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The individual- and team-level effects of organizational gender strategies

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The individual- and team-level effects of organizational gender strategies

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The Individual- and Team-level Effects of Organizational Gender Strategies

A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GRADUATE SCHOOL
BY

Stephanie Smallets

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION)

Leigh Tost (advisor)

August 2019
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© 2019 Stephanie Smallets

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Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous support I received
throughout my entire graduate program. In particular, I would like to thank my dissertation chair,
Leigh Tost, for inspiring me every single day during this project. Under your advisement, I grew
exponentially as a thinker, scientist, writer, and presenter. I am beyond appreciative of your
thoughtful, invaluable feedback. More than anything, it was an absolute blast working with you.
To the other members of committee, I am honored and humbled that you were part of this
journey. Sarah Townsend, thank you for being the reason I am at USC to begin with, coaching
me through all the foundational skills I needed to complete a dissertation, and your comments on
this manuscript that heightened it to a new level. Kyle Mayer, your professional and personal
encouragement carried me from year one to the finish line and continues to stoke my idealistic
dreams of making a positive impact on the world. Sarah Bonner, did I even know how to think
before meeting you? Thank you for holding my scholarship and scientific practices to an
incredibly high standard and for demonstrating how to effectively support female colleagues.
I am grateful to the members of the Culture, Diversity, and Psychophysiology Lab, led by
Sarah Townsend, for helping me collect data for my dissertation among other projects and for the
community they provided throughout graduate school. Thank you, also, to the Management and
Organization department and Marshall School of Business for funding my dissertation studies.
Finally, there is a very special group of people that acted as external sources of
confidence and motivation when my internal well was dry. To my cherished friends, old and
new, I am indebted to you for your kindness, energy, and hilarity. Old friends: Thank you for
sticking with me, constantly checking in, and flying 3,000 miles to visit. New friends: I simply
cannot believe how lucky I am to have met you.

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Dedication

I dedicate this dissertation to my beloved family. Though we be but little, we are fierce.
Grams and Uncle Steve, I am still working to make you proud and I miss you every day. Mom,
Auntie Karen, and Sarah, you are the perfect role models of strength and my efforts to mimic
you are why I am where I am today. May we continue to empower every generation of Smallets
women to come. I love you all so very much.

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Abstract
Organizations increasingly care about creating gender equity, as it leads to many positive
individual and organizational outcomes. However, the best strategies for achieving gender equity
remain unclear. Organizations may choose to adopt a gender blindness strategy, which
encourages downplaying gender differences among employees and emphasizes viewing each
employee as an individual. Alternatively, organizations may use a gender awareness strategy,
which encourages celebrating the unique strengths that each gender contributes to the
organization (Koenig & Richeson, 2010; Martin & Phillips, 2017). In my four-chapter
dissertation, I investigate the effects of adopting either a gender awareness or blindness strategy
on important individual and team outcomes. In Chapter 1, I define my primary constructs and
provide a theoretical grounding for this research. In Chapter 2, I investigate the individual-level
effects of gender awareness versus blindness on women’s confidence and action orientation at
work, and I examine how these effects vary based on gender identification levels. In Chapter 3, I
examine the team-level effects of gender awareness versus blindness on perceptions of
psychological safety, team communication, and team performance. Finally, in Chapter 4, I
provide concluding thoughts derived from the research program, describe implications of the
findings, and specify potentially fruitful directions for future research.

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... i
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION .......................................................... 1
Construct Clarity ...................................................................................................................... 2
Defining Gender Strategies ...................................................................................................... 3
Why Blindness versus Awareness? Contributing to the Social Categorization
Conversation .............................................................................................................................. 5
Examining the Empirical Record: Multiculturalism versus Color Blindness .................... 9
Examining the Empirical Record: Gender Awareness versus Gender Blindness ............ 22
The Present Research ............................................................................................................. 27
CHAPTER 2: THE EFFECTS OF GENDER STRATEGIES ON WOMEN’S
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ................................................................................ 32
Study 1: Validate Gender Strategy Manipulations ............................................................. 43
Study 2: Preregistered Replication and Test of Moderation .............................................. 57
General Discussion .................................................................................................................. 75
CHAPTER 3: THE EFFECTS OF GENDER STRATEGIES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL
SAFETY, TEAM COMMUNCATION, AND TEAM PERFORMANCE ............................ 82
Study 1: Online Self-report Study ......................................................................................... 89
Study 2: Online Behavioral Study ......................................................................................... 98
Study 3: Lab Study ............................................................................................................... 109
General Discussion ................................................................................................................ 122
CHAPTER 4: CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ........................................................................ 126
References ................................................................................................................................... 128
Appendix A: Chapter 2, Study 1 Experimental Manipulations .................................................. 144
Appendix B: Complete List of Chapter 2, Study 1 Items ........................................................... 148
Appendix C: Chapter 2, Study 2 Experimental Manipulations .................................................. 154
Appendix D: Completed List of Chapter 2, Study 2 Items ......................................................... 158
Appendix E: Chapter 3, Study 1 Experimental Manipulations .................................................. 162
Appendix F: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 1 Items ........................................................... 164
Appendix G: Chapter 3, Study 2 Experimental Manipulations .................................................. 166
Appendix H: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 2 Items ........................................................... 170
Appendix I: Chapter 3, Study 3 Experimental Manipulations .................................................... 172

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Appendix J: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 3 Items ............................................................ 175

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION
In August 2017, Google fired one of their engineers, James Damore, after his
controversial memo about gender equity leaked to the public. In his memo, Mr. Damore
suggested that Google should adopt new strategies to address perceived inequities between
female and male employees (Damore, 2017). Mr. Damore’s statements were controversial, not
because of the end goal he endorsed (i.e., gender equity; though perceptions of his goals varied),
but primarily because of the strategy he suggested for achieving this goal. In particular, Mr.
Damore encouraged focusing attention on how women and men fundamentally differ and
highlighting these gender differences when developing employee support programs. Damore’s
critics, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, argued that highlighting gender differences
advances harmful gender stereotypes and is inherently sexist (Pichai, 2017; Romano, 2017).
The controversy present in the aforementioned anecdote highlights an important question
receiving increasing attention in organizational research: what strategies should organizations
use to pursue the goal of gender equity? This question is vital as organizations continue to
grapple with multiple gender-related problems, including women’s underrepresentation, lower
pay, and more frequent mistreatment in the workplace relative to men (Joshi, Neely, Emrich,
Griffiths, & George, 2015). While representation of women in the total US workforce has been
inching toward equality with men (46.8% in 2016; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017), there is still
a dearth of women in top positions. In 2016, women only held 5.2% of CEO positions at S&P
500 companies and 20.2% of board seats of Fortune 500 companies (Catalyst, 2017; Deloitte and
Alliance for Board Diversity, 2017). Moreover, as the “#MeToo” movement to end sexual
assault highlights, women’s safety and privacy continue to be areas of concern across industries
(Bennett, 2017).

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In order to address these problems, organizational researchers have proposed specific
gender strategies to help promote fair treatment and outcomes for women and men in the
workplace. Two of the most commonly theorized and discussed strategies are gender awareness,
which involves encouraging employees to acknowledge and embrace gender differences, and
gender blindness, which entails encouraging employees to downplay and look past gender
differences (Koenig & Richeson, 2010; Martin & Phillips, 2017). In two empirical chapters, I
test the effects of gender strategies on women’s individual-level outcomes (Chapter 2) and team-
level outcomes among mixed-gender teams (Chapter 3).
Construct Clarity
I define gender strategies as prescriptions for how to think about and discuss gender
differences in order to achieve gender equity in organizations. Gender refers to the socially and
culturally ascribed roles of being either female or male (e.g., independence, interdependence;
Scott, 1986). Gender is distinguishable from sex, which refers to a biological component of
difference between females and males (e.g., reproductive organs and functions; Hammarström et
al., 1979). I focus on gender, rather than sex, because the manifestations of sex differences in
organizations emerge in the context of gender, and because it is not clear whether the relevant
differences between women and men are based in biology (Eagly & Wood, 2013). Specifically,
relevant gender differences in organizations involve differences in interests (Halpern, Benbow,
Geary, Gur, Hyde, & Gernsbacher, 2007; Prediger, 1982; Su, Rounds, Armstrong, 2009), goals
(Gino, Wilmuth, & Brooks, 2015), personality (Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001; Feingold,
1994), degree of independence and interdependence (Markus & Conner, 2013), and other related
attributes, rather than established biologically-based differences such as the roles of reproductive

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organs. While gender differences certainly map onto sex differences (Hammarström et al., 1979),
I remain agnostic about the basis of gender differences in nurture or nature.
Equity refers to equal input/outcome ratios across individuals (see equity theory; Adams,
1963, 1965). In other words, an equitable situation is one in which people put in the same level
of inputs (e.g., skills and effort) and reach the same outcome (e.g., salary), whereas an
inequitable situation is one in which people put in the same inputs but achieve differently-valued
outcomes. Therefore, gender equity occurs when women and men achieve the same outcomes
when they put in the same level and quality of inputs, without gender either impeding or
enhancing their quality of outcomes.
Defining Gender Strategies
I derive my definition of gender strategies from the concept of gender ideologies, or the
“beliefs and practices regarding how to best approach group differences in diverse settings to
foster intergroup inclusion” (Martin & Phillips, 2017; pg. 29). Almost two decades of research
investigate the effects of racial/ethnic difference awareness versus blindness ideologies (i.e.,
multiculturalism and color blindness, respectively; Sasaki & Vorauer, 2013), and research on
gender ideologies is still emerging (Hahn, Banchefsky, Park, & Judd, 2015; Koenig & Richeson,
2010; Malicke, 2013; Martin & Phillips, 2017, Nichol, 2011). Altogether, these diversity
ideologies envelop both descriptive beliefs about whether differences between groups exist or
not, and prescriptive strategies for how to handle these differences. In this sense, gender
ideologies combine the two distinct constructs of gender beliefs (i.e., do gender differences
exist?) and gender strategies (i.e., how should one think about and discuss gender differences?).
The importance of distinguishing between gender strategies and gender beliefs becomes
particularly clear when examining the constructs of gender blindness and gender awareness in

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more detail. Gender blindness ideology proposes that, in order to create gender equity (the
strategy component), people should not think about or discuss gender differences. Gender
blindness ideology also endorses a belief that gender differences do not actually exist (the belief
component). Thus, the central message communicated by gender blindness ideology is:
“Meaningful gender differences do not exist and, in order to create gender equity, gender
differences should not be discussed.” The conceptual tension is clear: if something does not
exist, why would one need to be told not to discuss it? The tension also exists in extant measures
of endorsement of gender blindness ideology, which assess both endorsement of a gender
blindness strategy (e.g., “We should describe others in terms of their individual traits rather than
their gender“; Koenig & Richeson, 2010) and the belief that gender differences do not exist (e.g.,
“All people are basically the same regardless of their gender“; Malicke, 2013; see also Martin &
Phillips, 2017; Nicol, 2011).
This combination of gender strategies and gender beliefs also emerges in gender
awareness ideology, although the conceptual tension is minimized. Gender awareness ideology
sends the message: “Gender differences exist and, in order to create gender equity, we should
celebrate them.” While there is no inherent tension in these two clauses, it is nevertheless
entirely possible that one could believe that meaningful gender differences exist but still believe
they should be downplayed.
Given the clear possibility that one might believe that meaningful differences exist but
also endorse a strategy of downplaying those differences, I conceive of gender strategies and
gender beliefs as distinct in their theoretical function and empirical effects, and I examine them
with separate measures and manipulations. I argue that it is important to take this approach
because, without differentiating between these two constructs, researchers cannot discern

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whether any effects of gender blindness versus awareness are due to the strategy component or
due to the belief component.
Altogether, I propose that the extant definitions, measures, and manipulations of gender
blindness and awareness require clarification. Some scholars acknowledge that gender blindness
and awareness are primarily about the strategies used to think and talk about gender differences
(Martin & Phillips, 2017; Torres, 2018), but still rely on gender ideologies (gender strategies
plus beliefs) in their research. Throughout my dissertation, I exclusively investigate the effect of
gender strategies, or organizationally-imposed prescriptions for how to discuss and think about
gender differences in the workplace. I chose to focus on gender strategies, rather than gender
ideologies like past research, due to the plausibility of impact. Because ideologies are systems of
values and attitudes that are developed over one’s life and are resistant to change (Maio, Olson,
Bernard, & Luke, 2006), it is unlikely that an organizational intervention can have a long-lasting
and meaningful impact on employees’ ideologies. However, the implementation of strategies,
which are prescriptions for behavior (not values, attitudes and perceptions), are more likely to
create change among employees.
Why Blindness versus Awareness? Contributing to the Social Categorization Conversation
The notion that “blindness” and “awareness” constitute two divergent sets of beliefs,
strategies, and ideologies is rooted in earlier research on social identity theory (SIT).
Specifically, there is a debate inherent in SIT that focuses on the question of whether we, as a
society, should eliminate the use of social categories in order to create equitable outcomes for all
people. In order to understand why scholars debate the utility of social categories, I provide a
brief history of SIT.

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SIT proposes that people have both personal identities, which contain unique attributes
that separate one individual from another, and social identities, which depersonalize the self into
an exemplar of the social category with which they identify (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, & Reicher,
1987). When salient, social identities bring to mind the attributes that one shares with others
from the same group, which differentiate their social group from other groups and lead them to
share the successes and failures of other group members collectively (Brewer, 1991). Overall, the
central insight of SIT is that social identities, such as genders, races, and socioeconomic
backgrounds, are integral parts of the overall self-concept and that these identities meaningfully
predict behavior (Tajfel, 1978; 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; 1986).
One of the most robust findings from the SIT literature is that group identification is
correlated with positive in-group evaluation (Turner et al., 1987). The correlation between
greater group identification and more positive in-group evaluation has caused concern among
scholars who want to create intergroup equity, because positive in-group evaluation may
motivate in-group favoritism and outgroup bias, and therefore prejudicial behavior (e.g., Park &
Judd, 2005). Research using minimal group paradigms shows that people will still give
preferential treatment (e.g., rewards, esteem, empathy, and prosocial behavior) to their in-group,
even if this in-group is trivial and entirely, sometimes obviously, meaningless (Billig & Tajfel,
1973; Gaertner, Dovidio, Banker, Houlette, Johnson, & McGlynn, 2000; Sasaki & Vorauer,
2013; Tajfel, 1970). There is also evidence that creation of social categories, regardless of
duration and meaning, can create conflict and competition between groups that may not have
existed without highlighting the existence of distinct groups (Gaernter et al., 2000; Sherif,
Harvey, White, Hood, & Sherif, 1961). Therefore, many scholars concluded that the mere
existence of social categories, in and of themselves, breeds prejudice (e.g., Decategorized

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Contact Model, Brewer & Miller, 1984; Social Categorization Theory, Turner et al., 1987; Sherif
et al., 1961).
In this strand of SIT research, therefore, we see the roots of the argument for eliminating
or downplaying the perceived group differences that give rise to allegedly divisive social
categories. This perspective advocates for a difference blindness approach to diversity
management. In addition to the argument that difference blindness reduces prejudice, proponents
of difference blindness also argue that difference blindness can help make underrepresented
group members feel more confident in themselves in important achievement contexts (e.g.,
Gaertner et al., 2000; Martin & Phillips, 2017; Park & Judd, 2005). More specifically,
underrepresented group members often face negative stereotypes about their ability to succeed in
school and at work, which leads to negative affect, anxiety, self-consciousness, and
underperformance within and disengagement from these achievement contexts (for a review, see
Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). Theoretically, difference blindness can be expected to
eliminate the salience of these harmful stereotypes about underrepresented groups at school and
work, leading to more engagement and better performance, and ultimately intergroup equity.
However, a competing approach, which can be broadly described as a difference
awareness approach, emerged in response. While scholars who endorse difference awareness do
not dispute that acknowledging group divisions can create in-group favoritism, they do question
whether social categories are the source of outgroup bias (Park & Judd, 2005). Instead, advocates
of difference awareness suggest that prejudice actually derives from a lack of understanding and
appreciation of other groups (Sleeter, 1991; Takaki, 1993). Thus, the central goals of group
difference awareness are to 1) inform people on the diverse and meaningful backgrounds and
perspectives of different groups, and 2) generate appreciation for the unique strengths and

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contributions each group provides, particularly groups that are underrepresented in positions of
power (henceforth referred to as underrepresented groups in comparison to privileged groups;
Rosenthal & Levy, 2010).
Group difference awareness became a mainstream movement through the civil rights
movement as underrepresented racial/ethnic Americans felt that assimilating into dominant
White culture was ineffective for solving racial inequality (Plaut, 2010). One of the major
critiques of group difference blindness is that blindness approaches ignore important cultural
histories of underrepresented groups and may even lead to the perception that bias toward
underrepresented groups no longer exists (Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000). By
increasing awareness of the myriad cultures, experiences, and perspectives of underrepresented
groups, difference awareness theoretically helps challenge the idea that there is one “right” or
superior culture, which thereby decreases bias against underrepresented groups (Banks, 2004;
Takaki, 1993). Indeed, research indicates that encouraging awareness (vs. blindness) of
racial/ethnic group differences increases perspective taking (Todd & Galinsky, 2011), learning
orientation, and attention to others over the self (Sasaki &Vorauer, 2013).
Highlighting the unique strengths that every group provides to society should also help
validate underrepresented group members’ identities, leading to a sense of pride, confidence, and
self-efficacy (Banks, 2004, Gaertner et al., 2000; Plaut, 2010). Celebrating the contributions of
different groups should not only reinforce group members’ perceived value of their in-group
(Banks, 2004; Markus, Steele, & Steele, 2000), but should also satisfy the need for optimal
distinctiveness. The Mutual Differentiation Model holds that people have the most positive
evaluation of their identities if they are optimally distinctive; that is, if they belong to an
identifiable, positively-valenced group, but also are noticeably different from others (Hewstone

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& Brown, 1986). By highlighting group differences, rather than individual differences, people
can experience a sense of belonging to a group while feeling like they made a distinct
contribution to the world. This experience, in turn, is argued to yield positive self and in-group
evaluations.
Thus, there are strong theoretical arguments for adopting either difference blindness or
difference awareness strategies (see Gaertner et al., 2000; Hahn, Judd, & Park, 2010; Park &
Judd, 2005 for more in-depth reviews). Notably, these theoretical perspectives speak most
directly to two major goals for creating intergroup equity: 1) eliminating bias toward
underrepresented groups, and 2) psychologically empowering underrepresented group members
(i.e., generating confidence in one’s purpose, competence, autonomy, and impact; Spreitzer,
1995). Below, I review the empirical evidence regarding the merit of awareness versus blindness
approaches on reducing bias and enhancing psychological empowerment.
Examining the Empirical Record: Multiculturalism versus Color Blindness
To understand the practical merit of blindness and awareness approaches for intergroup
equity, researchers first turned to investigating the consequences of racial/ethnic
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difference
awareness (i.e., multiculturalism) versus blindness (i.e., color blindness; Gaertner et al., 2000).
Historically, White people (i.e., privileged racial/ethnic group members) in the United States
have exhibited both explicit and implicit bias toward non-White people (i.e., underrepresented
racial/ethnic group members), thereby impeding non-White people from obtaining economic,

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By definition, race refers to a group determined by biological phenotypic characteristics (e.g., skin color), whereas
ethnicity refers to socially and culturally ascribed groups determined by ancestry and culture (Caldwell & Popenoe,
1995). Race and ethnicity are consistently used interchangeably in social scientific research (Betancourt & Lopez,
1993). The interchangeability between race and ethnicity are also evident within the multiculturalism and color
blindness literature; for example, some researchers refer to White and Black categories as ethnicities (e.g., Wolkso,
Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2000) whereas others refer to these categories as races (e.g., Richeson & Nussbaum,
2004). Because the distinction between race and ethnicity are beyond the scope of the current research, I will refer to
multiculturalism and color blindness as both racial/ethnic group awareness versus blindness.

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political, and personal equity with White people (Dovidio, Gaertner, & Pearson, 2005). In
addition, negative stereotypes attributed to underrepresented racial/ethnic group members, such
as being unintelligent, poor, and violent (Devine & Elliot, 1995; Tucker, 2007) contribute to
negative self-evaluations and lead to disengagement from and underperformance in achievement
settings (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). To counter bias against underrepresented
racial/ethnic group members and mitigate threatening stereotypes, some scholars and many legal
and educational practitioners proposed that color blindness was the solution, whereas other
scholars countered that multiculturalism would be better suited to achieve these ends
(Apfelbaum, Norton, & Sommers, 2012; Plaut, Thomas, Hurd, & Romano, 2018).
Effects on bias. After almost two decades of extensive empirical work, research yields
consistent support that multiculturalism reduces prejudiced attitudes and behavior among
privileged racial/ethnic group members toward underrepresented racial/ethnic group members
compared to color blindness (Apfelbaum, Pauker, Sommers, & Ambady, 2010; Awad, Cokley, &
Ravitch, 2005; Holoien & Shelton, 2012; Knowles, Lowery, Hogan, & Chow, 2009; Levin et al.,
2012; Mazzocco, Cooper, & Flint, 2011; Offerman, Basford, Graebner, Jaffer, de Graaf, &
Kaminsky, 2014; Richeson & Nussbaum, 2004; Ryan, Casas, & Thompson, 2010; Ryan, Hunt,
Weible, Peterson, & Casas, 2007; Verkuyten, 2005; Wolsko, Park, & Judd, 2006; Wolkso, Park,
Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2000; Zou & Dickter, 2013; See Table 1 for a full literature review
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).
Compounding this research, additional empirical evidence shows that underrepresented
racial/ethnic group members can pick up on this reduced bias from privileged group members
and feel more comfortable engaging with people who endorse multiculturalism over color

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I conducted the literature review by using the search terms “multiculturalism” and “color blindness” for all
psychology and management journals. I excluded any work that was theoretical in nature or published in an
education journal (because a majority of this work is non-experimental) from the review.

