Page 189 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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unless perceivers are sufficiently motivated to individuate others (e.g.,
Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). There are, however, factors that both exacerbate
and attenuate this tendency.
Power CLEVELAND, VESCIO, BARNES-FARRELL
It has been suggested that the tendency to stereotype others increases with
power. Following from the assumption that people will stereotype unless
sufficiently motivated to do otherwise, low power individuals should be
highly motivated to individuate high power people who have control over
them. In contrast, powerful people are likely stereotype low power people
either because the powerful are motivated to preserve power differentials
or because they are unmotivated to process information more carefully (for
a review of related findings, see Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003).
Importantly, the stereotyping tendencies of the powerful are particularly
problematic in traditional achievement domains, where success requires
attributes stereotypically associated with men (e.g., logic, strategic, and
competitive skills), but not women (who are stereotyped as illogical, emo­
tional, and weak). In such situations, men are more likely than women to
hold positions of power and findings show that perceivers have less com­
plex and varied stereotypes of gender outgroups than gender ingroups
(Park & Judd, 1990). This suggests that low power women are likely to be
the recipients of the gender-based discrimination of powerful men, which
may take different forms depending on the degree to which women are
threatening. As noted above, women are more likely to belong to outgroups
toward which powerful men have ambivalent perceptions (Fiske et al.,
2002). Therefore, nontraditional women who are perceived as competent
but not warm may be treated in hostile sexist manners, whereas tradi­
tional women who are perceived as incompetent but warm may be treated
in benevolent sexist manners.

Female Underrepresentation

Stereotyping may also be particularly strong in situations where women
are underrepresented (or skewed environments; Kanter, 1977). When ex­
tremely underrepresented, Kanter (1977) suggested that women come to
hold a token status; their numeric infrequency makes their gender highly
salient, such that women come to be viewed as representatives of their
gender. Additionally, in such situations Kanter suggested that women are
constrained to gender-relevant roles and may be the recipients of various
types of gender-based behaviors depending on the degree that the role to
which they are constrained is threatening to or supportive of traditional