the leadership test, and therefore, would normally be assigned to the role of employee.’ Subsequently, the computer showed to the participants in the legal pressured gender quota framing ‘However, regulations of the university make that we need more people of their gender in management positions. Therefore, they were assigned to the role of manager instead.’ Additionally, the computer showed to the participants in the voluntary gender quota framing ‘However, the university finds it important to have more people of their gender in management positions. Therefore, they were assigned to the role of manager instead.’
Impostor feelings. In accordance with prior research (Leary et al., 2000), this study measured participants’ impostor feelings by asking participants to indicate their confidence and success in their position, using six items. Example items are: “I am afraid that I will be discovered for who I really am.” and “I feel like a phony.” on a 5 point Likert-scale, ranging from 1, ‘Not at all’ to 5, ‘Very much’. The scale was highly reliable and internally consistent (α = .863).
Gender. The participant’s gender was measured by asking participants if they are a male or a female (0 = male, 1= female) at the beginning of the experiment.
(Clance & Imes, 1978; Want & Kleitman, 2006). Therefore, this current study also takes this variable into account.
Quota manipulation check. Participants were asked to answer the question ‘Why were you assigned to the role of manager?’ at the end of the survey. This to check whether participants understood for what reason I assigned them to the role of manager. Possible answers were: ‘Due to my scores’, ‘Because the university finds it important to have more people of my gender in management positions’, ‘Because the university regulations require that there are more people of my gender in management positions’ and ‘I don’t know.’ Participants who did not fill in this question or participants who filled in ‘Due to my scores’ or ‘I don’t know’ were excluded from the analysis. However, a large group of participants who I assigned to their position due to voluntary gender quotas, filled in that they were assigned to their position due to legal pressured gender quotas, namely 21 participants. I suggest that these participants did not read the options properly and therefore clicked the first option, which referred to gender quotas, which was ‘Because the university regulations require that there are more people of my gender in management positions’. Since 21 participants filled this in incorrectly, it would mean that in case of excluding them, only 18 participants would be left in this condition. This would have been to less to run an analysis, and therefore I decided not to exclude participants based on the distinction between the two different gender quotas1.
RESULTS ANOVA Assumptions
To determine whether an ANOVA could be used for this study, three assumptions were checked, namely the normality assumption, the assumption of homogeneity of variance, and the equality of the group sizes.
1
A Shapiro-Wilk normality test showed that the data concerning impostor feelings for both the legal pressured gender quota condition (W = 0.877, p = .000), and the voluntary gender quota condition (W = 0.913, p = .005) are not normally distributed (Shapiro & Wilk, 1965). However, I ran a Log and Ln transformation to check whether that makes a difference in terms of normal distribution. Unfortunately, this had no effect, and therefore I could conclude that this data is not normally distributed. Besides the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, I checked the normality through Skewness and Kurtosis. This showed a skewness of 1.263 (SE = 0.361) and a kurtosis of 1.638 (SE = 0.709) for the legal pressured gender quota conditions, and a skewness of 0.617 (SE = 0.378) and a kurtosis of -0.524 (SE = 0.741) for the voluntary gender quota condition. With regard to the skewness and kurtosis, one can say that, the data of the legal pressured gender quota condition is not normally distributed, and the data of the voluntary gender quota condition is somewhat normally distributed (Joanes & Gill, 1998). However, research found that the ANOVA is not particularly affected by the shape of the error of distribution, and therefore even for non-normal distributed data, an ANOVA test is the best option (Khan & Rayner, 2003).
level of p < .01 (Marshall, 2018). Since, there is no adjusted two-way ANOVA test available in SPSS, the best decision is to use two different tests for the two hypotheses instead of analyzing both hypotheses with a two-way ANOVA. Taken this together, using a Welch adjusted one-way ANOVA test is the best option to test Hypothesis 1, and a two-way ANOVA test with a significance level of p < .01 is the best option to test Hypothesis 2.
Lastly, I analyzed the equality of the group sizes. The legal pressured gender quota condition consisted of 43 participants, and the voluntary gender quota conditions consisted of 39 participants. Since, there was not a large difference in group sizes, I suggested this
assumption not to be violated.