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blindness (Holoien & Shelton, 2012; Meeussen, Otten, & Phalet, 2014; Plaut et al., 2009). These
conclusions should be interpreted with caution, though, as there is evidence of several
moderators of the benefits of multiculturalism. Intergroup conflict (Correll, Park, & Smith,
2008), high levels racial identification (Morrison, Plaut, & Ybarra, 2010), and dispositional
prejudice (Vorauer & Sasaki, 2011) may interact with multiculturalism to foster bias among
privileged racial/ethnic group members toward underrepresented racial/ethnic group members.
Effects on psychological empowerment. Interestingly, there are fewer published papers
on the effect of multiculturalism versus color blindness on underrepresented racial/ethnic group
members’ psychological empowerment than the effect on bias. Although there are feasible
theoretical arguments that group difference blindness and awareness could empower
underrepresented group members’ either by removing the salience of harmful stereotypes (e.g.,
Gaertner et al., 2000; Martin & Phillips, 2017; Park & Judd, 2005) or by validating the strengths
and contributions of one’s group (Banks, 2004, Gaertner et al., 2000; Plaut, 2010), the empirical
evidence for either assertion is limited. There is consistent evidence that color blindness does
indeed lead to less stereotype activation than multiculturalism, but research has only investigated
how this affects people’s evaluations of outgroup members and not in-group members (Gutíerrez
& Unzueta, 2010; Ryan et al., 2010; Ryan et al., 2007; Wolkso et al., 2006; Wolkso et al., 2000).
More directly supporting that color blindness is more empowering than multiculturalism, one
study finds evidence that multiculturalism does foster feelings of anxiety and perceptions that
underrepresented racial/ethnic members’ in-groups are evaluated negatively by others, reflecting
a pattern similar to stereotype threat (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002), compared to color
blindness (Vorauer, Gagnon, & Sasaki, 2009).

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Supporting that multiculturalism is more empowering than color blindness, there is some
consistent evidence that multiculturalism makes underrepresented group members feel more
positively about their in-group (Verkuyten, 2005; Wolsko et al., 2006) and makes them feel more
positively about themselves overall if they have high ethnic self-esteem already (Verkuyten,
2009) compared to color blindness. There is also consistent evidence that underrepresented
racial/ethnic group members endorse multiculturalism more than color blindness (Arends-Toth &
Van de Vijver, 2003; Plaut, Garnett, Buffardi, & Sanchez-Burks, 2011; Ryan et al., 2007;
Verkuyten, 2005; Wolsko et al., 2006), though it is unclear whether this endorsement is because
it makes underrepresented group members feel more empowered.
Finally, Apfelbaum and colleagues (2016) provide some evidence that the effect of color
blindness and multiculturalism on underrepresented group members’ feelings of psychological
empowerment depends on context. Across two studies, people of color persisted longer and
performed better on tasks when diversity was emphasized (i.e., multiculturalism) than when
equality was emphasized (i.e., color blindness), but only in contexts where there was a critical
mass of people of color. When people of color were in contexts in which they were a very small
minority, emphasizing equality (i.e., color blindness) actually led people of color to persist
longer and perform better on tasks than emphasizing diversity (i.e., multiculturalism; Apfelbaum,
Stephens, & Reagans, 2016).
A third domain of importance: Effects on teams and organizations. It is important to
note that a handful of studies have also investigated the effect of color blindness versus
multiculturalism on team- and organizational-level outcomes. In terms of team-level effects,
greater endorsement of multiculturalism by one’s department (Plaut et al., 2009) or one’s team
leader (Meeussen et al., 2014) is correlated with greater engagement and greater feelings of

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acceptance, respectively, among underrepresented group members. However, another study
found that law firms that emphasized value in equality (i.e., color blindness) had lower attrition
rates of underrepresented racial/ethnic group members than law firms that emphasized value in
diversity (i.e., multiculturalism; Apfelbaum et al., 2016). There is, therefore, conflicting evidence
regarding the effects of multiculturalism relative to color blindness within organizational units.
In addition, there are two papers that investigated how an organization adopting color blindness
versus awareness affects people’s perceptions of the organization. First, White men with a high
need to belong rated organizations with a multiculturalism approach as less attractive than an
organization with a color blindness approach (Plaut, Garnett, Buffardi, & Sanchez-Burks, 2011).
Second, people who read about an organization guilty of discrimination that adopted a
multiculturalism approach rated the company as fairer and the discrimination claims as less
legitimate than the same organization that adopted a color blindness approach (Gündemir &
Galinsky, 2018).
Conclusions from color blindness versus multiculturalism review. Overall, research
suggests that multiculturalism has a positive influence on interrace/interethnic relations in
comparison to color blindness, because it reduces prejudiced attitudes and behavior among
privileged racial/ethnic group members toward underrepresented racial/ethnic group members
and it makes underrepresented racial/ethnic group members feel more comfortable during
intergroup interactions. However, research has also uncovered important moderators of these
effects. In addition, there is a dearth of information about how color blindness and
multiculturalism affect underrepresented racial/ethnic group members’ psychological
empowerment, and the existing findings are conflicting. Finally, some research on the team- and

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organizational-level effects of color blindness versus awareness exists, but it is also conflicting
and still emerging.

Table 1. Summary of Empirical Research on Color Blindness and Multiculturalism from
Psychology and Management Journals in Chronological Order
Manuscript Study Information Study Findings
Berry &
Kalin
(1995)
1 correlational study, N =
3,325 Canadians of various
cultural backgrounds
1. Overall, participants showed support for
multiculturalism
2. There is no apparent conflict between
supporting multiculturalism and national unity
Wolkso,
Park, Judd,
&
Wittenbrink
(2000)
3 studies, N = 361 White
American undergraduate
students

Manipulated exposure to
ideology: color blindness
versus multiculturalism
versus control
1. Participants in both the multiculturalism and
color blindness conditions exhibited lower in-
group positivity (ethnocentrism) than those in
the control condition (Study 1)
2. Participants in the multiculturalism condition
exhibited lower in-group positivity than those
in the color blindness and control conditions
(Study 2)
3. Participants in the multiculturalism condition
rated Black targets more stereotypically (both
positive and negative traits) than those in the
color blindness condition (Study 3)

Conclusion: Multiculturalism leads to “more
accurate” perceptions and predictions of behavior,
and greater perceived differentiation between
Whites and Blacks than color blindness
Arends-
Toth & Van
de Vijver
(2003)
1 correlational study, N =
878 Dutch and Turkish-
Dutch adults
1. Underrepresented ethnic group individuals
(Turkish-Dutch) endorsed multiculturalism
significantly more than privileged ethnic group
individuals (Dutch)
Verkuyten
(2004)
2 qualitative studies, N =
135 ethnic Dutch adults
1. Attempted to understand the reasons privileged
ethnic group members give for endorsing
either multiculturalism or color blindness
2. Privileged ethnic group members endorse
multiculturalism because diversity is nice, and
is more interesting and exciting than cultural
homogeneity
3. Privileged ethnic group members do not
endorse multiculturalism because they believe

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15
it undermines unity, thereby causing social
problems and leading to segregation
Richeson &
Nussbaum
(2004)
1 study, N = 52 American
undergraduates
(race/ethnicity not reported,
but implicitly signaled to
be White).

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
1. Participants in the multiculturalism and color
blindness conditions both exhibited implicit
bias toward Blacks during an Implicit
Associations Test (IAT)
2. Participants in the color blindness condition
showed larger implicit pro-White bias on IAT
and reported greater explicitly biased attitudes
against Blacks compared to those in the
multiculturalism condition
Verkuyten
(2005)
4 studies (2 experimental, 2
correlational), N = 859
adolescent or
undergraduate Dutch and
Turkish-Dutch participants

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
in two studies
1. Members of the underrepresented ethnic group
(Turkish-Dutch) were more likely to endorse
multiculturalism than color blindness
compared to the privileged ethnic group
(Dutch)
2. Among underrepresented ethnic group
members, greater endorsement of
multiculturalism was correlated with greater
in-group identification and more positive
evaluations of the in-group
a. This correlation was replicated using
experimental manipulations of
multiculturalism versus control
3. Among privileged ethnic group members,
greater endorsement of multiculturalism was
correlated with less in-group identification and
less negative outgroup evaluation
a. This correlation was replicated using
experimental manipulations of
multiculturalism versus control
Awad,
Cokley, &
Ravitch
(2005)
1 correlational study, N =
375 American
undergraduates of varying
racial and ethnic
backgrounds
1. Greater endorsement of color blindness was
correlated with lower class status, lower
endorsement of affirmative action, and greater
modern racism
Norton,
Sommers,
Apfelbaum,
Pura, &
Ariely
(2006)
2 studies, N = 87 White
American undergraduates
1. Participants reported a reluctance to notice race
when completing a picture categorization task
that asked them to identify various attributes of
photographed people
a. In actuality, participants noticed race
extremely quickly, just after noticing
background color and gender
2. Participants were significantly less likely to
mention race when interacting with a Black
confederate than a White confederate, and

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16
therefore performed worse on picture
identification task with partner
3. Coders rated participants interacting with a
Black confederate as less friendly and reported
that they made less eye contact with their
partner than those paired with a White
confederate
Wolsko,
Park, &
Judd (2006)
2 correlational studies, N =
2,961 (371 American
undergraduates, 2550
General Social Survey)
1. Underrepresented ethnic group members
endorsed multiculturalism more than Whites
(privileged ethnic group members)
2. Greater endorsement of multiculturalism was
correlated with increased category
differentiation between Whites and other
ethnic groups, less evaluative bias (particularly
among Whites), greater collective self-esteem
(particularly among underrepresented ethnic
group members), and lower social dominance
orientation (SDO)
3. In GSS, greater endorsement of
multiculturalism was correlated with lower
evaluative bias for White respondents, but
more evaluative bias among underrepresented
ethnic group respondents, greater importance
of group membership among underrepresented
ethnic group respondents (but not Whites), and
less conservative ideology among all
respondents
Ryan, Hunt,
Weible,
Peterson, &
Casas
(2007)
2 correlational studies, N =
248 American
undergraduates
1. Black participants endorsed multiculturalism
more, and color blindness less, than Whites
participants
2. Black participants who more strongly endorsed
multiculturalism (vs. color blindness)
perceived greater intragroup similarity,
exhibited stronger stereotypes, and exhibited
less ethnocentrism
3. White participants who more strongly
endorsed color blindness (vs. multiculturalism)
exhibited stronger stereotypes and exhibited
more ethnocentrism
Correll,
Park, &
Smith
(2008)
4 studies, N = 451 White
American undergraduates

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
Participants randomly assigned to multiculturalism
versus color blindness conditions and high versus
low intergroup conflict conditions (2x2 design)

1. When intergroup conflict was low, participants
did not differ in explicit or implicit bias

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17
between color blindness and multiculturalism
conditions
2. When intergroup conflict was high,
participants in the color blindness condition
reported less explicit bias than those in the
multiculturalism condition, but same level of
implicit bias across conditions, when bias was
measured immediately after the conflict
scenario
3. However, when intergroup conflict was high,
participants in the color blindness condition
reported greater explicit bias than those in the
multiculturalism condition when explicit bias
was measured after a time delay
Knowles,
Lowery,
Hogan, &
Chow
(2009)
4 correlational studies, N =
269 White/Caucasian
people
1. Among anti-egalitarian (vs. egalitarian) White
people, those who had their racial identity
made salient via subtle intergroup threat
increased their endorsement of color blindness
than those who were not threatened, mediated
by desire for equal treatment (procedural
justice)
Plaut,
Thomas, &
Goren
(2009)
1 correlational study, N =
3,758 participants
1. Underrepresented ethnic group members
reported being significantly more engaged in
departments in which their White employees
collectively report greater endorsement of
multiculturalism and lower endorsement of
color blindness, mediated by underrepresented
ethnicity group members’ perceptions of bias
Vorauer,
Gagnon, &
Sasaki
(2009)
2 studies, N = 209
undergraduates from
privileged ethnic
backgrounds (White
Canadians) and
underrepresented ethnic
backgrounds (Aboriginal
Canadians).

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
1. Participants in the multiculturalism condition
made more positive other-directed remarks and
wrote lengthier descriptions of partners
(indicating other-focus) than those in the
control condition
2. Among White (privileged ethnic group)
participants, those in the color blindness
condition exhibited increased negative affect
(as perceived by outside coders), mediated by
increased prevention orientation, in
comparison to those in the multiculturalism
condition
3. Among Aboriginal Canadian
(underrepresented ethnic group) participants,
those in the color blindness condition exhibited
reduced anxiety, increased feelings that their
group was viewed more positively by others,
and decreased evaluations of both the in-group

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18
and outgroup than those in the multiculturalism
condition
Verkuyten
(2009)
1 relevant study, N = 135
undergraduates of both
privileged (Dutch) and
underrepresented (Turkish)
racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
1. Among participants in the color blindness
condition, ethnic self-esteem was not
correlated with global self-worth
2. Among participants in the multiculturalism
condition, higher ethnic self-esteem was
correlated with more positive global self-worth
Morrison,
Plaut, &
Ybarra
(2010)
3 studies, N = 273 White
adults

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
1. Among participants with high ethnic
identification, those in the multiculturalism
condition supported group-based dominance
more and exhibited greater prejudice (mediated
by perceived symbolic threat) than those in the
color blindness condition
2. Among participants with low ethnic
identification, those in the multiculturalism
condition supported group-based dominance
less than those in the color blindness condition
Apfelbaum,
Pauker,
Sommers,
& Ambady
(2010)
1 study, N = 60 American
children
1. Children who read a story with a color
blindness message perceived bias significantly
less often in both ambiguous and explicit
scenarios than children who read a story with a
multiculturalism message
Gutierrez &
Unzueta
(2010)
2 studies, N = 197 students
and staff from an American
university

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
1. Participants in the multiculturalism condition
liked stereotypical targets more than
counterstereotypical targets
2. Participants in the color blindness condition
liked counterstereotypical targets more than
stereotypical targets

Conclusion: Multiculturalism activates stereotypes
(in comparison to color blindness), so it may lead
to maintenance of the status quo because it
highlights inconsistencies between expectations
and reality which makes people like
counterstereotypical people less
Ryan,
Casas, &
Thompson
(2010)
1 correlational study, N =
78 Latino and non-Latino
White adults
1. Latinxs who more strongly endorsed
multiculturalism stereotyped others more
2. Whites who more strongly endorsed
multiculturalism stereotyped others less
3. Greater endorsement of multiculturalism led to
lower in-group bias among both Latinxs and
Whites

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Mazzocco,
Cooper, &
Flint (2011)
3 correlational studies, N =
420 White American
undergraduates or adults
1. Greater endorsement of color blindness was
negatively correlated to support for affirmative
action, particularly for those low in prejudice
Plaut,
Garnett,
Buffardi, &
Sanchez-
Burks
(2011)
4 relevant studies, N = 148
undergraduates (3 studies
with a variety of ethnic
backgrounds, 1 study with
all White American
undergraduates)
1. White participants paired multiculturalism with
exclusion and color blindness with inclusion
faster using an IAT compared to
multiculturalism with inclusion and color
blindness with exclusion
a. No differences among
underrepresented racial/ethnic group
participants
2. When an explicit reference to White people
was included in the conceptualization of
multiculturalism, the implicit association
between multiculturalism and exclusion was
attenuated
3. White participants associated color blindness
with the self faster than multiculturalism
4. Underrepresented racial/ethnic group
participants associated multiculturalism with
the self faster than color blindness
5. White males with a high need to belong rated
an organization with a multiculturalism
diversity message as less attractive than an
organization with a color blindness diversity
message
Vorauer &
Sasaki
(2011)
1 study, N = 101 White
undergraduates

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
1. Participants in the multiculturalism condition
reported greater perceived difference between
oneself self and an Aboriginal Canadian
(outgroup underrepresented ethnic group
member) than those in the control condition
2. Participants in the multiculturalism condition
exhibited greater warmth toward an Aboriginal
Canadian when low in prejudice, but lower
warmth and greater disturbance by cultural
difference when high in prejudice, compared to
those in the control condition
3. Participants in the color blindness condition
reported lower feelings of similarity to
Aboriginal Canadians than those in the
multiculturalism and control conditions,
regardless of prejudice level
Morrison &
Chung
(2011)
2 studies, N = 240
participants of White or
underrepresented ethnic
background
Participants primed with conceptualizing
privileged racial/ethnic group members as either
“White” or “European American”

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1. Privileged ethnic/racial group participants
supported multiculturalism less, mediated by
lower identification with ethnic minorities, and
reported slightly more modern racism when
primed with White (vs. European American)
identity
2. Underrepresented ethnic/racial group
participants supported multiculturalism
marginally more in the White (vs. European
American) condition
Todd &
Galinsky
(2012)
5 studies, N = 299
American undergraduates
(3 studies with a variety of
ethnic backgrounds, 2
studies with only White
undergraduates)
1. Reading about benefits of multiculturalism led
to greater perspective-taking tendencies than
reading about the benefits of color blindness or
a control condition
2. Being primed with perspective-taking (vs.
stereotype-suppression) led to greater
endorsement of multiculturalism than color
blindness
Holoien &
Shelton
(2012)
1 study, N = 158
undergraduates of White or
underrepresented ethnic
background

Used same manipulations
from Wolkso et al. (2000)
1. Participants from underrepresented ethnic
groups were more depleted after interacting
with a White partner primed with color
blindness (vs. multiculturalism)
2. Outside judges rated White participants primed
with color blindness to be more prejudiced
than those primed with multiculturalism
Levin,
Matthews,
Guimond,
Sidanius,
Pratto,
Kteily,
Pitpitan, &
Dover
(2012)
1 study, N = 299 White
American undergraduates
1. Personal support for color blindness and
multiculturalism negatively correlated with
social dominance orientation (SDO) and
prejudice
2. When United States portrayed as a
multiculturalist nation, the associations
between SDO and prejudice toward African
Americans, Latinxs, and Asian Americans
become non-significant, but the positive
relationships between SDO and prejudice
toward Arab Americans and U.S. immigrants
remains
Potetant &
Spanierman
(2012)
1 correlational study, N =
342 White American
undergraduates
1. Higher levels of SDO and right-wing
authoritarianism predict greater modern racism
through greater endorsement of color blindness
Goff,
Jackson,
Nichols, &
Di Leone
(2013)
2 studies, N = 205
American undergraduates
(1 study with a variety
ethnic backgrounds, 1
study with only White
undergraduates)
1. White participants were more likely to employ
strategic color blindness when discussing race
in a mixed-race group than a same-race group
2. White participants were more likely to endorse
strategic color blindness when they feared they
may be seen as racist and when they believe

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racial categorization hurts underrepresented
race members versus when they are not
threatened or do not believe racial
categorization hurts underrepresented group
members
Zou &
Dickter
(2013)
1 study, N = 113 White
American undergraduate
students
1. When participants read about someone
confronting a racist comment, participants who
more strongly endorsed color blindness rated
the confronter more negatively, particularly
when the racist comment was ambiguous
versus obvious
Meeussen,
Otten, &
Phalet
(2014)
1 correlational study, N =
33 student work groups
1. Greater endorsement of multiculturalism by
the group leader was positively correlated to
group members’ feelings of acceptance (driven
by underrepresented group members)
2. Greater endorsement of color blindness by the
group leader was positively correlated to
underrepresented group members’ reported
distancing from the group and relationship
conflict, and was almost negatively correlated
to distancing from the group among privileged
group members
Offerman,
Basford,
Graebner,
Jaffer, de
Graaf, &
Kaminsky
(2014)
1 correlational study, N =
387 undergraduates
1. Greater endorsement of color blindness was
positively correlated with lower perception of
microaggressions in vignettes
Hahn,
Banchefsky,
Park, &
Judd (2015)
2 correlational studies, N =
2,002 American
undergraduates and N =
404 Amazon Mechanical
Turk workers from various
ethnic backgrounds
1. When describing intergroup ideologies, a four-
factor categorization is necessary (blindness,
awareness, assimilation, and segregation)
versus only two (blindness and awareness)
2. Undergraduate participants preferred
multiculturalism to color blindness, whereas
MTurk participants preferred color blindness
to multiculturalism
3. Both multiculturalism and color blindness
were significantly related to warmth toward
underrepresented ethnic groups
4. Multiculturalism was positively related, and
color blindness was negatively related, to
perceived importance of category distinctions
5. Stronger endorsement of multiculturalism was
positively related to liberalism

