title: Gender-related biases in evaluations of sex discrimination allegations: is perceived threat the key?
abstract: Hypotheses derived from defensive attribution theory and social identity theory were tested in 3 laboratory experiments examining the effects of plaintiff and observer gender on perceived threat, plaintiff identification, and sex discrimination. In Study 1, women differentiated plaintiffs on the basis of gender, whereas men did not. Study 2 showed that this bias occurred because employment discrimination was personally threatening to women but not to men. In Study 3, the bias was reversed in a child custody context. As predicted, men found this context to be significantly more threatening than did women and subsequently exhibited a similarity bias. Mediation analyses suggested that responsibility attributions explained most of the variance in discrimination judgments associated with the plaintiff gender by observer gender interactions.
authors: Department of Management, C.T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, Texas 77204-6030, USA. elkins@uh.edu
authors: Teri J
authors: TJ
authors: Elkins
authors: James S
authors: JS
authors: Phillips
authors: Robert
authors: R
authors: Konopaske
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002655:Child Custody / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D004648:Employee Grievances / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011287:Prejudice; D012933:Social Identification; D012938:Social Perception; D013240:Stereotyping