Hence, due to the violation of the assumption of homogeneity of variance, I decided to use the Welch test within the one-way ANOVA test to test Hypothesis 1, as an alternative of the one way ANOVA (Harwell et al., 1992), and I used two-way ANOVA with a significance level of p < .01 (Marshall, 2018) to test Hypothesis 2.
Descriptive Statistics
Tabel 1
Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4
1. Age 21.53 2.285 -
2. Gender 0.440 0.499 .215 -
3. Gender Quota Framing 4. Impostor Feelings 1.524 1.951 0.524 0.866 .016 .069 .055 .004 - -.128 -
Notes. N = 82. For Gender Quota Framing 1 = voluntary gender quota and 2 = legal pressured gender quota. For gender 0 = male and 1 = female.
Main Analysis
To test Hypothesis 1, a Welch adjusted one-way ANOVA test on impostor feelings. Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations of the two groups. The outcome showed that the effect of gender quota framing on impostor feeling was not significant, Welch’s F(1, 80) = 2.587, p = .118, indicating that the groups had no different average score on impostor feelings. Therefore, these results suggest that there is no difference in the degree of impostor feelings between the legal pressured gender quota framing condition (M = 1.806, SD = 0.718) and voluntary gender quota framing condition (M = 2.111, SD = 0.988). Taken together, Hypothesis 1 cannot be supported.
Table 2
Means and Standard Deviations of Impostor Feelings by Framing Gender Quotas
Framing Gender Quota n Mean SD
1. Legal Pressured 43 1.806 0.718
Moderation Effect of Gender
A two-way ANOVA was conducted to analyze the interaction effect of gender quota framing and gender, on the degree of impostor feelings, which refers to Hypothesis 2 (See Table 4). To give a clear overview, Table 3 shows the mean and standard deviations of the different conditions.
Table 3
Means and Standard Deviations of Impostor Feelings by Framing Gender Quotas & Gender
Gender Framing Gender Quota n Mean SD
1. Male Legal Pressured 23 1.674 0.652
Voluntary 23 2.210 0.995
2. Female Legal Pressured 20 1.958 0.776
Voluntary 16 1.968 0.993
As described in the earlier paragraph, the main effect for gender quota framing on impostor feelings was not significant. Subsequently, the main effect for gender on impostor feelings was also not significant, F(1, 78) = 0.013, p = .911. Therefore, these results suggest that there is no significant difference in the degree of impostor feelings between male
Table 4
Two Way Analysis of Variance of Impostor Feelings by Gender Quota Framing and Gender
Source SS df MS F p η2 1. Framing 1.498 1 1.198 2.037 .158 .025 2. Gender 0.009 1 0.009 0.013 .911 .000 3. Framing x Gender 1.386 1 1.386 1.884 .174 .024 4. Error 57.377 78 0.736 5. Total 372.889 82
Notes. MS = Mean Squares. η2 = Effect Size. For Framing 1 = voluntary gender quota and 2 = legal pressured gender quota. For gender 0 = male and 1 = female.
Taken the above paragraphs together, both Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 cannot be supported by this study. This means that gender quota framing has no significant effect on impostor feelings and in addition, that there has not been found evidence to suggest that there is a difference between male and female concerning the effect of gender quota framing on impostor feelings.
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH
Although, I did not find significant results with regard to the hypotheses of this study. I did find interesting additional results, which I elaborated in the following section of this paper. This explorative additional study examines the relationship between power and impostor feelings such that, participants in the high power condition experience more impostor feelings than, the participants in the low power condition. Moreover, in the
additional research are the same as the procedure and the measurement of impostor feelings in the main research.
Participants
The final sample of this additional research consisted of 210 male and female students of the University of Groningen (Mage = 21.70, SD = 2.683; 49.0 % Female). They completed
the experiment in separate cubicles and were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (high power, low power) within this study.