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22
Apfelbaum,
Stephens, &
Reagans
(2016)
4 experimental studies, N =
1,783 Black and White
adults, and 1 field study, N
= 151 U.S law firms
1. A value in equality approach (i.e., difference
blindness) increases the persistence and
performance of underrepresented group
members compared to a value in difference
approach (i.e., difference awareness), but only
when their representation in a group is very
low and representation-based concerns are
high
2. A value in difference approach increases the
persistence and performance of
underrepresented group members compared to
a value in equality approach, but only when
their representation is moderate and
representation-based concerns are assuaged
3. At law firms that emphasized a value in
equality approach (i.e., color blindness), the
rate of attribution of unrepresented
racial/ethnic group members was significantly
lower than at law firms that emphasized a
value in diversity approach (i.e.,
multiculturalism)
Gaither,
Toosi,
Babbitt, &
Sommers
(2018)
5 studies, N = 907 White
Amazon Mechanical Turk
workers
1. When participants were exposed to biracial
people (vs. only White people vs. only Black
people), they reported lower endorsement of
color blindness due to less essentialism of race
and social tuning to what they believe biracial
people endorse
Gundemir
& Galinsky
(2018)
3 studies, N = 1,111 adults
of various races (Studies 1
and 2) and 418 African
American adults (Study 2)
1. Participants who read about a company
holding a multiculturalism policy (versus color
blindness that emphasized homogeneity rather
than emphasizing individual differences) saw
the company as more fair and discrimination
claims against the company as less legitimate

Examining the Empirical Record: Gender Awareness versus Gender Blindness
Relative to research on multiculturalism and colorblindness, research on gender
awareness versus gender blindness is only in its infancy. My literature search yielded four peer-
reviewed published articles with mentions of gender awareness and gender blindness
(Apfelbaum et al., 2016; Hahn et al., 2015; Koenig and Richeson; 2010; Martin and Phillips,

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23
2017), and two unpublished theses (Malicke, 2013; Nichol, 2011
3
; See Table 2). I will review the
extant literature investigating the effects of gender blindness and awareness from the same three
angles that I identified in my review on multiculturalism versus color blindness: 1) eliminating
bias toward underrepresented groups, and 2) psychologically empowering underrepresented
group members, and 3) team- and organizational-level effects. In doing so, I recognize that
diversity management strategies may operate differently across various domains of identity (e.g.,
race versus gender); however, I believe it is still useful to make comparisons across these
domains to consider how these findings may, or may not, generalize.
Consistent with research on multiculturalism and color blindness, two extant studies
indicate that gender awareness attenuates bias toward women (i.e., the gender group
underrepresented in positions of power) in comparison to gender blindness (Malicke, 2013;
Nichol, 2011). More specifically, participants primed with gender awareness exhibited less
implicit bias toward women on an Implicit Associations Test (Nichol, 2011) and less negative
evaluations of an angry female boss (Malicke, 2013) than those primed with gender blindness.
However, correlational research suggests that greater endorsement of gender blindness is
associated with less sexism. For example, people seem to believe, on average, that gender
blindness will reduce sexism in comparison to gender awareness (Koeing & Richeson, 2010),
even if they believe that multiculturalism reduces racism in comparison to color blindness (Hahn
et al., 2015). In addition, greater endorsement of gender blindness is correlated with less
benevolent, hostile, and modern sexism and less gender determinism and essentialism (Martin &

3
Koenig and Richeson (2010) and Nichol (2011) use the terms “sexawareness” and “sexblindness” in their
research, but the constructs are identical to gender awareness and gender blindness. I use the terms gender
awareness and gender blindness when discussing their work to maintain continuity.

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24
Phillips, 2017; Study 2). Altogether, the research examining the effects of gender awareness
versus blindness on bias toward women is mixed and is, therefore, inconclusive.
Only one manuscript investigates the effects of gender blindness versus awareness on
women’s psychological empowerment. Across three experiments and two correlational studies,
Martin and Phillips (2017) find that gender blindness leads to greater identification with
stereotypically masculine traits, which leads to greater workplace confidence and greater action
orientation, than gender awareness. The finding that gender blindness leads to increased
workplace confidence in comparison to gender awareness is consistent with one study that finds
that color blindness leads to reduced anxiety and fear of being negatively evaluated compared to
multiculturalism (Vorauer et al., 2009). However, Martin and Phillips’ (2017) findings are
inconsistent with research that finds that multiculturalism leads underrepresented racial/ethnic
group members to feel more positively about their in-group (Verkuyten, 2005; Wolsko et al.,
2006), and makes them feel more positively about themselves overall (if they have high ethnic
self-esteem already; Verkuyten, 2009). Therefore, the question still remains how difference
awareness and difference blindness affect underrepresented group members across both race and
gender.
Finally, one study investigates the organizational-level effects of gender awareness
versus gender blindness. Specifically, Apfelbaum and colleagues (2016) found that law firms
that emphasized a value in diversity approach (i.e., gender awareness) had lower rates of attrition
among female employees than law firms that emphasized a value in equality approach (i.e.,
gender blindness). Although this work is correlational in nature and does not test a mechanism
behind the effect, it provides some evidence that gender awareness may be more beneficial for
women in organizations than Martin and Phillips (2017) contend.

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25

Table 2. Summary of Empirical Research on Gender Blindness and Gender Awareness from
Psychology and Management Journals in Chronological Order
Manuscript Study Information Study Findings
Koenig &
Richeson
(2010)
1 mixed-model factorial
study, N = 211 American
male and female
undergraduate students

1. Participants endorsed gender blindness more
(and gender awareness less) in work settings
than in social settings
2. Greater endorsement of gender blindness
positively related with more internal
motivation to control sexist responses (in both
social and work contexts) and negatively
related to benign sexism in social context
3. No relationship between external motivation to
control sexist responses or hostile sexism and
gender blindness or gender awareness
Nichol
(2011)
1 experimental study, N =
77 American male and
female undergraduate
students

Manipulated gender
blindness versus gender
awareness ideology based
on Wolsko et al.’s (2000)
manipulations
1. Participants in the gender awareness conditions
exhibited less implicit bias against the pairing
of females and career on an Implicit
Associations Test (IAT) than those in the
gender blindness condition
2. No difference between conditions on explicit
bias
Malicke
(2013)
1 experimental study, N =
217 American male and
female undergraduate
students

1. Among participants exposed to a gender
blindness ideology, those who read about an
angry male boss rated him as higher status than
those who read about an angry female boss
a. No difference in status between angry
male and female bosses in gender
awareness or control conditions
2. Among participants exposed to a gender
awareness ideology, participants rated the
angry female boss as being more in control and
made more external attributions for her
behavior than the angry male boss

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26
Hahn,
Banchefsky,
Park, &
Judd (2015)
2 correlational studies, N =
1,924 American
undergraduate students and
410 Amazon Mechanical
Turk (MTurk) employees
1. When describing intergroup ideologies, a four-
factor categorization is necessary (blindness,
awareness, assimilation, and segregation)
versus only two (blindness and awareness)
2. Women were more likely to endorse gender
blindness than men
3. Women were also more likely to endorse
gender awareness than men in undergraduate
(but not Mturk) sample
4. Endorsement of gender awareness was
positively correlated with viewing category
distinctions as meaningful and ideological
conservatism
5. Endorsement of gender blindness was
negatively correlated with viewing category
distinctions as meaningful, the belief that
gender differences are biological (marginally),
and ideological conservatism, and positively
correlated with the belief that gender
differences are socialized
Apfelbaum,
Stephens, &
Reagans
(2016)
1 correlational study, N =
151 U.S law firms
1. At law firms that emphasized a value in
difference approach (i.e., gender awareness),
the rate of attrition of female employee was
lower than at law firms that emphasized a
value in equality approach (i.e., gender
blindness)
Martin &
Phillips
(2017)
4 experimental studies (total
N = 584 female Mturk
employees), 2 correlational
studies (N = 205 male and
female Mturk employees
and 1,135 female MBA
students)

1. Women primed with gender blindness
ideology reported greater identification with
stereotypically masculine traits, self-reported
workplace confidence, and action orientation
than women primed with gender awareness
ideology
2. Women endorsed gender blindness more than
men
3. Among women, greater endorsement of gender
blindness was related to greater identification
with stereotypically masculine traits and
feminist identity, and lower gender
identification, gender-professional identity

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27
integration, benevolent sexism, hostile sexism,
modern sexism, and endorsement of gender-
determinism and –essentialism
4. Among men, greater endorsement of gender
blindness was related to greater identification
of with stereotypically feminine traits and
feminist identity, and lower gender
identification, hostile sexism, modern sexism,
and gender-determinism and –essentialism

The Present Research
After reviewing the current state of the literature on group difference awareness and
blindness for racial/ethnic and gender groups, I have identified two areas that require further
attention to advance research about the potential for each strategy to create intergroup equity in
organizations. While extant research has focused most prominently on eliminating bias toward
underrepresented group members, there is a sparse and conflicting empirical record investigating
the effects of difference blindness versus differences awareness on 1) the psychological
empowerment of underrepresented group members, and 2) team- or organizational-level
outcomes. Given that some scholars suggest that race/ethnicity and gender operate in different
ways in respect to awareness and blindness strategies (e.g., Martin & Phillips, 2017), I narrow
the rest of my investigation to cover gender strategies alone to increase focus on precision. Over
the course of the next two chapters, I aim to enhance understanding of how gender awareness
and blindness affect women’s empowerment and team-level outcomes by investigating the effect
of gender strategies on women’s workplace confidence and action orientation (Chapter 2) and
mixed-gender team psychological safety, communication, and performance (Chapter 3).
In Chapter 2, I continue the conversation initiated by Martin and Phillips (2017) by
exploring the effects of gender strategies on women’s workplace confidence and action
orientation (i.e., manifestations of psychological empowerment). While Martin and Phillips

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28
(2017) find that gender awareness leads to lower workplace confidence and action orientation
among women in comparison to gender blindness, I argue that their results may not fully reflect
the ways in which women experience these strategies in relation to their own gender identity. I
build on the distinction, outlined above, between gender beliefs and gender strategies, and I
suggest that the existing manipulations and measures of gender blindness and awareness
confound these two constructs. Then, I introduce the importance of accounting for the variability
in women’s gender identification when examining the effects of gender strategies. Building on
research on dual stereotypes for women (e.g., female leadership advantage; Eagly & Carli,
2003), I suggest that women can interpret female stereotypes as either a weakness (associated
with low gender identification) or as a strength (associated with high gender identification). I
hypothesize that among women who evaluate stereotypically feminine traits negatively, gender
blindness can be expected to lead to greater workplace confidence and action orientation than
gender awareness (consistent with Martin & Phillips, 2017), but among women who evaluate
stereotypically feminine traits positively, gender awareness can be expected to lead to greater
workplace confidence and action orientation than gender blindness.
In Chapter 3, I provide a novel perspective about how gender strategies may affect team-
level interactions and performance. Specifically, I examine how gender strategies affect people’s
feelings of psychological safety in sharing their thoughts and ideas with others in their team or
organization (Edmondson, 1999), as well as the affiliated impact on interpersonal
communication and team performance. I propose that gender blindness implies (or signals;
Connelly, Certo, Ireland, & Reutzel, 2011; Spence, 1973) that there are organizationally-imposed
limitations about how employees are permitted to think about and discuss gender in comparison
to gender awareness or no strategy. I further argue that employees infer that these

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29
organizationally-imposed limitations generalize to topics beyond gender. These inferences, in
turn, may reduce the level of psychological safety that individuals (regardless of gender) feel in
their team or organization and thus diminish the efficacy of communication within teams.
Consequently, despite potential positive effects of gender blindness among low gender-
identifying women with respect to confidence and agency (as explained in Chapter 2), gender
blindness may also lead to low psychological safety, poor communication within teams,
diminished collaboration among coworkers, and less effective team decision-making
performance in comparison to gender awareness.
Contributions
Much is still unknown about how group difference blindness versus awareness affects
organizational life, and two particular areas with a dearth of research include 1) how these
strategies affect underrepresented group members’ psychological empowerment, such as
workplace confidence and action orientation, and 2) how these strategies affect more macro-level
organizational phenomena, such as teamwork and organizational performance. My dissertation
research seeks to contribute new knowledge to this area of inquiry in three key ways.
First, my research explores a new understanding of how women experience gender
strategies differently based on their gender identification. I suggest that the valence of feminine
stereotypes can vary (e.g., Suitner & Maass, 2008) based on women’s gender identification, and
that this variance consequently leads to diverse reactions to the salience of gender difference.
More specifically, I propose the experience of devaluation affiliated with gender awareness that
Martin and Phillips (2017) found support for may only emerge among women who do not
strongly identify with the social category of “women.” Among women whose identity is strongly

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tied to their gender, and who therefore place positive value on female traits, I argue that
highlighting typically female traits can be empowering in work contexts.
Second, my research indicates that the beneficial effects of gender blindness may not
only be limited to a subset of women (Chapter 2), but further that the use of a gender blindness
strategy may yield unintended consequences at the team level. Specifically, gender blindness
strategies suggest that people should neglect or ignore naturally perceived characteristics (i.e.,
gender), and this suggestion may signal to people that the organization places specific boundaries
around the topics and issues that are appropriate for discussion. In other words, because gender is
such a salient category to people, if an organization endorses being “blind” to this category and
suppresses discussion of it, employees may feel that they need to self-sensor, and they may be
uncertain about how extensive the need for self-censorship may be. Consequently, organizations
that adopt gender blindness may be at risk for being seen as closed off to diverse thoughts and
debate about ideas, not only ideas about gender but also ideas and topics unrelated to gender.
This effect, in turn, may lead to worse communication among teams and therefore poor team
performance.
Finally, my research highlights that gender strategies can have divergent effects across
levels of analysis. While a majority of research about difference awareness and blindness
strategies has focused on the elimination of bias by privileged group members, I incorporate an
investigation of the effects of gender strategies at the team level. I suggest that gender awareness
and gender blindness can carry implicit messages, beyond the explicit messages about how to
treat gender differences, that can influence people’s perceptions of the organization as a whole
and how people interact within the organization. My work suggests that as organizations endorse
and adopt different strategies to improve individual-level employee outcomes, they should

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consider the far-reaching, macro-level implications of each strategy beyond the immediate
effects on individuals.

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CHAPTER 2: THE EFFECTS OF GENDER STRATEGIES ON WOMEN’S
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT
Despite some advancement in creating gender parity in the overall workforce (Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 2017), American companies still experience a dearth of women in top positions
(Catalyst, 2017; Deloitte and Alliance for Board Diversity, 2017) and more broadly in fields such
as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM; Catalyst, 2018). There are many culprits
for gender inequity in positions of power and STEM fields (Joshi, Neely, Emrich, Griffiths, &
George, 2015), but some voices in the popular press have focused on the gap in confidence
between men and women as a primary cause for concern
4
(e.g., Kay & Shipman, 2014; McCarty,
1986; Sandberg, 2013). As explained in the previous chapter, scholars have suggested two
organizational strategies that have the theoretical potential to psychologically empower women
(i.e., increase women’s confidence in their competence, autonomy, purpose, and impact;
Spreitzer, 1995), which may help close the gender confidence gap: gender blindness, or
encouraging employees to downplay any gender differences, and gender awareness, or
encouraging employees to celebrate any gender differences (e.g., Hahn, Banchefsky, Park, &
Judd, 2015; Koenig & Richeson, 2010).
In a landmark empirical examination, Martin and Phillips (2017) found that gender
blindness leads to greater workplace confidence and action orientation (i.e., manifestations of
empowerment) among women than gender awareness. While Martin’s and Phillips’ (2017) work

4
I fully acknowledge the irony of focusing on the underrepresented, disempowered party when considering
solutions to inequity. It is not my opinion that the confidence gap is the primary concern when pursuing equity
between men and women, but it is a conversation that has already been initiated and that I feel motivated to
contribute to as it could have extremely important practical consequences for how organizations and
individuals act. Moreover, I wish to note that the existence of the confidence gap could just as easily reflect
over-confidence among men as under-confidence among women. That is, the gap is usually interpreted to
indicate that women should be more confident, but it is equally plausible to argue that men should be less so.

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provides a vital foundation for understanding of how organizations can best empower their
female employees to close the gender confidence gap and achieve gender equity, there are also
some theoretical and empirical limitations in their approach. Therefore, in the current chapter, I
provide an analysis of Martin’s and Phillips’ (2017) experimental methods, empirical findings,
and theoretical rationale. I argue that there are two important shortcomings in their approach that
merit correction: 1) their results may be driven by women assimilating to traditional male roles,
rather than by women eschewing harmful gender stereotypes as Martin and Phillips (2017)
suggest, and 2) their measures and manipulations conflated gender strategies with beliefs about
differences between women and men. Both of these limitations may result in misinterpretation of
their findings.
I therefore examine these issues in depth and propose alternative predictions. In
particular, I suggest that women’s evaluation of feminine stereotypes will determine whether
gender blindness or gender awareness is more empowering to them. I argue that that among
women with high gender identification, gender awareness will lead to greater workplace
confidence and action orientation than gender blindness, whereas among women with low
gender identification, gender blindness will lead to greater workplace confidence and action
orientation than gender awareness. I present two studies testing these ideas, and I conclude by
discussing potential directions for future research.
In doing so, I aim to contribute a better understanding of how to psychologically
empower women using organizational policies that account for the various ways that individuals
experience these policies. I suggest that organizational strategies used to improve the outcomes
of women must consider how dispositional differences among female employees will affect
whether a gender strategy is beneficial or detrimental to their confidence. The question of how

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gender strategies affect women’s empowerment in organizations is important, because well-
intended strategies aimed at creating gender equity have the potential to backfire if they only
work for some women while further disempowering others. In addition, I aim to stimulate a
conversation about how initiatives to advance diversity may simultaneously undermine diversity.
Specifically, I question whether the means of raising women’s confidence through gender
blindness justify the additional outcome of inducing women to assimilate to stereotypically male
norms and behavior. In the case of Martin and Phillips (2017), even though gender blindness
achieves the goal of raising women’s confidence, it may also overpower women’s desire to
express feminine traits by a desire to express masculine traits, which would eliminate some of
the strengths that feminine traits contribute to organizations. Indeed, a core argument of the
business case for diversity is that demographic variety in organizations is beneficial because it
entails diversity in thoughts, ideas, and perspectives, which yields more innovation and better
problem-solving (e.g., Francoeur, Labelle, & Sinclair-Desgagné, 2008; Welbourne, Cycyota, &
Ferrante, 2007). So, it is plausible that gender blindness, by inducing women to identify with
stereotypically masculine traits more strongly in comparison to gender awareness, may lead
women to think and act more like men, which would eliminate some of the benefits of diversity
for the organization’s bottom line.
The Effect of Group Difference Awareness versus Blindness on Underrepresented Group
Member Psychological Empowerment
Gender blindness and awareness are gender strategies, or prescriptions for how to think
about and discuss gender differences in order to achieve gender equity. I specifically focus on
gender awareness and gender blindness to contribute to a long debate within social identity
theory (Tajfel, 1978, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986) about how to effectively manage group

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differences. On one hand, some scholars argue that highlighting differences between groups
(e.g., gender, race) makes salient harmful negative stereotypes about the disempowered group
(e.g., women, people of color) and creates feelings of evaluative anxiety, low self-efficacy, and
low self-esteem among underrepresented group members (e.g., Gaertner, Dovidio, Banker,
Houlette, Johnson, & McGlynn, 2000; Park & Judd, 2005). This camp, thus, advocates for a
difference blindness approach. On the other hand, some scholars argue that highlighting
differences between groups encourages privileged group members (e.g., men, White people) to
understand and value the unique strengths and contributions of every culture and validates
underrepresented group identities (Banks, 2004; Rosenthal & Levy, 2010; Takaki, 1993). Thus, a
camp advocating for difference awareness arose.
To date, most of the research on difference blindness versus awareness focuses on
racial/ethnic differences. Almost two decades of empirical research investigates the effects of
multiculturalism, or racial/ethnic difference awareness, versus color blindness, or racial/ethnic
difference blindness. Meanwhile, the research on gender strategies is still emerging. However,
given the importance of the theoretical claim that difference awareness validates and empowers
underrepresented group members (Banks, 2004; Takaki, 1993), there is a surprising dearth of
research regarding the effect of awareness versus blindness approaches on underrepresented
group members’ psychological empowerment.
In fact, within the realm of multiculturalism and color blindness research, there are no
direct examinations of the effect of these strategies on the empowerment of underrepresented
racial/ethnic group members. Instead, any information about the effect of multiculturalism versus
color blindness on the confidence of underrepresented racial/ethnic groups that emerges from the
extant research is generally tangential to the focal agenda of the existing papers. Moreover, the

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implications that emerge from the empirical record that does exist are mixed. On one hand, some
evidence suggests that multiculturalism leads underrepresented racial/ethnic group members to
evaluate their in-group, and maybe even themselves, more positively than color blindness
(Verkuyen, 2005, 2009; Wolsko, Park, & Judd, 2006). Related evidence also suggests that
multiculturalism leads to greater persistence and better performance on tasks among people of
color (although the underlying psychological mechanism is unclear; Apfelbaum, Stephens, &
Reagans, 2016). On the other hand, some evidence indicates that multiculturalism (relative to
color blindness) may actually lead to more anxiety and fear of negative evaluation among
underrepresented racial/ethnic group members (Vorauer, Gagnon, & Sasaki, 2009).
Within the realm of gender awareness and blindness, there is one direct investigation of
the strategies’ effects on women’s psychological empowerment (Martin & Phillips, 2017).
Martin and Phillips (2017) propose, and find support for, the notion that gender blindness
(relative to gender awareness) leads to greater workplace confidence, which then leads to greater
action orientation. Theoretically, Martin and Phillips suggest that gender awareness highlights
stereotypes about women that are devalued in the workplace, which hurts women’s confidence.
They argue that gender blindness thus downplays ostensibly debilitating feminine stereotypes
and, therefore, leads to greater confidence among women. They find that gender blindness is
particularly helpful for women who work in male-dominated (vs. female-dominated) fields, but
they demonstrate that their effect emerges in female-dominated fields as well.
Analyzing Martin’s and Phillips’ (2017) Findings
Martin and Phillips’ (2017) work provides a solid foundation for scholarly research on
the effects of gender awareness versus blindness on women’s workplace confidence; however,
there is an inconsistency between their theory and findings that merits consideration. In

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particular, while Martin and Phillips theorize that gender awareness leads to lower confidence
than gender blindness among women because it brings attention to harmful feminine stereotypes,
their empirical results actually suggest that gender blindness leads to greater confidence than
gender awareness (but gender awareness does not affect confidence compared to control)
because women feel more similar to men (i.e., exhibit greater identification with stereotypically
masculine traits).
More specifically, Martin and Phillips (2017) measure women’s identification with
agentic traits as the mediating variable between gender ideologies and workplace confidence.
Agentic traits capture assertive dispositions, such as being dominant, defensive, and aggressive.
These traits are usually attributed to men and are contrasted with communal traits, which capture
more relational dispositions such as being sensitive, compassionate, and warm and are usually
attributed to women (e.g., Bem, 1974; Diekman & Eagly, 2000; Heilman & Okimoto, 2007).
Martin and Phillips (2017) find that a key reason that gender blindness ideology increases
women’s confidence and action orientation (relative to gender awareness) is gender blindness
condition induces in women a stronger identification with agentic traits. In other words, they find
that gender blindness ideology leads women to be empowered because they are assimilating to
stereotypically masculine norms that are more valued and accepted in a work context than
stereotypically feminine norms. This observation calls into question Martin and Phillips’
assertion that gender awareness leads to lower confidence than gender blindness among women
because it brings attention to harmful feminine stereotypes. Instead, it seems to induce women to
feel and act more like men.
Separating Gender Strategies from Gender Beliefs

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Another limitation to Martin and Phillips’ (2017) initial investigation is the way they
conceptualize gender blindness and awareness. Specifically, while Martin & Phillips define
gender blindness and awareness as prescriptive strategies (see also Torres, 2018), they actually
use measures and manipulations of gender ideologies. Gender ideologies incorporate both
strategies for how to handle gender differences and beliefs about whether gender differences
actually exist. Therefore, Martin and Phillips’ (2017) gender blindness manipulation and
measure confound the effects of 1) encouraging people to look past gender differences (e.g.,
“…focusing upon individual differences, not group differences … [contributes] to a more
cooperative and creative workplace”) and 2) believing gender differences do not exist (e.g., “…at
our core, we really are the same”). The conflation of gender strategies with beliefs about the
existence of gender differences matters, because I argue that the belief that gender differences do
or do not exist plays a role in driving differences in women’s identification with stereotypically
masculine traits.
In particular, gender blindness ideology entails a belief that men and women are
fundamentally the same, which women may experience as a denial or negation of any unique
feminine strengths (e.g., communal, warm, sensitive), which may in turn induce the
identification with masculine traits (e.g., agentic, assertive, dominant). However, I suggest that
simply telling women to look past any gender differences (i.e., gender blindness strategy) would
not make them motivated to adopt stereotypically masculine traits. Therefore, if increased
identification with stereotypically masculine traits is what is driving women’s increased
workplace confidence and action orientation after being exposed to gender blindness (vs.
awareness) ideology, I argue that this is predicated on the denial of gender differences and
encouraging women to perceive themselves as similar to men. For these reasons, I suspect that it

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is doubtful that a gender blindness strategy alone (without the simultaneous manipulation of
beliefs about the existence of gender differences) would elicit a positive effect on women’s
workplace confidence.
Beyond the notion that beliefs, rather than strategies, drive Martin and Phillips’ (2017)
findings, I further argue that gender strategies are likely to have divergent effects on women’s
confidence, depending on women’s dispositional evaluations of feminine stereotypes. In
particular, I suggest that the degree to which women see feminine stereotypes positively or
negatively determines whether gender blindness or gender awareness leads to greater workplace
confidence. I gauge the valence women place on feminine stereotypes through their level of
gender identification.
Gender Identification as a Moderator of the Effects of Gender Strategies on Women’s
Confidence
The concept of gender identification comes from SIT (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Turner,
Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), which suggests that people actively incorporate
certain group memberships into their identity, or may actively distance themselves from certain
group memberships, in order to maintain high self-esteem. While people belong to several
different groups, they choose which groups they actually identity with (Ellemers, Spears, &
Doosje, 1999). Once people identify with a group, they exhibit a psychological intertwinement
with the group that leads them to experience the successes and failures of the group as their own
(Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Thus, gender identification is the degree to which individuals consider
their gender a central and important part of their identity, and it is coupled with an overall
positive evaluation of their gender group (Schmader, 2002). In this way, women high in gender
identification use the group “women” as an important descriptor of themselves and evaluate

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traits affiliated with women (i.e., stereotypes) positively, whereas women low in gender
identification do not use the group “women” as an important descriptor of themselves and
evaluate feminine stereotypes relatively less positively.
Consistent with these notions, previous research shows that gender identification affects
women’s behaviors at work. For example, when asked to recall the presence of gender bias in
their careers, women low (vs. high) in gender identification reported greater identification with
masculine traits, exhibited greater distancing from women as a group, and denied the existence
of workplace discrimination, whereas women high (vs. low) in gender identification reported a
greater desire to help other women (Derks, Van Laar, Ellemers, & de Groot, 2011). Similarly,
women low (vs. high) in gender identification favored men over women in male-dominated
contexts by rating them more positively and giving them more help on a word puzzle, whereas
women high (vs. low) in gender identification favored women over men (Kaiser & Spalding,
2015). These results indicate that women low in gender identification may actively distance
themselves from the group “women,” and may do so because they evaluate women, or affiliated
feminine stereotypes, negatively. This work also suggests that women high in gender
identification actively move toward their in-group of women and exhibit a positive evaluation of
women as a group.
Thus, I suggest that women with high gender identification feel more confident when
their stereotypically feminine traits are celebrated than when they are pushed to the side and go
unacknowledged. In these situations, gender blindness may not only fail to enhance confidence
for these women, but may instead serve to promote the idea that feminine traits are devalued
because gender equity can only be reached when people look past these feminine traits. I also
suggest that women with low gender identification feel less confident when their stereotypically

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feminine traits are highlighted than when they are downplayed (mirroring Martin & Phillips,
2017 original theory). Instead, women low in gender identification should feel confident when
people are encouraged to be blind to traits that they evaluate negatively.
Therefore, I propose that gender identification plays a crucial role in determining the
effect of gender strategies on women’s workplace confidence. Specifically, I propose that
downplaying gender differences will lead to increased workplace confidence in comparison to
gender awareness (consistent with Martin & Phillips, 2017), but only among women low (vs.
high) in gender identification. However, I further propose that highlighting gender differences
will lead to increased workplace confidence in comparison to gender blindness, but only among
women high (vs. low) in gender identification.
H1: There will be a gender strategy by gender identification interaction on workplace
confidence.
H1a: Women high in gender identification will experience greater workplace confidence
when exposed to a gender awareness strategy than a gender blindness strategy.
H1b: Women low in gender identification will experience greater workplace confidence
when exposed to a gender blindness strategy than a gender awareness strategy.
The experience of greater workplace confidence may have important individual-level
outcomes for women in and of itself. However, for gender strategies to have a meaningful impact
on increasing gender equity in organizations, they have to generate important behavioral
consequences as well. One important outcome of confidence is the willingness to take action,
because action (as opposed to inaction) can lead to positive outcomes, such as achieving one’s
goals, and is highly valued in culturally individualistic contexts, such as white collar American
organizations and male-dominated industries (Markus & Conner, 2013; Markus & Kitayama,

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2003). For these reasons, Martin & Phillips (2017) examined action orientation as a downstream
consequence of women’s workplace confidence, and I carry forward that investigation here. In
particular, I expect that, because confidence leads directly to a greater willingness to take action
(e.g., Fast, Sivanathan, Mayer, & Galinsky, 2013), the interactive effect of gender strategies and
gender identification on action orientation will mirror that on confidence. I therefore propose the
following:
H2: There will be a gender strategy by gender identification interaction on action
orientation.
H2a: Women high in gender identification will exhibit greater action orientation when
exposed to a gender awareness strategy than a gender blindness strategy.
H2b: Women low in gender identification will exhibit greater action orientation when
exposed to a gender blindness strategy than a gender awareness strategy.
Finally, I expect that greater workplace confidence will mediate the relationship between
the interaction of gender strategy by gender identification and action orientation (i.e., moderated
mediation).
H3: Workplace confidence will mediate the relationship between the interaction of
gender strategy condition by gender identification and action orientation.
Study Overview
I test my hypotheses in two studies. In Study 1, I develop valid manipulations of gender
strategies that avoid the shortcomings of earlier approaches, namely the confounding of gender
strategies with beliefs. In Studies 1 and 2, I attempt to replicate Martin and Phillips’
experimental studies (2017; Studies 3 and 5) to examine the robustness of their effects and to
compare their findings with the findings that emerge using my revised manipulations. In Study 2,

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I test the effect of my gender strategy manipulations and the moderating role of gender
identification on workplace confidence and action orientation. The following section describes
these studies in detail, and I conclude this chapter with a summary, discussion of limitations, and
suggestions for future research.
Study 1: Validate Gender Strategy Manipulations
The primary goal of Study 1 was to create clear, effective gender strategy manipulations.
Below, I describe in detail how I adapted existing gender ideology manipulations to create new
manipulations that focus only on gender strategies (without beliefs about the existence of gender
differences). I then explain the experimental design I used to investigate how my newly designed
gender strategy manipulations operate differently from extant manipulations of gender ideology.
I also had two subsequent goals for Study 1: 1) increase understanding of the two underlying
theoretical tenants of gender blindness (i.e., downplay differences and emphasize similarities),
and 2) attempt to replicate Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original findings.
Gender Strategy Manipulation Development
I had two objectives when developing new manipulations of gender strategies: first, I
wanted to separate any mention of gender beliefs from the manipulation, and second, I wanted to
more precisely understand the nature of gender blindness as a strategy to either downplay
differences or emphasize similarities. To accurately assess the effects of prescriptive strategies
for discussing gender differences devoid of any mention of beliefs about whether gender
differences exist, I created new manipulations based on extant manipulations of gender
ideologies (Nichol, 2011; Malicke, 2013; Martin & Phillips, 2017). The preexisting
manipulations of gender blindness and awareness consist of ostensibly real newspaper articles
that provide support for one approach over the other, citing scientific findings and quoting

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researchers to do so. When creating the manipulations of gender strategies alone, I started with
the most recent gender ideology manipulations used by Martin and Phillips (2017). First, I
examined their gender blindness manipulation for statements that indicated that gender
differences do not exist (for example, “…the genders are more alike than they are different,” and,
“…the genders typically approach situations and problems in much the same way,”), and
removed them. Then, I edited the gender awareness manipulation to parallel the gender blindness
manipulation as much as possible, only varying a few key words about to how to talk about
gender differences within organizations.
Next, I was interested in disentangling the two strategies inherent in gender blindness: 1)
people should downplay or look past gender differences (see Decategorization Model; Brewer &
Miller, 1984), and 2) people should emphasize similarities between the genders (See Common
In-group Model; Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, & Rust, 1993). I believed that it was
entirely possible that the message to downplay gender differences would have a different effect
on women’s confidence than the message to emphasize similarities between genders, so I created
two separate gender blindness manipulations for each message. The downplay differences
condition only states prescriptions for downplaying gender differences, whereas the emphasize
similarities condition only states prescriptions for focusing on similarities between men and
women. I did not have strong predictions for how a strategy to downplay gender differences
would elicit different outcomes than a strategy to emphasize similarities between men and
women, so the comparisons between the two conditions were exploratory.
Experimental Design
Altogether, there are six separate conditions in the current study: gender awareness
ideology (from Martin & Phillips, 2017), gender blindness ideology (from Martin & Phillips,

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2017), control, downplay differences strategy, emphasize similarities strategy, and gender
awareness strategy. After exposure to the manipulation, participants completed measures of the
central dependent variables from Martin and Phillips (2017), specifically identification with
stereotypically masculine and feminine traits, workplace confidence, and action orientation. I
expected I would replicate Martin and Phillips (2017) findings that gender blindness ideology
leads to greater identification with stereotypically masculine traits, workplace confidence, and
action orientation than gender awareness ideology or control. However, I anticipated that there
would be no differences between my gender strategy manipulations on these outcomes, as I
theorize that gender identification moderates the effect of gender strategies on identification with
workplace confidence and action orientation.
I also included multiple measures in which to compare the gender strategy versus gender
ideology manipulations. Because the central qualm I have with extant manipulations and
measure of gender blindness and awareness is that they tap into both gender strategies and
gender beliefs, I measured participants’ beliefs about gender differences after exposure to the
manipulation. I hypothesized that participants in the gender blindness strategy conditions (both
downplay differences and emphasize similarities) would report greater endorsement that gender
differences do exist than participants in the gender blindness ideology condition. My hypothesis
follows my reasoning that gender blindness ideologies suggest that people should not pay
attention to gender differences (gender strategy) and that gender differences do not exist (gender
belief). In addition, I created a comprehension check that ensures participants remembered and
internalized the gender strategy manipulations and included Martin and Phillips (2017)
manipulation check, which assesses both gender strategies and gender beliefs.
Participants

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In total, 738 adults (55% women, Mage = 33.04) completed the study for monetary
compensation through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). I determined sample size using the
smallest significant effect size from Martin and Phillips’ (2017; Study 5). More specifically,
Martin and Phillips (2017) found that the effect size of gender ideology on workplace confidence
was η
2
p = .038, which translates to f = 0.20. With an α level of .05 and aiming for 95% power
across 12 cells (6 conditions x 2 gender groups), the goal sample size was 648. I increased the
goal sample size slightly to account for manipulation and attention check failures. I purposely
recruited people who were currently living in the U.S., because I wanted to try to keep gender
norms and expectations in the workplace somewhat consistent (i.e., the #MeToo movement in
the United States was just beginning), and people who have managerial responsibilities at their
job. I excluded 29 participants who failed at least one of three attention checks throughout the
study (i.e., “To ensure you are paying attention, please select ‘1’ for this item”) and 19 additional
participants who indicated that they have not actually had managerial responsibilities. Finally,
because Martin and Phillips (2017) original study was only conducted using female participants,
I excluded all remaining male participants.
5
My final sample was 390 women (Mage = 34.15).
Procedure
Participants completed a survey about reading comprehension in newspapers and
attitudes and perception. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions: control,
gender awareness strategy, downplay differences strategy (i.e., gender blindness strategy 1),
emphasize similarities strategy (i.e., gender blindness strategy 2), gender awareness ideology
(Martin & Phillips, 2017), or gender blindness ideology (Martin & Phillips, 2017). The

5
I recruited men to enhance the understanding of the effects of gender ideologies and strategies on men’s
identification with stereotypical traits, workplace confidence, and action orientation. For more information, please
contact the author.

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manipulation asked participants to read a brief newspaper article. In the gender strategy
conditions, the article discussed a policy that organizations should adopt. In the gender ideology
conditions, the article discussed how society at large should think about gender differences. In
the control condition, the article discussed how people should pay attention to how technology is
affecting their lives (See Appendix A: Chapter 2, Study 1 Experimental Manipulations).
After reading the manipulation, participants responded to several questions (See
Appendix B: Complete List of Chapter 2, Study 1 Items). Finally, participants completed some
demographic questions and were thanked for their time.
Measures
Comprehension check. I included a comprehension check that asked participants to
indicate the extent to which they agreed with the following core tenants of my gender strategy
manipulations: “We should embrace differences between genders” (M = 4.31, SD = 2.49), “We
should downplay differences between genders” (M = 3.54, SD = 2.37), and, “We should focus on
similarities between genders” (M = 4.17, SD = 2.42). Participants indicated their responses on a
scale from 1 (false) to 7 (true).
Identification with stereotypical traits. Participants rated how well each of 12 items
used by Martin and Phillips (2017), but originally from Bem (1974), described them on a scale
from 1 (not at all like me) to 7 (very much like me). There were six stereotypically masculine
traits, such as “assertive” and “dominant” (M = 4.48, SD = 1.08,  = .783), and six
stereotypically feminine traits, such as “sensitive” and “gentle” (M = 5.54, SD = 1.02,  = .842).
Workplace confidence. Participants rated their agreement with seven items from Martin
and Phillips’ (2017) workplace confidence scale, three of which are from Rogers, Chamberline,
Ellison, and Crean (1997), assessing how much confidence they experience at work on a scale

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from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.49, SD = 0.86,  = .759. Example items
include, “I can accomplish what I set out to do,” and “I never feel uncomfortable challenging a
co-worker’s idea in front of other people.”
Action orientation. Participants read four separate scenarios (three from Martin and
Phillips, 2017) that required them to choose between taking assertive action or not. For example,
one scenario asks participants to imagine that received a risky hand during a Blackjack game and
whether they would like to take another card (yes = action, no = inaction). I computed the final
action orientation measure by calculating the total number of times each participant decided to
take action, M = 2.52, SD = 0.87, Range: 0-4.
Manipulation check - gender blindness ideology. Participants completed Martin and
Phillips’ (2017) Gender Blindness Scale as a manipulation check by rating how much they agree
with eight items on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 3.83, SD = 1.04,
 = .719. Example items include, “We should try not to notice or think about when an individual
is male or female,” and “It is easier for men and women to get along if they acknowledge they
approach things differently” (reverse-coded).
Manipulation check - gender beliefs. Participants rated their agreement with three
author-generated items assessing how much they believe there are fundamental differences
between men and women as a secondary manipulation check on a scale from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 4.54, SD = 1.52,  = .830. Example items are, “Men and
women are more different than they are alike,” and “Women and men are fundamentally
different from one another.“
Results

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I ran a series of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVAs) using condition to predict each
dependent variable, with planned contrasts comparing: 1) gender awareness ideology versus
gender blindness ideology, 2) gender awareness strategy versus downplay difference strategy, 3)
gender awareness strategy versus emphasize similarity strategy, and 4) downplay difference
strategy versus emphasize similarity strategy.
Comprehension check. All three items of the comprehension check indicated that my
manipulations were effective. The overall ANOVAs for each item were significant: we should
embrace differences between genders, F(5, 384) = 77.48, p < .001, η
2
p = .502, we should
downplay differences between genders, F(5, 384) = 74.13, p < .001, η
2
p = .491, and we should
focus on similarities between genders, F(5, 384) = 85.69, p < .001, η
2
p = .527. Planned contrasts
revealed that participants responded to each comprehension check item in the predicted
direction. Most notably, participants in the gender awareness strategy condition scored higher on
the “we should embrace differences between genders” item than those in the downplay
differences strategy condition, t(384) = -14.35, p < .001, or the emphasize similarities strategy
condition, t(384) = -8.81, p < .001. In addition, participants in the downplay differences strategy
condition scored higher on the “we should downplay differences between genders” item than
those in the gender awareness strategy condition, t(384) = 15.19, p < .001, or emphasize
similarities condition, t(384) = -8.82, p < .001. Finally, participants in the emphasize similarities
strategy condition scored higher on the “we should focus on similarities between genders” item
than those in the gender awareness strategy condition, t(384) = 12.58, p < .001, or downplay
differences strategy condition, t(384) = 8.48, p < .001.
Manipulation check - gender blindness ideology. There was a significant main effect
of condition on Martin and Phillips’ (2017) gender blindness scale, F(5, 384) = 4.27, p = .001,

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50
η
2
p = .053 (See Figure 1). Planned contrasts revealed two significant differences and one
marginal difference in gender blindness ideology across conditions. First, women in the gender
awareness ideology condition reported significantly lower gender blindness ideology than those
in the gender blindness ideology condition, t(384) = 3.53, p < .001. This effect confirms that
Martin and Phillips’ (2017) ideology manipulations were successful by their own metric. Second,
women in the gender awareness strategy condition reported significantly lower gender blindness
ideology than those in the downplay difference strategy condition, t(384) = 2.46, p = .014.
Finally, women in the gender awareness strategy condition reported marginally lower gender
blindness ideology than those in the embrace similarity strategy condition, t(384) = 1.83, p =
.067. There was no difference in gender blindness ideology between the downplay difference
strategy and embrace similarity strategy conditions, t(389) = -0.58, p = .561.