Measures and Manipulation Checks
Power. In accordance to prior research (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Lammers et al., 2008), I manipulated power by telling participants that together with another participant, they would take part in a business simulation, in which they would be either a manager or an employee. I communicated to them that the manager would have complete control over the work process and will direct and evaluate the employee, and that the employee would be controlled by the manager and would only have an operating role. Subsequently, I told
participants that they would complete a leadership test that would determine which of the two participants would be the manager. However, the feedback the survey program showed with regard to the leadership test was randomly assigned.
ANOVA Manipulation Check
First, a power manipulation check has been done before starting the main analysis. In order to analyze this, I used a one-way ANOVA test for the power manipulation check (low power vs. high power). The outcome of the one-way ANOVA test showed that the power manipulation had the intended effect F(1, 208) = 673.968, p = .000. Power has therefore been successfully manipulated.
Main Analysis
To test whether power has an influence on impostor feelings, and whether the interaction effect of power and gender has an influence on impostor feelings, I conducted a two-way ANOVA test. An analysis of variance showed that the effect of power on impostor feeling was significant, F(1, 206) = 7.382, p = .007 (See Table 5), indicating that the high and low power groups did not have the same average score on impostor feelings. Therefore, these results show that the degree of impostor feelings between the high power condition (M = 1.932, SD = 0.798) and the low power condition (M = 1.650, SD = 0.656) are not equal, in such a way that participants in a high power condition feel a higher degree of impostor feelings, than participants in a low power condition.
Moderation Effect of Gender
gives a representation of the outcomes of a two-way ANOVA test. Hence, only the
relationship between power and impostor feeling has been found significant, in such a way that, participants in the high power condition experience more impostor feelings than
participants in the low power condition. Furthermore, the expectation of an interaction effect between power and gender on impostor feelings cannot be supported.
Table 5
Two Way Analysis of Variance of Impostor Feelings by Power and Gender
Source SS df MS F p η2 1. Power 4.134 1 4.134 7.382 .007 .035 2. Gender 0.497 1 0.497 0.888 .347 .004 3. Power x Gender 0.347 1 0.347 0.619 .432 .003 4. Error 115.372 206 0.560 5. Total 818.556 210
Notes. MS = Mean Squares. η2 = Effect Size.
DISCUSSION
The present study aimed to show the relationship between gender quota framing and impostor feelings, and the influence of gender on this relationship. Result showed that, unexpectedly, there is no enough evidence found to suggest that gender quota framing does predict impostor feelings and the effect of gender is not found. However, in an additional research analyzed from additional data, this study showed that there is a relationship between power and impostor feelings. More specific, individuals in high power positions tend to experience more impostor feelings compared to individuals in low power positions.
focus on this finding. Subsequently, the limitations focus mainly on the study with regard to gender quota framing and impostor feelings.
Theoretical Implications
The findings in this current study make several contributions. These contributions are aligned with what I expected and described in the theory section of this paper. First, the additional results of this current study demonstrate that power holders experience a higher degree of impostor feelings, than non-power holders do. Researchers usually associated power with favorable outcomes for individuals, such as the generation of approach behavior (Keltner et al., 2003). Power-holders tend to be more confident (Fast, Sivanathan, Mayer, & Galinsky, 2012b), and experience more positive and less negative emotions (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002). Furthermore, having power tends to reduce fear of negative evaluation and stress (Schmid & Schmid Mast, 2013). This can be explained by the thought that power reduces the requirements to care about constraints within the environment (Sassenberg, Ellemers,
Scheepers, & Scholl, 2014).
2018). Hence, this study contributes to the development of a body of evidence that illustrates a more nuanced perception of power. More specifically, the additional findings of this study contribute to the development of evidence that power is also associated with unfavorable outcomes for an individual.