Figure 1. Endorsement of gender blindness ideology as a function of condition (0 = control, 1 =
gender awareness strategy, 2 = downplay differences strategy, 3 = emphasize similarities
strategy, 4 = gender awareness ideology, and 5 = gender blindness ideology) in Study 1.

3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
4
4.1
4.2
Control Gender
Awareness
Strategy
Downplay
Difference
Strategy
Embrace
Similarity
Strategy
Gender
Awareness
Ideology
Gender Blindness
Ideology
Manipulation Check - Gender Blindness

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Manipulation check - gender beliefs. There was a significant main effect of condition
on gender beliefs, F(5, 384) = 5.11, p < .001, η
2
p = .062 (See Figure 2). Planned contrasts
revealed support for my hypothesis that the gender blindness ideology condition would lead to a
stronger belief that gender differences do not exist than the gender blindness strategy conditions
and control condition. More specifically, women in the gender blindness ideology condition
reported a significantly weaker belief that men and women are fundamentally different than the
downplay differences strategy condition, t(384) = -2.71, p = .007, the emphasize similarities
strategy condition, t(384) = -1.98, p = .048, and the control condition, t(384) = -3.40, p = .001.
Further, there was no significant difference between the control condition and the downplay
differences strategy condition, t(384) = -0.70, p = .482, or the emphasizing similarities strategy
condition, t(384) = 135, p = .178, on perceptions that men and women are different. However,
women in the gender awareness strategy condition believed there were gender differences
marginally more than the downplay differences strategy condition, t(384) = 1.81, p = .071, and
significantly more than the embrace similarities strategy condition, t(384) = -2.45, p = .015. The
finding that women reported than women and men are different only marginally more in the
gender awareness strategy condition compared to the downplay differences strategy condition is
encouraging, particularly in comparison to the strong difference between the gender awareness
ideology and gender blindness ideology conditions, t(384) = -3.74, p < .001. Overall, these
support that I was successful in reducing the amount that gender blindness strategy conditions
affect gender beliefs in comparison to the gender blindness ideology condition. However, these
results further suggest that it may not be possible to completely remove differences in gender
beliefs between gender awareness and gender blindness strategies, because a gender awareness

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52
strategy may still inherently indicate that women and men are different even if it makes no
mention of the existence of gender differences.

Figure 2. Endorsement of fundamental differences between men and women as a function of
condition (0 = control, 1 = gender awareness strategy, 2 = downplay differences strategy, 3 =
emphasize similarities strategy, 4 = gender awareness ideology, and 5 = gender blindness
ideology) in Study 1. Higher values indicate stronger belief that men and women fundamentally
differ.

Identification with stereotypically masculine traits. There was not a significant main
effect of condition on identification with stereotypically masculine traits, F(5, 384) = 0.65, p =
.663, η
2
p = .008. Planned contrasts revealed no significant effects, ts < +/- 1.20, ps > .234.
Identification with stereotypically feminine traits. There was not a significant main
effect of condition on identification with stereotypically feminine traits, F(5, 384) = 1.04, p =
.395, η
2
p = .013 (See Figure 3). Planned contrasts revealed one marginal difference between the
gender awareness ideology and gender blindness ideology conditions, t(384) = 1.71, p = .088,
such that reading about a gender blindness ideology led to stronger identification with
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Control Gender
Awareness
Strategy
Downplay
Difference
Strategy
Embrace
Similarity
Strategy
Gender
Awareness
Ideology
Gender Blindness
Ideology
Manipulation Check - Gender Beliefs

53

53
stereotypically feminine traits than a gender awareness ideology. Note that this effect is in
tension with the effect found in Martin and Phillips (2017), which was that there was no
difference between gender awareness and gender blindness in predicting stereotypically feminine
traits. There were no other significant or marginal contrasts, ts < +/- 1.07, ps > .285.

Figure 3. Identification with stereotypically feminine traits as a function of condition (0 =
control, 1 = gender awareness strategy, 2 = downplay differences strategy, 3 = emphasize
similarities strategy, 4 = gender awareness ideology, and 5 = gender blindness ideology) in Study
1.

Workplace confidence. There was not a significant main effect of condition on
workplace confidence, F(5, 384) = 1.60, p = .160, η
2
p = .020 (See Figure 4). Planned contrasts
revealed that there was a marginal difference between the downplay difference strategy and
emphasize similarity strategy conditions, t(384) = -1.95, p = .052, such that reading an article
about downplaying gender differences led to marginally more workplace confidence than
emphasizing similarities between men and women. There were no other significant or marginal
contrasts, ts < +/- 1.17, ps > .246.
5.15
5.2
5.25
5.3
5.35
5.4
5.45
5.5
5.55
5.6
5.65
5.7
Control Gender
Awareness
Strategy
Downplay
Difference
Strategy
Embrace
Similarity
Strategy
Gender
Awareness
Ideology
Gender Blindness
Ideology
Identification with Stereotypically
Feminine Traits

54

54

Figure 4. Workplace confidence as a function of condition (0 = control, 1 = gender awareness
strategy, 2 = downplay differences strategy, 3 = emphasize similarities strategy, 4 = gender
awareness ideology, and 5 = gender blindness ideology) in Study 1.

Action orientation. There was not a significant main effect of condition on action
propensity, F(5, 384) = 1.21, p = .306, η
2
p = .015 (See Figure 5). Planned contrasts revealed a
significant difference between the gender awareness and gender blindness ideology conditions,
t(384) = -1.99, p = .048, such that reading about a gender awareness ideology led to greater
propensity for action than a gender blindness ideology. This effect is in the opposite direction of
what Martin and Phillips (2017) found, which was that a gender blindness ideology led to greater
action orientation than a gender awareness ideology. There were no other significant or marginal
contrasts, ts < +/- 0.69, ps > .491.

5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
Control Gender
Awareness
Strategy
Downplay
Difference
Strategy
Embrace
Similarity
Strategy
Gender
Awareness
Ideology
Gender Blindness
Ideology
Workplace Confidence

55

55

Figure 5. Action orientation as a function of condition (0 = control, 1 = gender awareness
strategy, 2 = downplay differences strategy, 3 = emphasize similarities strategy, 4 = gender
awareness ideology, and 5 = gender blindness ideology) in Study 1.

Discussion
Overall, the results from Study 1 suggest that I successfully created manipulations of
gender strategies that manipulate gender beliefs less than extant gender ideology manipulations. I
compared the two underlying tenants of a gender blindness strategy, downplaying differences
versus emphasizing similarities, and found one difference. Specifically, women reported
marginally greater workplace confidence after reading about the downplay differences strategy
versus the emphasize similarities strategy. Further, I found that a downplay differences strategy
yielded a weaker difference in gender beliefs compared to a gender awareness strategy than an
emphasize similarities strategy. Overall, it seems my future gender blindness manipulations
should focus primarily on downplaying differences instead of emphasizing similarities as a
viable strategy to increase women’s workplace confidence and minimize the difference in gender
beliefs compared to a gender awareness strategy. Other than the marginal difference between the
2.25
2.3
2.35
2.4
2.45
2.5
2.55
2.6
2.65
2.7
2.75
Control Gender
Awareness
Strategy
Downplay
Difference
Strategy
Embrace
Similarity
Strategy
Gender
Awareness
Ideology
Gender Blindness
Ideology
Action Orientation

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56
two gender blindness strategy conditions on workplace confidence, the gender strategy
conditions elicited no significant differences on identification with stereotypical traits, workplace
confidence, or action orientation. The null effects of gender strategy manipulations on these
outcome variables suggests there may be another, unaccounted for moderator.
In addition, I surprisingly did not replicate Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original findings.
In the current study, women did not differ between the gender blindness and the gender
awareness ideology conditions on stereotypically masculine traits or workplace confidence.
Moreover, gender ideology did affect women’s identification with stereotypically feminine traits
and action orientation, but in ways that are inconsistent with Martin and Phillips’ (2017)
findings. Women who read about a gender awareness ideology exhibited significantly lower
identification with stereotypically feminine traits than those who read about gender blindness,
whereas Martin and Phillips (2017) found no effect of gender ideologies on identification with
stereotypically feminine traits in their studies. In addition, women who read about a gender
awareness ideology also exhibited greater action orientation than those who read about a gender
blindness ideology, which is the opposite pattern that Martin and Phillips (2017) found.
While much of Study 1 is the same as Martin and Phillips’ (2017) experimental studies,
such as the site used for recruitment (i.e., MTurk), the general age of participants (mean age of
approximately 30), and some of the manipulations and measures, I did not conduct an exact or
preregistered replication. More specifically, I 1) used a control condition that I created rather
than Martin and Phillips’ (2017) control condition, 2) inserted some new measures intermittently
between Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original measures, and 3) used one action orientation
scenario (i.e., negotiating the price of car) that was different than Martin and Phillips’ (2017)

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57
original scenario (i.e., negotiating a salary). These methodological differences could have
accounted for my inability to replicate Martin and Phillips’ (2017) results.
To address these methodological limitations, I conducted a follow-up study that used the
exact same manipulations and measures as Martin and Phillips (2017) presented in the same
exact same order. I also preregistered the replication attempt to be consistent with best practices
in organizational behavior research. To maximize the impact of the study, I included two
conditions manipulating gender strategies with a newly formed gender blindness strategy
manipulation that focuses primarily on downplaying differences. After I presented all of Martin
and Phillips’ (2017) key manipulations and measures, I included additional measures, including a
measure of my proposed moderator, gender identification, to test my central hypotheses.
Study 2: Preregistered Replication and Test of Moderation
The goals of Study 2 were threefold. First, I wanted to conduct a preregistered replication
study of Martin and Phillips’ (2017) experimental studies (Studies 3 and 5). This included filing
a preregistration on the Open Science Framework website (https://osf.io/zr5j4/registrations/ to
access three relevant registrations) and using all of Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original
manipulations and measures presented in their same order. Second, I wanted to compare gender
awareness and gender blindness differences orientations (i.e., embracing versus downplaying
differences, respectively), regardless of approach (i.e., ideology versus strategy) on perceived
sexism. Previous research indicates that people possess a lay theory that gender blindness
ideology is less sexist than gender awareness ideology (Koenig & Richeson, 2010), and that
greater endorsement of gender awareness ideology is correlated with greater benevolent,
malicious, and modern sexism (Martin & Phillips, 2017). Whether gender awareness is perceived
as more sexist than gender blindness should have important implications for how employees of

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58
both genders adopt these strategies. Third, I wanted to test the effects of my proposed moderator,
gender identification, on workplace confidence and action orientation. Therefore, I will present
the results in three sections: 1) Martin and Phillips (2017) replication, 2) perceived sexism of
difference approaches, and 3) moderation results.
As a reminder, I predicted an interaction between gender strategy condition and gender
identification on women’s workplace confidence (H1) and action orientation (H2). More
specifically, I predicted that among women high (vs. low) in gender identification, a gender
awareness strategy will increase their workplace confidence and action orientation in comparison
to a gender blindness strategy. I also predicted that among women low (vs. high) in gender
identification, a gender blindness strategy will increase their workplace confidence and action
orientation in comparison to a gender awareness strategy. Finally, I predicted a moderated
mediation model, such that workplace confidence would mediate the relationship between the
interaction between gender identification and gender strategy and action orientation (H3).
Participants
In total, 561 women (Mage = 36.28) completed the study for monetary compensation
through MTurk, consistent with Martin and Phillips’ (2017) sampling procedure. I determined
sample size using the same power analysis procedures as Study 1. With an effect size of f = 0.20,
α level of .05, and desired power of 95% across five groups, the goal sample size was 495. I
increased the goal sample size slightly to account for attention and manipulation check failures. I
excluded 28 participants who failed at least one of three attention checks throughout the study
(i.e., “To ensure you are paying attention, please select ‘1’ for this item”), 23 participants who
reported reading a similar manipulation as ours in a previous study, and one participant who

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59
completed the study more than once (I only removed their second participation, but kept their
first). Therefore, the final sample is 509 women (Mage = 36.32).
Procedure
Participants completed a survey about evaluations of newspaper articles and people’s
attitudes and opinions about society (the same title and cover story as Martin and Phillips, 2017).
Participants were randomly assigned to one of five conditions: control (from Martin & Phillips,
2017), gender awareness ideology (from Martin & Phillips, 2017), gender blindness ideology
(from Martin & Phillips, 2017), gender awareness strategy, and gender blindness strategy (See
Appendix C: Chapter 2, Study 2 Experimental Manipulations). Each manipulation was
comprised of a brief newspaper article touting the advantages of a certain ideology about gender
differences (i.e., gender ideologies), the advantages of organizations adopting a certain strategy
for handling gender differences (i.e., gender strategies), or the advantages of using big data in
science (i.e., control). After reading the article, participants completed measures identical to
Martin and Phillips’ (2017) Study 5, and then completed measures I added, including an
extension of the action orientation measure and a measure of gender identification. Notably, I
also added a measure of female and male representation within participants’ current workplace
(i.e., workplace gender composition) from Martin and Phillips (2017; Study 3), because they
found that a gender blindness ideology had an even stronger positive effect on workplace
confidence among women in male-dominated (vs. female-dominated) workplaces, although the
effect was still significant for women in female-dominated workplaces.
Measures. See Appendix D: Completed List of Chapter 2, Study 2 Items.
Identification with stereotypical traits. I included the identification with stereotypical
traits measure from Martin and Phillips (2017) used in Study 1 that assesses identification with

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60
both stereotypically masculine traits, M = 3.91, SD = 1.22,  = .84, and feminine traits, M = 5.41,
SD = 1.08,  = .86.
Workplace confidence. I included the same workplace confidence measure from Martin
and Phillips (2017) used in Study 1, M = 4.98, SD = 1.04,  = .81.
Action orientation. I included the same action orientation measure from Martin and
Phillips (2017), M = 1.87, SD = 1.08, Range: 0-4. This measure of action orientation differed
from the one used in Study 1 by one scenario. In Study 1, participants indicated whether they
would negotiate the price of a car, whereas in Study 2 (and Martin & Phillips, 2017), participants
indicated whether they would negotiate their salary at a job.
Additional action orientation items. I added two additional action orientation scenarios
after the four action orientation scenarios used by Martin and Phillips (2017). I perceived a
fundamental difference between more agentic and independent types of action, such as
negotiating one’s salary or taking a hit in a game of blackjack, and more collective and
interdependent types of action, such as lobbying for a wrongly accused prisoner to be freed. In
Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original measure, there were three scenarios tapping into agentic
action and one scenario tapping into communal action, so I added two additional communal
action scenarios in Study 2. I created composites for agentic action, M = 1.21, SD = .93, Range:
0-3, and communal action, M = 2.36, SD = .73, Range: 0-3.
Manipulation check - gender blindness. I included the same manipulation check used in
Martin and Phillips (2017) from Study 1, M = 3.92, SD = 1.08,  = .78.
Comprehension check. I included the two relevant comprehension check items used in
Study 1: “We should embrace differences between genders” (M = 4.65, SD = 2.33), and, “We
should downplay differences between genders” (M = 3.80, SD = 2.42).

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61
Author perceptions. Participants responded to two author-generated items assessing how
sexist they believe the author of the article is (i.e., “The author of the article is sexist” and “The
author of the article wants to achieve gender equality”), M = 2.63, SD = 1.31, r = .19, and two
author-generated items assessing how much participants think the author believes that women
and men are fundamentally different (i.e., “The author of the article believes that there are
fundamentally important differences between men and women” and “The author of the article
thinks men and women are fundamentally the same”), M = 4.14, SD = 2.08, r = .71, on a scale
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Because the items assessing perceptions of the
author’s sexism exhibited a low correlation, they were analyzed separately.
Workplace gender composition. Participants indicated the proportion of their workplace
that is comprised of women as a measure of workplace gender composition using the same
measure from Martin and Phillips (2017; Study 3). Participants estimated the percentage of their
workplace comprised of women on a 0-100 scale, M = 57.69, SD = 24.71, Range: 0-100.
Keeping with Martin and Phillips’ (2017) methods, workplace gender composition was turned
into a dichotomous variable (0 = 50% women or more, 1 = less than 50% women).
Gender identification. Participants rated their agreement with 10 items created by Leach
and colleagues (2008) assessing group-level self-investment with the group “women” on a scale
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.39, SD = 1.18,  = .93. Example items
include, “I feel a bond with women as a group,” and “I am glad to be a woman.”
Results
I present the results in three separate sections to address the three separate goals I had for
Study 2: 1) replicate Martin and Phillips (2017), 2) compare gender awareness and gender
blindness difference orientations on perceived sexism, regardless of approach (i.e., ideology

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62
versus strategy), and 3) test my hypotheses about gender identification moderating the effect of
gender strategies on women’s workplace confidence and action orientation.
Replication Results. To replicate Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original findings, I
performed a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with condition (0 = control, 1 = gender
awareness ideology, 2 = gender blindness ideology) predicting their central dependent variables
of interest: identification with stereotypically masculine and feminine traits, workplace
confidence, and action orientation. To examine the role of workplace gender composition as a
moderator of condition’s effect on workplace confidence (Martin & Phillips, 2017; Study 3), I
performed a 2 (condition: gender blindness ideology vs. gender awareness ideology)  2
(workplace gender composition: male-dominated vs. female-dominated) univariate ANOVA
predicting workplace confidence. I report statistical results in Table 1. For effect sizes, I report
η
2
p.
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63

Table 1
Univariate Analyses of Variance Results for Replication of Martin and Phillips (2017)

Identification
with
Stereotypically
Masculine
Traits
Identification
with
Stereotypically
Feminine
Traits
Workplace
Confidence
Action
Orientation
Gender
Blindness
Scale

F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p
Main Effect

Condition 1.56 .010 0.73 .005 2.44
+
.016 0.12 .001 12.17
***
.074
***
p < .001.
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64

Identification with stereotypically masculine traits. There was not a significant main
effect of gender ideology on identification with stereotypically masculine traits, F(2, 304) = 1.56,
p = .212, η
2
p = .010 (See Figure 6). Planned contrasts revealed one marginal effect, specifically
that women in the control condition reported marginally greater identification with
stereotypically masculine traits than those in the gender blindness ideology condition, t(304) = -
1.76, p = .079. This effect directly opposes Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original findings that
exposure to a gender blindness ideology increases women’s identification with stereotypically
masculine traits compared to control participants or a gender awareness ideology. There were no
other significant or marginal contrasts, ts < +/- 0.98, ps > .330.

Figure 6. Identification with stereotypically masculine traits as a function of condition (0 =
control, 1 = gender awareness strategy, 2 = gender blindness strategy, 3 = gender awareness
ideology, and 4 = gender blindness ideology) in Study 2.

Identification with stereotypically feminine traits. There was not a significant main
effect of gender ideology on identification with stereotypically feminine traits, F(2, 304) = 0.73,
3.55
3.6
3.65
3.7
3.75
3.8
3.85
3.9
3.95
4
4.05
4.1
Control Gender Awareness
Strategy
Gender Blindness
Strategy
Gender Awareness
Ideology
Gender Blindness
Ideology
Identification with Stereotypically
Masculine Traits

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65
p = .483, η
2
p = .005. Planned contrasts revealed no significant or marginal effects, ts < +/- 1.20,
ps > .233.
Workplace confidence. There was a marginal main effect of gender ideology on
workplace confidence, F(2, 304) = 2.44, p = .089, η
2
p = .016 (See Figure 7). Planned contrasts
revealed one significant effect, such that women in the gender awareness ideology condition
reported significantly more workplace confidence than those in the gender blindness ideology
condition, t(304) = -2.15, p = .033. This finding is directly in tension with the findings from
Martin and Phillips (2017) in which women exposed to a gender blindness ideology exhibited
greater workplace confidence than those exposed to a gender awareness ideology. There were no
other significant or marginal contrasts, ts < +/- 1.51, ps > .131.

Figure 7. Workplace confidence as a function of condition (0 = control, 1 = gender awareness
strategy, 2 = gender blindness strategy, 3 = gender awareness ideology, and 4 = gender blindness
ideology) in Study 2.