Second, researchers mainly suggest that personality dimensions such as self-esteem, self-confidence, self-doubt, insecurity, perfectionism, and introversion are predictors of impostor feelings (Chae et al., 1995; Clance & Imes, 1978; Langford & Clance, 1993; Sonnak & Towell, 2001; Want & Kleitman, 2006). In addition, a few studies also mentioned the link between context and impostor feelings, namely family environment and parenting styles (Clance et al., 1995; Clance & Imes, 1978; Langford & Clance, 1993; Sonnak & Towell, 2001). These few studies showed that when a family lacks individual support, and when parents overprotect their children, the individual raised in that family is more likely to experience impostor feelings. Although, a lot of research focused on the influence of personality dimensions on impostor feelings, besides the studies with regard to family environment, no other research examined the influence of context on impostor feelings. Therefore, my additional findings advance theory on context and impostor feelings, by showing the influence of acquiring power (low power vs. high power) on impostor feelings. Having power has an influence on an individual’s impostor feelings, as such that power-holder experience more impostor feelings than non-power-power-holders do.
Practical Implications
reduction of intrinsic motivation as a consequence (Clance & Imes, 1978; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011), which in its turn can have profit losses as a consequence for the organization. Therefore, it is important for organizations to know how to create an
environment in which a manager’s impostor feelings are likely to decrease. Organizations can provide their managers with a training, designed in the way of a therapy. Especially when they obtain high power, so managers in an organization’s top management. In accordance to Clance and Imes (1978) is a multimodal therapy, with regard to impostor feelings, is the most effective. A multimodal therapy is an interactional group therapy. When one manager is willing to share his or her fears and feelings, other managers are able to share theirs too. The top managers, who are participating in this training, will discover that they are not alone, and that they can support each other in dealing with these feelings. In addition, the ways in which individuals ignore positive feedback, and maintain the negative beliefs about his or her own abilities can be brought to the attention of the individual, in group settings (Clance et al., 1995; Clance & Imes, 1978).
Limitations and Future Research
I acknowledge that the present research is not without limitations. The limitations are mainly focused on the first study described in this paper. Especially, since I did not find any significant results. First, I clearly emphasized that participants acquired their position due to their gender, in the gender quota framing manipulation. Therefore, participants knew
specifically that they were advantaged or disadvantaged by their gender. However, in real-life situations, an organization will not always represent this reason in such an obvious way, and in real-life, will there be more ambiguity with regard to the reasoning. The tight control of the variables in this study may not have created a fully realistic situation. This obvious way of communicating towards participants why they received their role, could have led to
research makes the presence of gender quotas less explicit, participants will be less aware of the manipulation. Therefore, participants will experience being advantaged or disadvantaged by their gender more as a real life situation. Subsequently, participants might be less affected by disbelieve and skepticism, which in it turn will increase the real effect of gender quotas. I expect that this will affect the outcomes in such a way that, there will be a significant effect of gender quotas on impostor feelings, and even a significant effect with regard to the difference in the degree of impostor feelings between the two gender quota framing conditions.
why they acquired a specific role. Therefore, the distinction between the two groups is more convincing, and consequently, the research will be more reliable.
Third, participants in this study were probably not intrinsically motivated to participate in this study, since they received either €8, - or four research credits for participating in this study. Furthermore, the participants could apply for this study by enrolling themselves in one of the available timeslots at the FEB Research Lab. Subsequently, many participants
participate in every study at the FEB Research Lab, as a way of earning money. These
participants were already familiar with the process of studies at this lab. Therefore, they might have known already that they were going to be manipulated. This could mean that participants did not believe the feedback they received after completing the leadership test, which in its turn could have affected the degree of impostor feelings they felt. This limitation refers to a bias in measurement context effects (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). Although I recognize this as a limitation, I have to note that I asked participants after participating in the study if they had any remarks with regard to the procedure of the study. Only a few participants mentioned that they already presumed that I would manipulate them. This was such a small amount of participants, that it is negligible. However, still other participants could have presumed it, but not mentioned it because they did not feel the importance of giving feedback. I expect there to be a greater, and so significant, difference in the degree of impostor feelings, between the legal pressured and voluntary gender quota framing when participants fully believe that the manipulation are real.
Fourth, all participants in this study were students of the University of Groningen. In addition, they were mainly Dutch and between 20 and 25 year old. Therefore, the results might be inappropriate to generalize. However, research suggest that, 70% of the people will experience impostor feelings at least once in their lives (Gravois, 2007 in Sakulku &
Nonetheless, I expect that due to the fact that, the participants were still students, they do not have experience with gender quotas and management positions, yet. Therefore, it might be that participants found it hard to identify themselves with the situation giving in the feedback, which could have had a negative effect on the results of this study.
Finally, the data set was not normally distributed and the homogeneity of variance assumption was not met in the first study of this paper. Therefore, I ran the Welch test within the one way ANOVA, as an alternative of the one way ANOVA (Harwell et al., 1992). However, data analysis is most reliable when data is homogeneous, normal distributed and balanced (Liu, 2015), so that an ANOVA test could be used. Therefore, it would be more preferable when future research conducts data in such a way that the assumption of ANOVA are met. Especially, since the more reliable a research is, the more reliable are the results of the research. The results coming from more reliable SPSS tests are more convincing and add more value to literature. I expect future research will meet these assumptions, when the manipulations align more with real live situations, and when the reason of acquiring are communicated more emphasized.
In summary, based on earlier research (Heilman et al., 1992, 1987; Kravitz, 2008) I still expect a difference in one’s degree of impostor feelings when one gathered a position due to legal pressured or voluntary gender quotas. However, future research should improve the design of the research as described above, to show significant results.
abilities (Bechtoldt, 2015), and lower self-appraisal (Leary et al., 2000), are similar to characteristics of self-perceptions (Heilman et al., 1987). However, these variables are not exactly the same, and no researchers studied the relationship between gender quota framing and self-perceptions, yet. Therefore, future research could examine the influence of gender quota framing on self-perceptions or other related variables.
To continue, with regard to the additional research, I found that power-holders experience a higher degree of impostor feelings than non-power-holders do. These findings contribute to the development of evidence that power can also have drawbacks for an individual. However, future research could estimate why power lead to a higher degree of impostor feelings. An example of future research is to study whether the relationship between power and importer feelings can be explained by the experience of responsibility (Scholl et al., 2018). Scholl et al. (2018) found in their research that power holder might experience power as a responsibility rather than an opportunity, which could lead to experiencing demands and threats. The experience of threat, could in its turn lead to the experience of fear (Levin et al., 2007). Additionally, the fear of failure and the fear of being exposed as a fraud are characteristics of impostor feelings (Bechtoldt, 2015; Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). Therefore, I expect that the relationship between power and impostor feelings could be explained by responsibility.
Subsequently, the additional research found that not only personal dimensions and family environment influence one’s impostor feelings; also, power has an effect on impostor feelings. Therefore, it might be interesting for the impostor feelings literature to study whether there are other contextual factors that influence impostor feelings. Clance et al. (1995)
Identification creates a feeling, by which an individual associates his or her values and goals with the ones of the environment (Miller, Allen, Casey, & Johnson, 2000). However, the effect of a male dominated environment and the effect of one’s identification with his or her environment on impostor feelings has not been studied, yet. Therefore, it might be interesting for future research.
CONCLUSION
Due to the growing popularity of gender quotas, organizations may be careful with the communication about gender quotas. Therefore, this paper proposed that different ways of gender quota framing is associated with different degrees of an individual’s impostor feelings. This paper made the distinction between voluntary gender quotas and legal pressured gender quotas. However, I did not find a significant difference in the degree of impostor feelings with regard to gender quota framing. Furthermore, this study aimed to show if there was a
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APPENDIX A: MANIPULATIONS A1: Legal pressured gender quota framing
You have performed poorly on the leadership test, and therefore, you would normally be assigned to the role of EMPLOYEE. However, regulations of the university make that we need more people of your gender in management positions. Therefore, you are assigned to the role of MANAGER instead.
A2: Voluntary gender quota framing
APPENDIX B: ITEMS IMPOSTOR FEELINGS SCALE
As adapted from the Impostorism Scale (Leary et al., 2000), all items were rated from 1, ‘Not at all’ to 5, ‘Very much’. No items had to be recoded.
1. I am afraid that I will be discovered for who I really am. 2. I feel like a phony.
3. I’m afraid people around me find out that I’m not as capable as they think I am. 4. I feel like an impostor (e.g., a person who pretends to be someone else).