4.65
4.7
4.75
4.8
4.85
4.9
4.95
5
5.05
5.1
5.15
Control Gender Awareness
Strategy
Gender Blindness
Strategy
Gender Awareness
Ideology
Gender Blindness
Ideology
Workplace Confidence

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66
Action orientation. There was not a significant main effect of gender ideology on action
orientation, F(2, 304) = 0.12, p = .888, η
2
p = .001. Planned contrasts revealed no significant or
marginal effects, ts < +/- 0.49, ps > .628.
Manipulation check - gender blindness. For the gender blindness scale, the predicted
patterns arose confirming that the manipulation was successful. There was a significant main
effect of condition on gender blindness, F(2, 304) = 12.17, p < .001, η
2
p = .074. Planned
contrasts revealed the expected differences: exposure to a gender blindness ideology led to
greater gender blindness than the control condition, t(304) = 4.10, p < .001, and exposure to a
gender awareness ideology, t(304) = 4.39, p < .001. There was not a significant difference
between the gender awareness ideology and control conditions on gender blindness, t(304) = -
0.32, p = .752. These results indicate that Martin and Phillips’ (2017) manipulation of gender
ideologies was effective.
Moderating role of workplace gender composition. There was neither a significant main
effect of workplace gender composition, F(1, 201) = 0.40, p = .529, p
2
= .002, nor a significant
interaction of workplace gender composition by gender ideology, F(1, 201) = 2.65, p = .105,
p
2
= .013, on workplace confidence.
Replication discussion. Consistent with the Study 1, I was unable to replicate Martin and
Phillips’ (2017) findings, even when using identical experimental procedures and materials.
Specifically, I did not find that a gender blindness ideology increased identification with
stereotypically masculine traits, workplace confidence, or action orientation compared to a
gender awareness ideology or control. Instead, I found some support for the opposite effect, such
that exposure to a gender blindness ideology led to marginally lower identification with
stereotypically masculine traits than the control condition, and significantly lower workplace

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67
confidence than those exposed to a gender awareness ideology. In addition, I did not find that a
gender blindness ideology was particularly beneficial for women’s workplace confidence when
they work in a male-dominated (vs. female-dominated) environment. Instead, I found some
support for the opposite trend, such that among women who worked in male-dominated
environments, those exposed to a gender awareness ideology reported greater workplace
confidence than those exposed to a gender blindness ideology.
Manipulation Comparison Results. To compare the gender ideology and gender
strategy manipulations, I performed a 2 (difference orientation: blindness vs. awareness)  2
(approach: ideology vs. strategy) between-subjects ANOVA predicting responses to the gender
blindness manipulation check and perceptions of the author. I report full statistical results in
Table 2.

Table 2
Univariate Analyses of Variance Results for Comparing Gender Awareness versus Gender
Blindness Difference Orientations
Gender Blindness Author is Sexist
Author Wants to
Achieve Gender
Equality
Author Believes in
Gender Differences

F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p
Main Effect

Approach .002 < .001 1.64 .004 1.87 .005 15.75
***
.038
Difference Orientation 45.76
***
.102 68.42
***
.145 114.26
***
.221 921.77
***
.696
Interaction

Approach x Difference
Orientation 0.46 .001 2.71 .007 3.96
*
.010 22.98
***
.054
***
p < .001.
**
p < .01.
*
p < .05.

Manipulation check - gender blindness scale. There was a significant main effect of
difference orientation on the gender blindness scale, F(1, 403) = 45.76, p < .001, p
2
= .102, such
that participants in the blindness conditions reported significantly greater endorsement of gender

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68
blindness than those in the awareness conditions, regardless of approach (i.e., strategy vs.
ideology). There were no other significant or marginal effects, Fs < 0.45, ps >.499.
Perceptions that the author is sexist. There was significant main effect of difference
orientation, F(1, 403) = 3.86, p = .050, p
2
= .009, such that participants in the awareness
conditions reported that the author was more sexist than those in the blindness conditions,
regardless of approach (i.e., strategy vs. ideology). There were no other significant or marginal
effects, Fs < 0.42, ps > .520.
Perceptions that the author wants to achieve gender equality. There was significant
main effect of difference orientation, F(1, 403) = 114.26, p < .001, p
2
= .221, such that
participants in the awareness conditions reported that the author wanted to achieve gender
equality less than those in the blindness conditions. This main effect was qualified by a
significant approach by difference orientation interaction, F(1, 403) = 3.96, p = .047, p
2
= .010
(See Figure 8). Specifically, among women who read about an awareness orientation, there was
no difference between strategy and ideology, F(1, 403) = 0.20, p = .657, p
2
< .001, but among
who read about a blindness orientation, those in the ideology condition reported that the author
wanted to achieve gender equality more than those in the strategy condition, F(1, 403) = 5.69, p
= .018, p
2
= .014.

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Figure 8. Perception that the author wants to achieve gender equality as a function of difference
orientation (0 = awareness, 1 = blindness) and approach (0 = ideology, 1 = strategy) in Study 2.

Perceptions that the author believes gender differences exist. There was significant
main effect of difference orientation, F(1, 403) = 921.77, p < .001, p
2
= .696, such that
participants in the awareness conditions reported that the author believed there are gender
differences more than those in the blindness conditions. There was also a main effect of
approach, F(1, 403) = 15.75, p < .001, p
2
= .038, such that participants in the strategy conditions
reported that the author believed there are gender differences more than those in the ideology
conditions. These main effects were qualified by a significant interaction, F(1, 403) = 22.98, p <
.001, p
2
= .054 (See Figure 9). Among participants in the awareness conditions, there was no
difference between approach, F(1, 403) = 0.33, p = .564, p
2
= .001, but among participants in the
blindness conditions, those in the strategy condition reported that the author believed there are
gender differences more than those in the ideology condition, F(1, 403) = 39.05, p < .001, p
2
=
.088.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Ideology Approach Strategy Approach
Author Wants to Achieve Gender Equality
Gender Awareness Gender Blindness

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Figure 9. Perception that the author believes in fundamental gender differences as a function of
difference orientation (0 = awareness, 1 = blindness) and approach (0 = ideology, 1 = strategy)
in Study 2.

Manipulation comparisons discussion. Some interesting effects arose out of the
comparison between blindness versus awareness (i.e., difference orientation) and ideology versus
strategies (i.e., approach) on the perceptions of the author as sexist, wants to achieve gender
equality, and believes that gender differences exist. First, participants in the awareness
conditions reported that the author was more sexist and wanted to achieve gender equality less
than participants in the blindness conditions, regardless of approach. These results suggest that
regardless of the acknowledgement of beliefs about whether gender differences exist, a message
to highlight and celebrate gender differences is perceived as more sexist than a message to
downplay or ignore gender differences, which is consistent with previous research that finds
people believe that gender blindness ideology is less sexist than gender awareness ideology
(Koenig & Richeson, 2010) and that greater endorsement of gender awareness is correlated with
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Ideology Approach Strategy Approach
Author Believes in Gender Differences
Gender Awareness Gender Blindness

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various measures of sexism (Martin & Phillips, 2017). Second, participants who read about
gender blindness ideology reported that the author wanted to achieve gender equality more than
those who read about a gender blindness strategy. This indicates that a blindness approach is
considered even less sexist if it contains a denial of the existence of gender differences in
addition to suggesting that gender differences should be downplayed.
In addition, participants in the gender blindness ideology condition reported that the
author believed that gender differences exist less than those in the gender blindness strategy
condition. I interpret this effect as partially supporting one of my goals of creating new
manipulations of gender blindness and awareness strategies, which was to remove the mention of
gender beliefs. In the gender blindness condition, a mention of gender beliefs would deny the
existence of gender differences, so my results indicate that I may have partially removed gender
beliefs from the gender blindness strategy manipulation in comparison to the gender blindness
ideology condition. That being said, there was still a strong main effect of difference orientation
on perceptions of the author’s gender beliefs, such that women who read about a gender
blindness orientation reported that the author believes gender differences exist less than those
who read about a gender awareness orientation, regardless of approach (even though the
difference was smaller among the strategy conditions than the ideology conditions). This result
supports findings from Study 1 that indicate it may be difficult to completely remove the belief
that gender differences exist from gender awareness orientations.
Moderation results. To examine whether gender identification moderates the effect of
gender strategies on important workplace variables, I conducted moderated regression analyses,
in which I entered condition (0 = gender awareness, 1 = gender blindness), and mean-centered
gender identification on Step 1, and the condition by gender identification interaction on Step 2. I

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tested the effects of my independent variable and continuous moderator on Martin and Phillips’
(2017) central dependent variables of interest: identification with stereotypically masculine and
feminine traits, workplace confidence, and action orientation, along with my newly formulated
measures of agentic and communal action orientation. I report full statistical results in Table 3.
For effect sizes, I report ∆R² for the interaction effects and ß for main effects and simple slopes.

Table 3
Moderated Regression Results for Study 2
Step 1: Main Effects

Step 2: Interaction
Dependent
Variables
Overall Step
Gender
Identification
Condition

Overall Step
R
2
df F

ß t ß t

R
2
df F
Workplace
Confidence .083 2, 196 8.87
***
.29 4.20
***
.07 1.04 .007 3, 195 6.41
***

Action
Orientation .003 2, 196 0.34 .04 0.56 -.04 -0.52 .004 3, 195 0.47

Agentic
Action
Orientation .005 2, 196 0.48 .06 0.82 -.03 -0.39 .004 3, 195 0.56

Communal
Action
Orientation .021 2, 196 2.13 .11 1.49 -.08 -1.17 .003 3, 195 1.61
***p < .001.

Workplace confidence. There was a significant main effect of gender identification on
workplace confidence, t(195) = 4.20, ß = .29, p < .001, such that greater gender identification
was associated with greater workplace confidence. There was not a main effect of gender
strategy on workplace confidence, t(195) = 1.04, ß = .07, p = .300. In addition, contrary to my
prediction, the gender strategy by gender identification interaction on workplace confidence was
not significant, F(3, 195) = 6.41, ß = .11, ∆R² = .007, p = .232.

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Action orientation. There was not a significant main effect of gender strategy or gender
identification on action orientation, ts <+/- 0.56, ps > .577. In addition, contrary to my
prediction, the gender strategy by gender identification interaction on action orientation was not
significant, F (3, 195) = 0.47, ß = -.28, ∆R² = .004, p = .392.
Exploratory analyses.
Agentic action orientation. There was not a significant main effect of gender strategy or
gender identification on agentic action orientation, ts <+/- 0.83, ps > .410. In addition, contrary
to my prediction, the gender strategy by gender identification interaction on action orientation
was not significant, F(3, 195) = 0.56, ß = -.08, ∆R² = .004, p = .398.
Communal action orientation. There was not a significant main effect of gender strategy
or gender identification on communal action orientation, ts <+/- 1.50, ps > .136. In addition,
contrary to my prediction, the gender strategy by gender identification interaction on action
orientation was not significant, F(3, 195) = 1.61, ß = .07, ∆R² = .003, p = .451.
Moderation discussion. Overall, I did not find support for my predicted effects. I
predicted that gender blindness would lead to increased workplace confidence and action
orientation among women low (vs. high) in gender identification compared to gender awareness.
I also did not find support for my prediction that gender awareness would lead to increased
workplace confidence and action orientation among women high (vs. lower) in gender
identification compared to gender blindness. Instead, I only found two very strong main effects
of gender identification on identification with stereotypically feminine traits and workplace
confidence.
The main effect of gender identification on workplace confidence was unpredicted.
However, because some scholars consider gender identification (or group identification, more

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broadly) as a proxy for self-esteem (e.g., Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990; Luhtanen & Crocker,
1992), then greater gender identification is similar to greater self-esteem. Self-esteem is highly
related to confidence, and Martin and Phillips (2017) even report that they created their
workplace confidence measure as a combination of self-esteem and self-efficacy. Exploratory
analyses indicate that the positive main effect of gender identification on workplace confidence
is not driven by our skewed sample of women mostly from female- (vs. male-) dominated
workplaces. The positive main effect of gender identification on workplace confidence is present
among women in both female-dominated, t(130) = 3.79, ß = .32, p < .001, and male-dominated,
t(65) = 2.05, ß = .25, p = .045, workplaces (although, the effect was stronger among women in
female-dominated workplaces).
Discussion
In Study 2, I again failed to replicate Martin and Phillips (2017) findings. I did not find
that gender blindness ideology led to women to exhibit greater identification with stereotypically
masculine traits, workplace confidence, or action orientation in comparison to gender awareness
ideology. However, I did find that gender awareness ideology led to greater identification with
stereotypically masculine traits and workplace confidence among women than gender blindness.
In addition, I found that women perceived an author endorsing gender awareness orientations as
more sexist, having a lower desire to achieve gender equality, and believing that gender
differences exist more than an author endorsing gender blindness orientations. Further, women
perceived an author endorsing gender blindness ideology as less sexist and as believing that
gender differences exist less than an authoring endorsing gender blindness strategy. Finally, I did
not find support for my hypothesis that gender identification moderates the effect of gender
strategies on women’s workplace confidence and action orientation. Instead, I only found one

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significant main effect indicating that women with greater gender identification also exhibit
greater workplace confidence.
General Discussion
There are strong theoretical arguments for how gender blindness and gender awareness
may help organizations achieve gender equity by empowering women and closing the gender
confidence gap (e.g., Gaertner et al., 2000; Park & Judd, 2005). However, it is not clear that
either approach has a strong effect on women’s workplace confidence or action orientation.
Across two studies, I failed to replicate Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original findings that gender
blindness ideology leads women to exhibit greater workplace confidence and action orientation
compared to gender awareness ideology. Instead, I found inconsistent evidence that gender
awareness ideology may increase women’s workplace confidence (Study 2) and action
orientation (Study 1) relative to gender blindness ideology. Further, I did not find any evidence
that gender strategies affect women’s workplace confidence or action orientation based on
women’s level of gender identification.
The main contribution of the current research is providing empirical clarification and
comparison of gender ideology versus gender strategy manipulations. I suggest that gender
ideologies are empirically problematic as they manipulate two separate constructs: beliefs about
whether gender differences exist (i.e., gender beliefs) and perceptive recommendations for how
to handle gender differences (i.e., gender strategies). Therefore, I developed manipulations aimed
at exclusively altering gender strategies and tried to eliminate mentions of gender beliefs from
these manipulations. I received some support that my newly developed gender strategy
manipulations temporally alter gender beliefs less than extant gender ideology manipulations,
such that the gender blindness ideology manipulation led to greater perceptions that gender

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differences do not exist than my newly created gender blindness strategy manipulation (Studies 1
and 2). However, I still found that the gender blindness strategy manipulation led to marginally
(Study 1) or significantly (Study 2) greater perceptions that gender differences do not exist than
the gender awareness strategy manipulation, indicating that it may be difficult to fully eliminate
differences in gender beliefs between awareness and blindness orientations. Altogether, the
gender strategy manipulations temporarily affect gender beliefs less than gender ideologies, but
it is possible that there was always be a difference in implicit gender beliefs between awareness
and blindness difference orientations.
Lack of Replication
One of the most surprising findings from the current research is that I was not able to
replicate Martin and Phillips’ (2017) original and robust effects of gender ideologies on women’s
workplace confidence and action orientation despite using similar (Study 1) and the exact same
(Study 2) materials and methodology as Martin and Phillips (2017). When considering my
inability to replicate their results, I first questioned whether our samples were comparable even
though I used the same recruitment site and exclusion criteria as Martin and Phillips (2017).
However, the sample in my direct replication study (Study 2) and Martin and Phillips’ (2017)
Study 5 are comparable in age (mean age was 36.42 in Martin and Phillips and 36.32 in the
current research), work experience (mean work experience was 15.96 years in Martin and
Phillips and 14.48 in the current research), and race (74% of participants were White in both
Martin and Phillips and the current research). Therefore, it is unlikely that my inability to
replicate Martin and Phillips (2017) is due to sampling differences.
Next, I considered the role of context in my inability to replicate Martin and Phillips
(2017). Although I measured workplace gender composition in Study 2 as Martin and Phillips

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(2017; Study 3) did, they do not provide the mean or standard deviation for this measure thus
disallowing me to provide a comparison on this measure. Even if we assume our samples
differed in the distribution of women in male- versus female-dominated workplaces, it is not
clear that this difference would matter. Specifically, Martin and Phillips (2017) find that gender
blindness ideology leads to greater workplace confidence and action orientation across both
male- and female-dominated workplaces, though the effect is stronger in male-dominated
workplaces. Therefore, if my samples were composed of more women in female-dominated
workplaces than male-dominated workplaces, I should still find the same pattern as Martin and
Phillips (2017). However, I find inconsistent evidence for the opposite pattern, such that gender
awareness ideology led to greater workplace confidence and action orientation than gender
blindness ideology, which would not be influenced by the distribution of women and men in
women’s workplaces.
However, perhaps considering a broader definition of context uncovers a possible
explanation for my inability to replicate Martin and Phillips (2017). Specifically, recent
substantial shifts in cultural and political norms in the United States surrounding gender may
have also shifted women’s interpretations of and preferences for how people should handle
gender differences. While I can only speculate on the changes that occurred between when
Martin and Phillips (2017) conducted their studies and when I conducted the current studies, I
can pinpoint one notable change in the cultural conversation about gender that occurred in the
United States in 2017: the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo movement gained widespread
popularity in October 2017 when an unprecedented number of female actors came forward with
sexual assault allegations against powerful men in Hollywood (North, 2018). The importance of
highlighting women’s differential experience in the workplace, particularly as it relates to

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harassment and assault, may have shifted women’s experience of highlighting and celebrating
gender differences to be more empowering than downplaying and looking past gender
differences. It is important to note, however, that my data suggests that gender awareness is still
considered more sexist than gender blindness (consistent with Martin and Phillips. 2017; Study
2).
Lack of Support for Moderating Role of Gender Identification
There are several possible explanations for the null effects of gender strategies found in
Study 2. First, it is likely that I used a measure to proxy evaluation of stereotypically feminine
traits that was too blunt: gender identification. While social identity theory does suggest that
people most strongly identify with groups they evaluate positively (Schmader, 2002; Tajfel &
Turner, 1986; Turner et al., 1987), it is possible that women with high gender identification may
widely differ in the positive traits they attribute to the group “women.” For example, one woman
may positively evaluate women because she thinks they are stereotypically communal, whereas
another woman may positively evaluate women because she thinks they are stereotypically
assertive. Therefore, gender identification is likely too broad of a measure to capture both the
stereotypes that are affiliated with the group of “women” and the evaluation of these stereotypes.
In addition, it appears that gender identification was more of a proxy for generalized self-esteem
by way of in-group evaluation. There was a decent correlation between gender identification and
workplace confidence, r = .26, p < .001, and some scholars conceptualize group identification as
group self-esteem and indicate that group self-esteem and self-esteem are highly correlated
(Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990; Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). Altogether, it is possible that I would
find my predicted effects with a more specific measure of evaluation of stereotypes than gender

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identification. For example, participants could rate how much they think it is valuable to be
communal, sensitive, and loving (i.e., stereotypically feminine traits).
Second, it is possible that context matters for the effect of gender strategies on women’s
workplace confidence and action orientation, for which I did not account. Indeed, Martin and
Phillips (2017) proposed, and found that, the percentage of women in one’s workplace moderates
the effect of gender ideologies on women’s workplace confidence (see also Apfelbaum et al.,
2016). Whether an organization is male- or female-dominated matters for the effects of gender
ideologies, and potentially for gender strategies, because it determines the day-to-day norms that
women function with and perhaps changes the way they evaluate feminine stereotypes. For
example, a woman may see stereotypically feminine traits positively in general, but not in a
specific work context. Further, context also determines how other people perceive stereotypically
feminine traits, which may actually be more important for determining reactions to gender
strategies than one’s own interpretation of stereotypically feminine traits. For example, a woman
may perceive stereotypically feminine traits positively in general, but perceive that her
coworkers view them negatively, and therefore would not feel that highlighting female
stereotypes is empowering. Indeed, some scholars suggest that situation matters more for
people’s cognitions and behaviors than personal characteristics, especially when a situation is
strong (Beaty, Cleveland, & Murphy, 2001). Therefore, it is possible that contextual factors will
matter more for determining women’s reactions to gender strategies in strong situations, whereas
personal evaluations of stereotypically feminine traits will matter more for determining women’s
reactions to gender strategies in weak situations.
Third, it is possible that gender awareness and blindness strategies do not have an effect
on women’s workplace confidence or action orientation. Theoretically, a null effect of gender

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strategies on women’s confidence, in particular, would be important because it would disconfirm
popular arguments in favor of both difference blindness and awareness strategies more broadly.
While some scholars argue that difference blindness should lead women to feel confident
because it removes the salience of harmful stereotypes (e.g., Gaertner et al., 2000; Martin &
Phillips, 2017; Park & Judd, 2005), and other scholars argue that difference awareness should
lead women to feel confident because it validates underrepresented group members’ identities
(Banks, 2004, Gaertner et al., 2000; Plaut, 2010), it is possible that these strategies do not have a
meaningful effect on underrepresented group members’ feelings of confidence. However, it is
possible that gender strategies affect other measures of empowerment, such as perceived
competence and autonomy, rather than the measure of workplace confidence used by Martin and
Phillips (2017) and in the current chapter. Importantly, a null effect of gender strategies on
women’s empowerment does not necessarily invalidate the potential overall beneficial effect of
gender strategies, as previous research finds that gender awareness may lower bias against
women in comparison to gender blindness (see Sasaki & Vorauer, 2013 for a review).
Future Directions
The current work provides many possible avenues for future research on how gender
awareness and blindness affect women’s empowerment. In particular, my inability to replicate
Martin & Phillips’ (2017) findings indicates that it may be useful for researchers to consider the
possibility that women’s reactions to gender blindness and gender awareness strategies have
changed in recent years. In addition, it would also be useful for researchers to consider additional
factors that determine whether women evaluate feminine stereotypes positively or negatively and
further explore how these evaluations may affect women’s reactions to gender strategies.
Conclusion

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Gender equity is a pressing goal for organizations (Joshi et al., 2015) and some believe
one avenue to eliminating gender inequity is by closing the gender confidence gap (Kay &
Shipman, 2014; McCarty, 1986; Sandberg, 2013). However, as is true with many gender equity
initiatives (Leslie, 2018), gender ideologies and strategies are messy and are not one-size-fits all
solutions to the gender confidence gap. I hope that my efforts in clarifying theory and empirical
approaches to studying these strategies lays a foundation for further work on this topic.

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CHAPTER 3: THE EFFECTS OF GENDER STRATEGIES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL
SAFETY, TEAM COMMUNCATION, AND TEAM PERFORMANCE
It is notoriously difficult to predict the entire range of effects an organizational
intervention will have (Kilmann & Herden, 1976). Organizations develop well-intentioned
strategies for handling their toughest problems, such as creating demographic parity and
effectively managing diversity, then find that their change has spurred a new problem (Leslie,
2018). Organizations frequently engage in myopic thinking when implementing interventions,
often because they do not adequately address every level of impact that interventions might have,
from individual psychological effects to effects on the organization’s bottom line (Kossek,
Hammer, Kelly, & Moen, 2014; Paluck, 2012). For example, consider an organization that
allows employees to work from home to improve employees’ well-being and therefore job
satisfaction and morale. Once employees start working from home, the quantity and quality of
interpersonal interactions may vastly decrease, leading to a lack of social connection and
opportunities for collaboration. Depending on the organization, this outcome could have a
considerably negative effect on organizational performance.
In the current chapter, I propose that gender diversity management strategies are also
likely to bring about unexpected consequences in organizations. I focus specifically on gender
strategies, or prescriptive strategies for how to think about and discuss gender differences in
order to achieve gender equity. Scholars have identified two primary, competing gender
strategies that can plausibly lead to gender equity: gender awareness, defined as encouraging
employees to acknowledge and embrace gender differences, and gender blindness, defined by
encouraging employees to downplay and look past gender differences (Koenig & Richeson,
2010; Martin & Phillips, 2017). I focus on gender awareness and gender blindness to contribute

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to a long debate within social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986)
about how to effectively manage group differences. On one side of the debate, scholars argue
that highlighting differences between groups (e.g., gender, race) is the primary cause of
prejudice, and therefore inequity, because the mere existence of social categories creates in-
group favoritism, outgroup derogation, and intergroup competition that would not exist without
these category differentiations (e.g., Gaertner, Dovidio, Banker, Houlette, Johnson, & McGlynn,
2000; Park & Judd, 2005). On the other side of the debate, scholars argue that downplaying
group differences encourages assimilation to one “superior” group (Plaut, 2010), whereas
highlighting differences encourages privileged group members to understand and value the
unique strengths and contributions of every culture and validates underrepresented group
identities (Banks, 2004; Rosenthal & Levy, 2010; Takaki, 1993).
I propose that organizationally-endorsed gender blindness, in comparison to gender
awareness, reduces individuals’ psychological safety in sharing their thoughts and ideas, which
leads to worse team communication and performance. To develop this argument, I draw on
signaling theory (e.g., Spence, 1973), which investigates how organizational-level initiatives
constitute signals that convey information and meaning to individuals. Building on this insight, I
argue that organizationally-endorsed gender strategies, like other organizational interventions
and change methods, are messy signals that are interpreted in varied ways by employees. In
particular, I contend that gender blindness strategies, which hold that employees should not pay
attention to or talk about gender differences, convey an implicit message that a broad range of
topics and positions may be controversial within the organization. This implication, in turn,
diminishes feelings of psychological safety. Consequently, team communication and

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performance decline as well. In the present chapter, I develop the theoretical foundation for these
predictions, and I test my predictions across three experimental studies.
In doing so, I aim to contribute a fuller understanding of how well-intentioned
organizational interventions may lead to divergent effects across levels of analysis. While gender
blindness may have positive effects for women at an individual-level in comparison to gender
awareness (Martin & Phillips, 2017), it may also lead to deleterious team-level effects, such as
decreased quality of communication and performance. Altogether, my work suggests that
organizations should consider the effects of gender strategies at every level before
implementation, and that they should match gender strategies with their goals. Gender strategies,
like many other diversity initiatives, risk negative spillover on other outcomes that the
organization did not originally intend (Leslie, 2018). Therefore, organizations should understand
how gender strategies affect other important individual, interpersonal, and team outcomes, and
then consider if the spillover consequences facilitate, impede, or have no effect on their goals for
the organization as a whole.
Gender Strategies as Explicit and Implicit Signals
I theorize that gender strategies act as organizational signals, like many organizational
policies, which employees interpret with a great degree of noise. Organizations and
organizational actors send signals, or deliberate communications of information, in an effort to
reduce information asymmetry regarding organizational values, strategy, and other attributes
with valuable stakeholders (Spence, 1973; Suazo, Martinez, & Sandoval, 2009). Generally,
organizations attempt to signal information that reflects favorably on the organization, but
organizations do not have complete control over how their signals are interpreted, and sometimes
signals are interpreted negatively (Connelly, Certo, Ireland, & Reutzel, 2011). For example, an

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organization may choose to increase employees’ work-life benefits to signal to employees that
they are valued, but employees may interpret this action as a signal of future layoffs or of a
“union-busting” campaign (Lambert, 2000). Thus, well-intentioned organizational signals can
often be misinterpreted in unpredictable ways to the detriment of the organization.
By applying signaling theory to gender strategies, I focus on how employees interpret
gender strategies rather than the actual intent of organizations and organizational actors that
adopt gender strategies. Broadly, I theorize that gender strategies convey both strong, explicit
signals and weak, equivocal signals (Suavo, Martinez, & Sandoval, 2009). The strong signals
from gender strategies come directly from how the gender strategies are stated: this organization
either encourages employees to celebrate gender differences or downplay gender differences.
This strong signal clearly will affect how people think and behave in the organization, assuming
it is attended to and abided by, such that people will be more or less willing to highlight the
individual strengths of each gender group or to minimize their use of gender as domain of
categorization for discussion and conversations. However, I am interested in the subsequent
weak signals that emerge from the strong signal of gender strategies, in particular the implicit
messages about an organization’s openness to employees sharing their diverse thoughts and
opinions.
Gender blindness explicitly encourages overlooking gender when perceiving others (i.e.,
not seeing, or being “blind,” to gender). However, gender is a category that is noticed almost
immediately upon first perceiving a person (Ito & Urland, 2003) and that is reliably used to
guide social perceptions (Rosch, 1977). When organizations ask employees to ignore an attribute
that is ubiquitous and top of mind, I propose that employees may infer that they should suppress
their opinions on the topic. In other words, if people are encouraged not to see gender differences

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by a gender blind organization, then employees will infer that talking about gender is likely
discouraged.
Furthermore, by putting limits on attending to and discussing a common topic (i.e.,
gender), I propose that gender blindness conveys an additional implicit message that there may
also be limits on how to discuss other topics within the organization. Employees may feel that
there are rules about how to think and talk about gender that are imposed by the organization,
which may generalize beyond gender to other social issues and perhaps even work-related issues.
Therefore, I propose that gender blindness creates the perception that speaking about gender is
risky and may lead to punishment (whether through organizational channels or through social
disapproval) if the wrong thing is said, which in turn creates the perception that the organization
is not open to all ideas and debate.
The Effects of Gender Strategies on Psychological Safety
The concept of psychological safety captures the perception of risk associated with
speaking freely. Specifically, psychological safety is the perception that employees can take risks
without fear of being negatively evaluated or punished (Edmondson, 1999). Within
organizations, people face fears that they will be seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or
disruptive based on their behavior, such as asking a question or suggesting a new idea. When
employees feel a sense of psychological safety, the fear of criticism and/or embarrassment is
attenuated, which allows employees to engage in riskier interpersonal behaviors such as help
seeking and experimentation (Edmondson, 2002). I argue that gender blindness diminishes
psychological safety by sending the implicit message that an organization and its constituents are
not open to talking about gender freely, and therefore potentially are not open to talking about
other topics freely. If an organization or team is not open to speaking about certain topics freely,

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then employees will perceive greater risk in sharing their ideas because they may be embarrassed
and/or criticized, in comparison to an organization that is open. In contrast, gender awareness
strategies lack this implication; likewise, this implication would also not emerge in teams or
organizations without any gender strategy. Thus, my first hypothesis is that a gender blindness
strategy will lead to lower psychological safety in speaking about gender in comparison to a
gender awareness strategy or no strategy.
H1: A gender blindness strategy will lead to lower psychological safety in speaking about
gender in comparison to a gender awareness strategy or no strategy.
Moreover, consistent with the reasoning explained above, I further expect that a gender
blindness strategy will lead to lower general psychological safety in comparison to a gender
awareness strategy or no strategy and that the negative effect of gender blindness on
psychological safety related to gender will mediate the negative effect of gender blindness on
general psychological safety.
H2: A gender blindness strategy will lead to lower general psychological safety in
comparison to a gender awareness strategy or no strategy.
H3: Psychological safety in talking about gender will mediate the relationship between
gender strategies and general psychological safety.
The Downstream Consequences of Lower Psychological Safety: Vigilance, Impaired
Communication, and Diminished Performance
In addition to fear of speaking freely due to the possibility of negative repercussions,
psychological safety has important behavioral consequences for individual employees and teams.
First, research indicates that lower psychological safety is associated with lower likelihood of
displaying voice behaviors (Detert & Burris, 2007) and sharing one’s ideas (Edmondson,

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Bohmer, & Pisano, 2001) at the individual level. That is, employees who perceive a high
likelihood that they would be evaluated negatively for engaging in risky interpersonal behaviors,
such as speaking up when something is wrong or contributing thoughts about how to best solve a
problem, are less likely to do so than those with higher psychological safety. In addition, lower
team-level psychological safety is associated with lower likelihood of engaging in constructive
conflict (Bradley, Postlethwaite, Klotz, Hamdani, & Brown, 2012) and exhibiting team learning
behaviors (Carmeli, Brueller, & Dutton, 2009; Edmondson, 1999; Edmondson, Bohmer, &
Pisano, 2001). Altogether, this research suggests that lower (vs. higher) psychological safety is
related to being more careful about what one says (i.e., vigilance) and with less communication
among teammates overall. Thus, I further predict that a gender blindness strategy will lead to
greater vigilance of speech and less team communication in comparison to a gender awareness
strategy or no strategy and that these effects will be mediated by psychological safety.
H4: A gender blindness strategy will lead to greater vigilance of speech in comparison to
a gender awareness strategy or no strategy.
H5: A gender blindness strategy will lead to less team communication in comparison to a
gender awareness strategy or no strategy.
H6: Psychological safety will mediate the relationship between gender strategies and
vigilance of speech.
H7: Psychological safety will mediate the relationship between gender strategies and
team communication.
Psychological safety and interpersonal communication both have important implications
for performance. Teams with lower psychological safety perform worse than teams with higher
psychological safety across a wide variety of industries (e.g., Bradley et al., 2012; Carmeli et al.,

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2009; Carmeli & Gitteli, 2009; Edmondson, 1999; Edmondson et al., 2001), and lower
psychological safety within organizations as a whole is affiliated with worse firm performance in
comparison to organizations with high psychological safety (Baer & Frese, 2003). In addition, if
a team does not openly communicate, it faces the negative consequences of lower levels of
productivity (Pearson, 1991), cooperation (Orbell, van de Kragt, & Dawes, 1988), and
innovation (Catmull, 2008; Edmondson. 2003), and therefore worse overall performance
(Dionne, et al., 2004; Gardner, Gino, Staats, 2012; Guzzo & Dickson, 1996; Mesmer-Magnus &
DeChurch, 2009). Thus, I predict that gender blindness will lead to worse team performance
compared to gender awareness or no strategy, and this will be accounted for by less team
communication. Altogether, my model is that gender blindness leads to lower psychological
safety, which leads to less team communication, with ultimately leads to worse team
performance than gender awareness or no strategy.
H8: A gender blindness strategy will lead to worse team performance in comparison to a
gender awareness strategy or no strategy.
H9: Psychological safety and team communication will serially mediate the relationship
between gender strategies and team performance.
Study 1: Online Self-report Study
In Study 1, I investigated the effect of an organization’s adoption of each gender strategy
on participants’ predicted feelings psychological safety speaking about gender, perceptions of the
openness of the organization to diverse thoughts and opinions and debate about ideas (i.e.,
general psychological safety), and vigilance surrounding their speech within the organization. I
manipulated an ostensibly real organization’s (Apex) gender strategy and asked participants to
imagine what it would be like to work at Apex. I predicted that gender blindness would lead to

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lower psychological safety surrounding gender, perceived organizational openness and greater
vigilance than gender awareness or no strategy. I preregistered Study 1 on the Open Science
Framework website: https://osf.io/vn36z/register/5771ca429ad5a1020de2872e.
Participants
In total, 472 participants (33% women, Mage = 34.25) participated through Prolific, an
online recruitment site. Using Prolific’s prescreening tool, I specifically recruited participants
who a) are employed full-time, b) work at a central office (as opposed to work remotely or are
self-employed), c) were born in the United States, and d) currently live in the United States. I
included these specifications because I believe the phenomenon I am studying is particularly
relevant to people raised and currently embedded within the American culture (based on the
cultural movements and conversations surrounding gender in the United States) and people who
work in offices and face questions about how gender influences organizations daily. Per the
preregistration, I excluded participants who failed at least one of two attention checks (n = 68)
and/or failed the comprehension check (n = 19; more explanation below), yielding a final sample
of 385 participants (38% women, Mage = 33.74).
Procedure
Participants completed a survey about how people perceive companies. Participants were
randomly assigned to one of three conditions: control, gender awareness, and gender blindness.
The manipulation asked participants to read a brief article describing an ostensibly real medical
technology company, named Apex, and a new company-wide initiative Apex recently
implemented (based on condition). In the control condition (n = 125), participants read that Apex
launched an operations initiative addressing logistical needs in various locations. In the gender
awareness condition (n = 133), participants read that Apex launched a gender equality initiative

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that encouraged embracing gender differences rather than downplaying them. In the gender
blindness condition (n = 127), participants read that Apex launched a gender equality initiative
that encouraged downplaying gender differences rather than acknowledging them (See Appendix
E: Chapter 3, Study 1 Experimental Manipulations).
After reading the manipulation, participants completed the first attention check (i.e.,
“What is the name of the company that you just read about?”) and a comprehension check (more
information below). Next, participants completed measures of the proposed mediators and
outcome variables, which included the second attention check (i.e., “To ensure you are paying
attention, please select ‘2’ for this item”). Finally, participants completed demographic
questions.
Measures
See Appendix F: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 1 Items.
6

Comprehension check. The comprehension check asked participants to indicate which
one of two initiatives Apex recent started based on what they read (i.e., the manipulation). In the
gender awareness condition, participants chose from: “Initiative to embrace gender differences,”
and, “Initiative to address logistical challenges.” In the gender blindness condition, participants
chose from: “Initiative to downplay gender differences,” and, “Initiative to address logistical
challenges.” In the control condition, participants chose from: “Initiative to have more company
picnics,” and, “Initiative to address logistical challenges.” Comprehension check failure did not
differ based on condition, 
2
(2, N = 404) = 3.11, p = .211.
Psychological safety surrounding gender (gender psychological safety). Participants
rated their agreement with five items adapted from Edmondson’s (1995) Psychological Safety

6
Self-reported uncertainty around what constitutes appropriate speech was also measured in Studies 1 and 3, but it
not reported in the current paper due to space concerns. Please contact the author for more information.

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Scale assessing how safe they would feel talking about gender within Apex on a scale from 1
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 4.08, SD = 1.77,  = .945. Example items include,
“If I worked for Apex, talking about gender would be too risky,” and, “If I worked for Apex,
people might reject me if I said something about gender that they disagree with.”
Perceptions of organizational openness (organizational openness). Participants rated
their agreement with eight items adapted from Tost, Gino, and Larrick (2013) and Amason and
Sapienza (1997) assessing how open Apex is to diverse and novel ideas and debate on a scale
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 4.77, SD = 1.18,  = .917. Example items
include, “Apex is open to new ideas,” and, “Apex encourages dissenting opinions.”
Vigilance of speech (vigilance). Participants rated their agreement with four author-
generated items assessing how attentive they would be to what they say within Apex on a scale
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.07, SD = 1.26,  = .907. Example items
include, “Within Apex, I would be very aware of everything I say,” and, “Within Apex, I would
be careful with the words I use.”
Perception of the initiative. Participants indicated how much they liked the recently
implemented initiative by Apex (either gender awareness, gender blindness, or a vague logistical
strategy based on condition) on three author-generated items on a scale from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.17, SD = 1.61,  = .980. Example items include, “I like
this initiative,” and, “I agree with this initiative.” I included this variable as a possible covariate,
such that participants who like an initiative will have a more positive experience operating under
that initiative than those who do not like the initiative, regardless of the content of the initiative.
Demographics. Participants reported their political ideology, gender identity, age,
race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, transgender status, whether they were born in the United

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States, and their educational attainment. Notably, in the preregistration I suggested that political
ideology could be an important covariate, because previous research finds that political ideology
is correlated with dispositional endorsement of gender blindness and awareness (Hahn et al.,
2015; Martin & Phillips, 2017). Participants indicated their political ideology on a scale from 1
(extremely liberal) to 7 (extremely conservative), M = 3.30, SD = 1.82.
Results
To test my hypotheses, I ran one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with condition as
the predictor for each outcome variable (See Table 1).
7
For significant overall ANOVAs, I report
three sets of planned contrasts: 1) gender awareness versus gender blindness, 2) gender blindness
versus control, and 3) gender awareness versus control. I ran analyses with perceptions of the
initiative and political ideology as covariates, but they do not affect the pattern or level of
significance of the results, so I do not report them here.
Table 1
Univariate Analyses of Variance Results for Study 1

Gender
Psychological
Safety
Organizational
Openness Vigilance

F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p
Main Effect

Condition 17.04*** .082 10.28*** .051 8.06*** .041
*p < .05. **p < .001.
Gender psychological safety. There was a significant main effect of condition on
psychological safety discussing gender, F (2, 382) = 17.04, p < .001, η
2
p = .082 (Figure 1).

7
Some readers may be interested to know that there is a moderating effect of gender of the participant in Study
1. More specifically, the differences between gender awareness versus gender blindness on gender
psychological safety, organizational openness, and vigilance is driven by women, who show much larger
differences on these outcomes than men. However, the moderating effect of gender does not generalize to
Studies 2 or 3.

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Planned contrasts revealed full support for my hypotheses: participants in the gender awareness
condition reported significantly greater gender psychological safety than those in the gender
blindness condition, t (382) = 5.23, p < .001, participants in the gender blindness condition
reported less gender psychological safety than those in the control condition, t (382) = -4.87, p <
.001, and participants in the gender awareness and control conditions did not differ on gender
psychological safety, t (382) = 0.28, p = .777. In other words, gender blindness led to
significantly less psychological safety in talking about gender than gender awareness or no
gender strategy.

Figure 1. Psychological safety discussing gender as a function of condition in Study 1. Higher
values reflect less safety in talking about gender within an organization.

Organizational openness. There was a significant main effect of condition on perceived
organizational openness, F (2,382) = 10.28, p < .001, η
2
p = .051 (Figure 2). Planned contrasts
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Gender Psychological Safety
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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revealed full support for my hypotheses: participants in the gender blindness condition reported
lower perceived openness than those in the gender awareness condition, t (382) = 4.02, p < .001,
participants in the gender blindness condition reported lower perceived openness than those in
the control condition, t (382) = -3.83, p < .001, and participants in the gender awareness and
control conditions did not differ in perceived openness, t (382) = 0.13, p = .899. In other words,
gender blindness led to significantly lower perceptions of organizational openness than gender
awareness or no gender strategy.

Figure 2. Perceived organizational openness as a function of condition in Study 1. Higher values
reflect greater perceived openness of an organization to diverse thoughts and opinions and debate
about ideas.

Vigilance. There was a significant main effect of condition on vigilance, F (2,382) =
8.06, p < .001, η
2
p = .041 (Figure 3). Planned contrasts revealed support for my hypotheses:
4
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.8
4.9
5
5.1
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Organizational Openness
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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participants in the gender blindness condition reported more vigilance than those in the gender
awareness condition, t (382) = -2.23, p = .026, and participants in the gender blindness condition
reported more vigilance than those in the control condition, t (382) = 4.01, p < .001. Though I
predicted that the gender awareness and control conditions would not differ on vigilance,
participants in the gender awareness condition reported marginally more vigilance than those in
the control condition, t (382) = 1.83, p = .067. In other words, gender blindness led to
significantly more vigilance than gender awareness or no gender strategy. Gender awareness did
lead to slightly more vigilance than no gender strategy, but this effect is only marginal.

Figure 3. Vigilance of speech as a function of condition in Study 1. Higher values reflect more
attention and caution used when speaking within an organization.

Mediation models. In addition to my predicted main effects of gender strategy on my
dependent variables, I also hypothesized mediation. Specifically, I predicted that gender
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.8
4.9
5
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Vigilance
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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blindness would 1) lead to lower organizational openness (i.e., general psychological safety)
through lower gender psychological safety, and 2) lead to greater vigilance through lower
organizational openness (i.e., general psychological safety), in comparison to gender awareness
or no strategy. To test my hypotheses, I ran two separate PROCESS Model 4’s (Hayes, 2013),
one with gender psychological safety as the predictor and organizational openness as the
dependent variable and one with organizational openness as the predictor and vigilance as the
dependent variable, using 10,000 bootstrap resamples and specifying 95% confidence intervals
(See Table 2).
Table 2
Mediation Results for Study 1
Indirect Effect
b SEboot 95% CI

Gender Psychological Safety Mediating Condition to
Perceived Openness
-0.17 0.04 [-0.25, -0.10]

Perceived Openness Mediating Condition to Vigilance 0.06 0.02 [0.02, 0.12]

In the first model, I included condition as the independent variable, gender psychological
safety as the mediator, and perceived organizational openness (i.e., general psychological safety)
as the outcome variable. Consistent with my hypothesis, the indirect effect of condition on
organizational openness through gender psychological safety was significant, b = -.170, SEboot =
.038, LLCI = -.2492, ULCI = -.0998, such that gender blindness led to lower organizational
openness through lower gender psychological safety in comparison to gender awareness or no
strategy.
In the second model, I included condition as the independent variable, organizational
openness as the mediator, and vigilance as the outcome variable. Consistent with my hypothesis,
the indirect effect of condition on vigilance through organizational openness was significant, b =

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.066, SEboot = .025, LLCI = .0237, ULCI = .1202, such that gender blindness led to greater
vigilance of speech through lower organizational openness in comparison to gender awareness or
no strategy.
Discussion
I received strong support for my hypotheses in Study 1. I found that gender blindness
leads to less psychological safety in talking about gender, less perceived openness of the
organization to diverse opinions, new ideas, and debate (i.e., general psychological safety), and
more vigilance about what one is saying within an organization compared to gender awareness or
no strategy. Gender awareness and no strategy did not differ on gender psychological safety and
organizational openness, though gender awareness led to marginally more vigilance than control.
Study 2: Online Behavioral Study
In Study 1, I found preliminary support for my prediction that organizations that endorse
gender blindness are perceived as less safe for talking about gender and less open than
organizations that endorse gender awareness or no gender strategy. In Study 2, I attempted to
build on Study 1 in two ways. First, I sought to rule out the alternative explanation that telling
people to avoid anything (for example, other types of differences between people) elicits lower
feelings of safety and perceptions of openness in comparison to gender awareness, rather than
this effect being specific to gender blindness. Therefore, I added another experimental condition
identical to gender blindness, except it encouraged looking past political differences rather than
gender differences.
Second, I added a behavioral measure of the relative desirability of interacting in contexts
that endorse gender awareness versus gender blindness versus political blindness. More
specifically, I asked participants to report how much money they would have to be paid to

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engage in a hypothetical one-hour team discussion in which team norms encouraged gender
blindness, gender awareness, political blindness, or no strategy (i.e., control). I reasoned that
asking for more money to engage in the conversation indicates a lower willingness to engage in
the team discussion. Given that individuals are less inclined to engage in conversations that make
them uncomfortable (e.g., Zúñiga, Nagda, Chesler, & Cytron-Walker, 2007), I used the amount
of money required to participate in the team discussion is a behavioral measure of feelings of
psychological safety. I also included a self-report measure of interest in engaging in the team
discussion.
Altogether, I predicted that participants who imagined engaging in a team discussion in
which gender blindness was the encouraged norm would report lower predicted psychological
safety and interest in engaging in the team discussion, and greater predicted vigilance of speech
and required money to participate in the team discussion, than participants who imagined
engaging in a team discussion in which gender awareness or political blindness was the
encourage norm or compared to those in the control group. I preregistered Study 2 on the Open
Science Framework website: https://osf.io/2y8kf/register/564d31db8c5e4a7c9694b2be.
8

Participants
In total, 555 participants (53% women, Mage = 32.50) participated through Prolific, an
online recruitment site. An initial estimate of required sample size came from a power analysis
using the effect size of condition on organizational openness from Study 1, because it is the
closest dependent variable to the dependent variables included in Study 2. The effect size of
condition on organizational openness was d = .46, and combined with the goal of 95% power and

8
I ran an almost identical version of Study 2 first and found that there was an unexpectedly large rate of
comprehension check failures (22%). Therefore, I strengthened the manipulation and ran the current Study 2. The
preregistration for the initial study is here: https://osf.io/x2sw4/register/5771ca429ad5a1020de2872e.

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an allocation ration of 1, the power analysis yielded a goal of 101 observations per condition. I
increased the goal sample size to 550 in Study 2 based on previous studies indicating the
potential for a large number of comprehension check failures (see Footnote 8).
Using Prolific’s prescreening tool, I specifically recruited participants who a) were born
in the United States, b) currently live in the United States, and c) did not participate in Study 1.
Per the preregistration, I excluded five participants who failed the attention check (i.e., “To
ensure you are paying attention, please select ‘3’ for this item”) and 21 participants who failed
the comprehension check (explained below), yielding a final sample of 529 participants (53%
women, Mage = 32.41).
Procedure
Participants completed a survey about people’s perception of images and interest in an
upcoming paid focus group opportunity. As a cover story, participants first rated six random
images (e.g., hose, lamp, stack of paper) in terms of how interesting and familiar they were to
gain information for a future study. Next, participants read that our research group planned on
running a one-hour, online, and paid group discussion about creating a productivity app for smart
phones in the future. Participants read that our research group wanted to gauge interest in this
opportunity. Based on randomly assigned condition, participants either read 1) no additional
information about the research group (i.e., control, n = 139), 2) that the research group
encouraged all group discussion participants to embrace and celebrate gender differences (i.e.,
gender awareness condition, n = 128), 3) that the research group encouraged all group discussion
participants to downplay and look past gender differences (i.e., gender blindness condition, n =
131), or 4) that the research group encouraged all group discussion participants to downplay and

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look past political differences (i.e., political blindness condition, n = 131). See Appendix G:
Chapter 3, Study 2 Experimental Manipulations.
Participants then reported their predicted psychological safety and vigilance of speech
during the group discussion, and their interest in participating and the amount of money required
to participate in the group discussion. Finally, participants reported demographic information,
including political orientation, and two additional possible covariates: perception of the research
group norms and extroversion.
Measures
See Appendix H: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 2 Items.
Comprehension check. The comprehension check asked participants to indicate which
of three statements about the research group is true based on what they read (i.e., the
manipulation). Participants in the control condition did not get a comprehension check, because
they read no additional information about the research group (in the original version of Study 2,
control participants did get a comprehension check and were dumbfounded by it; see Footnote
8). In the gender awareness and gender blindness conditions, participants chose from: “We
encourage individuals to downplay gender differences.” “We encourage individuals to embrace
gender differences,” and “None of the above.” In the political blindness condition, participants
chose from: “We encourage individuals to downplay gender differences.” “We encourage
individuals to downplay political differences,” and “None of the above.” Comprehension check
failure did not differ based on condition, 
2
(2, N = 411) = 0.32, p = .853.
Psychological safety. Participants rated their agreement with seven items adapted from
Edmondson’s (1995) Psychological Safety Scale assessing how safe they would feel during the
group discussion from 1 (very inaccurate) to 7 (very accurate), M = 5.01, SD = 1.00,  = .774.

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Example items include, “People would be able to bring up problems and tough issues during the
discussion,” and, “If you made a mistake during the discussion, it would be held against you”
(reverse-coded).
Vigilance of speech (vigilance). Participants rated their agreement with four author-
generated items assessing how attentive they would be to what they say during the group
discussion on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.56, SD = 1.15,  =
.887. Example items include, “I would be very aware of everything I say,” and, “I would be
careful with the words I use.”
Self-reported interest in the group discussion (self-reported interest). On one item,
participants indicate their interest in participating in the one-hour, online, paid group discussion
on a scale from 1 to 10, M = 6.81, SD = 2.95, Range: 1-10.
Behavioral measure of interest in the group discussion (money required).
Participants indicated the amount of money they would like our research group to pay them in
order to participate in the one-hour, online discussion about creating a new app, M = 1,923.38,
SD = 43,476.84, Range: 1-1,000,000. Per the preregistration, I excluded outliers from this
variable, defined as +/- 3 standard deviations from the mean. Therefore, 41 data points were
excluded (any points equal to or greater than 85) to create the final variable, M = 24.66, SD =
17.74, Range: 1-80. Participants did not receive a range or point of reference for this money
estimate.
Perception of norm. Participants indicated how much they liked the norm encouraged
by our research group (either gender awareness, gender blindness, or political blindness based on
condition) on three author-generated items on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly
agree), Mgender awareness = 5.79, SDgender awareness = 1.39, gender awareness = .973; Mgender blindness = 5.13,

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SDgender blindness = 1.75, gender blindness = .973; Mpolitical blindness = 5.55, SDpolitical blindness = 1.68, political
blindness = .970. I created one single variable to capture perception of the norm across conditions,
M = 5.49, SD = 1.64. I included this item as a possible covariate, such that participants who like
a norm will have a more positive experience operating under those norms than those who do not
like the norm, regardless of the content of the norm.
Extroversion. Participants indicated how accurate 10 personality characteristics related
to extroversion and introversion are of them from Goldberg (1992) on a scale from 1 (extremely
inaccurate) to 9 (extremely accurate), M = 5.40, SD = 1.61,  = .915. I included this item as a
possible covariate, because more extroverted participants may require less money to engage in
the group discussion than more introverted participants, regardless of the norms encouraged by
the research group (i.e., condition).
Demographics. Participants reported their political ideology, gender identity, age,
race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, transgender status, educational attainment, household income,
and years of work experience. Notably, in the preregistration I suggested that political ideology
could be an important covariate, because previous research finds that political ideology is
correlated with dispositional endorsement of gender blindness and awareness (Hahn et al., 2015;
Martin & Phillips, 2017). Participants indicated their political ideology on a scale from 1
(extremely liberal) to 7 (extremely conservative), M = 3.00, SD = 1.58.
Results
To test my hypotheses, I ran one-way ANOVAs with condition as the predictor for each
outcome variable (See Table 3). For all ANOVAs, I report five sets of planned contrasts: 1)
gender awareness versus gender blindness, 2) gender awareness versus political blindness, 3)
gender blindness versus political blindness, 4) gender awareness versus control, and 5) gender

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blindness versus control. I ran analyses with perceptions of the norm, political ideology, and
extroversion as covariates, but they do not affect the pattern or level of significance of the
results, so I do not report them here.

Table 3
Univariate Analyses of Variance Results for Study 2

Psychological
Safety Vigilance
Self-reported
Interest
Money
Required

F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p F η
2
p
Main Effect

Condition 3.67* .021 2.49
+
.014 0.90 .005 0.56 .004
+
p < .10. *p < .05.

Psychological safety. There was a significant main effect of condition on psychological
safety, F (3, 525) = 3.67, p = .012, η
2
p = .021 (Figure 4). However, planned contrasts did not
reveal support for my hypotheses. There were two significant contrasts: first, participants in the
gender awareness condition reported greater anticipated psychological safety during the group
discussion than participants in the control condition, t (525) = 2.94, p = .003, and second,
participants in the gender awareness condition reported greater anticipated psychological safety
during the group discussion than participants in the political blindness condition, t (525) = 2.68,
p = .008. There were no other significant or marginal contrasts, ts <+/- 1.61, ps > .108.

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Figure 4. Psychological safety as a function of condition in Study 2. Higher values reflect greater
feelings of safety and comfort anticipated during the group discussion.

Vigilance. There was a marginal main effect of condition on vigilance, F (3, 525) = 2.49,
p = .060, η
2
p = .014 (Figure 5). However, planned contrasts did not reveal support for my
hypotheses. There were two significant contrasts: first, participants in the political blindness
condition reported greater anticipated vigilance during the group discussion than participants in
the gender blindness condition, t (525) = 2.34, p = .019, and second, participants in the political
blindness condition reported greater anticipated vigilance during the group discussion than
participants in the gender awareness condition, t (525) = 2.194, p = .029. There were no other
significant or marginal contrasts, ts <+/- 1.61, ps > .109.
4.6
4.7
4.8
4.9
5
5.1
5.2
5.3
Control Gender
Awareness
Gender
Blindness
Political
Blindness
Psychological Safety
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness
Political Blindness

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106

Figure 5. Vigilance as a function of condition in Study 2. Higher values reflect greater
anticipated caution about what one says during the group discussion.

Self-reported interest. The main effect of condition on self-reported interest was not
significant, F (3, 525) = 0.90, p = .442, η
2
p = .005 (Figure 6). There were no significant or
marginal contrasts, ts <+/- 1.49, ps > .136.
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
Control Gender
Awareness
Gender
Blindness
Political
Blindness
Vigilance
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness
Political Blindness

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107

Figure 6. Self-reported interest in the group discussion as a function of condition in Study 2.
Higher values reflect greater interest in participating in the group discussion.

Money required. The main effect of condition on money required was not significant, F
(3, 525) = 0.69, p = .560, η
2
p = .004 (Figure 7). There were no significant or marginal contrasts,
ts <+/- 1.40, ps > .162.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Control Gender
Awareness
Gender
Blindness
Political
Blindness
Self-reported Interest
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness
Political Blindness

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108

Figure 7. Money required to participate in the group discussion as a function of condition in
Study 2. Higher values reflect more money required to participate, which may reflect less interest
in participating or greater anticipated difficulty or discomfort during the discussion.

Discussion
In Study 2, I failed to find support for my hypotheses. While I did find that gender
awareness led to greater anticipated psychological safety during the group discussion than no
strategy or a political blindness strategy, I did not find that gender blindness led to lower
anticipated psychological safety than gender awareness or no strategy. Further, I found that
participants anticipated greater vigilance of speech in the political blindness condition than both
the gender awareness and gender blindness conditions. I did not find any differences in the self-
reported measure or behavioral measure of interest in engaging in the conversation. While these
results are difficult to interpret, it is possible that 1) political blindness affects psychological
safety and vigilance in a similar way that I predict gender blindness does but perhaps to a
21
21.5
22
22.5
23
23.5
24
24.5
25
25.5
26
Control Gender
Awareness
Gender
Blindness
Political
Blindness
Money Required
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness
Political Blindness

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109
stronger degree, and 2) the self-reported and behavioral measures of interest in engaging in the
conversation do not reflect differences in predicted psychological safety and vigilance.
Study 3: Lab Study
Across two studies, I found inconsistent evidence for my hypotheses that gender
blindness would lead to lower psychological safety and greater vigilance of speech than gender
awareness or no strategy. In an attempt to replicate the support for my hypotheses that I found in
Study 1 in a more interactive setting, I ran an in-person, interactive study in the laboratory for
Study 3. More specifically, I randomly assigned teams of four participants to make a team
decision under norms of gender awareness, gender blindness, or a vague ethical strategy (i.e.,
control). Further, in Study 3 I test my full proposed model by testing the effect of gender
strategies on team-level outcomes, namely team communication and performance in addition to
the individual-level outcomes of psychological safety, perceived team openness, and vigilance of
speech. I specifically predicted that participants on teams using gender blindness would report
lower psychological safety and team openness and greater vigilance compared to those on teams
using gender awareness or the ethical strategy. Further, I predicted that gender blind teams would
exhibit less communication and worse performance than gender aware or control teams. I
preregistered Study 3 on the Open Science Framework website:
https://osf.io/fbgqj/register/5771ca429ad5a1020de2872e.
Participants
In total, 508 undergraduate business students (49% women, Mage = 20.54) participated for
course credit. I did not use any recruitment exclusions to maximize sample size. Students
participated in teams of four, yielding 127 teams in total. Three teams (12 participants) were
excluded from analyses because not all four participants finished the study due to illness or

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having participated twice. Of the remaining 496 participants, I followed the preregistration plan
by excluding participants that failed one of the two attention checks (n = 3) and or the
comprehension check (n = 37; explained below) from individual-level analyses, yielding a final
sample of 443 participants (51% women, Mage = 20.44)
9
, and teams in which more than two of
the four participants failed the comprehension check from team-level analyses (n = 1), yielding a
final sample of 123 teams.
Procedure
Participants came into the lab in teams of four. Participants completed a Hidden Profiles
Task (McLeod, 2002), in which they were asked to decide which one of three companies was the
best investment for ACME, Inc. (a made-up investment firm) to acquire. A Hidden Profiles Task
is called such because participants are given some “hidden” information individually before they
engage in a team discussion to make a team decision. In this case, participants received packets
of information about the three companies (Company A, B, and C), in which much of the
information was shared, but there was also some information about the companies that were
unique to each participants’ packet. For example, all participants read that Company C is in a
mature industry, but only one of the four participants read that the market for Company A is
expected to grow in the future. If participants relied only on their shared information during the
team discussion, then the team would likely make the incorrect choice of Company B. However,
if participants adequately shared their unique information, then the team would likely make the
correct choice of Company A. Therefore, teams that had the most amount of communication and
fleshed out all of the information each team member had were more likely to succeed.

9
The number of attention check failures did not differ based on condition, 
2
(1, N = 496) = 1.86, p = .762, though
number of manipulation check failures was predicted by condition, 
2
(1, N = 480) = 14.48, p = .001. Seven
participants failed the manipulation check in the control condition, seven failed in the gender awareness condition,
and 23 failed in the gender blindness condition.

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When participants came to the laboratory, the experimenter told them they would assume
the role of the top management team of ACME and were tasked with deciding which one of
three companies ACME should acquire. Participants were split into four separate rooms, where
they had 15 minutes to read their packet of information about the three companies (containing
both shared and unique, “hidden” information) and make their personal recommendation for
which company ACME should acquire.
The experimenter then led participants into one room altogether, where they read a
Human Resources (HR) memo which contained the manipulation. Teams were randomly
assigned to one of three conditions: control (nparticipants = 154, nteams = 41), gender awareness
(nparticipants = 150, nteams = 40), and gender blindness (nparticipants = 139, nteams = 42). The HR memo
ostensibly described an updated cultural values statement of ACME. In the control condition, the
HR memo stated that ACME was encouraging ethical leadership. In the gender awareness
condition, the HR memo stated that ACME was encouraging employees to celebrate gender
differences. In the gender blindness condition, the HR memo stated that ACME was encouraging
employees to downplay gender differences. See Appendix I: Chapter 3, Study 3 Experimental
Manipulations.
After reading the manipulation, participants engaged in a 15-minute team discussion to
make a final team decision about which company ACME should acquire. The experimenter told
participants that there must be consensus agreement on their decision. After teams submitted
their team recommendation, they completed a questionnaire comprised of measures of the
proposed mediators and outcome variables, which included two attention checks (e.g., “To
ensure you are paying attention, please select ‘2’ for this item”) and a comprehension check
(more information below). Finally, participants completed demographic questions.

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Measures
See Appendix J: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 3 Items.
Psychological safety. Participants rated their agreement with seven items adapted from
Edmondson’s (1995) Psychological Safety Scale assessing how safe they felt sharing their ideas
during the team discussion on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.74,
SD = 0.69,  = .670. Example items include, “Members of this team were able to bring up
problems and tough issues,” and “If you made a mistake on this team, it would have been held
against you” (reverse-coded).
Perceived team openness (team openness). Participants rated their agreement with eight
items adapted from Tost, Gino, and Larrick (2013) and Amason and Sapienza (1997) assessing
how open their team was to diverse and novel ideas and debate on a scale from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.75, SD = 0.80,  = .867. Example items include, “My
team was open to new ideas,” and, “My team encouraged dissenting opinions.”
Vigilance of speech (vigilance). Participants rated their agreement with four author-
generated items assessing how attentive they were to what they said in their team on a scale from
1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), M = 5.36, SD = 1.02,  = .838. Example items
include, “When working on this team I was very aware of everything I said,” and, “When
working on this team I was very careful with the words I used.”
Self-reported team communication (team communication). Participants completed a
“memory quiz” about the information that was shared during the team discussion based on a
similar measure from Tost and colleagues (2013). The memory quiz consisted of 14 true or false
questions about information that was unique to each participant (eight questions, two per
individual), information that was partially shared among some participants (two questions), and

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information that was shared by all participants (four questions). To measure self-reported team
communication, I summed the amount of unique information that was shared (i.e., marked
“true”) for each participant, M = 2.23, SD = 1.42, Range: 0-6. Then, I aggregated self-reported
team communication across team members, M = 2.23, SD = 1.53, Range: 0-6.
Team performance. Upon completion of the hidden profiles task, the experimenter
marked whether teams chose to invest in Company A, B, or C. Teams that chose the correct
answer (Company A) received a 1 for team performance, whereas teams that chose an incorrect
answer (Company B or C) received a 0 for team performance, M = 0.46, SD = 0.50.
Comprehension check. To ensure the HR memo manipulation was effective,
participants responded to the question, “ACME recently started a new initiative, what was the
initiative?” Participants could choose “initiative to downplay gender differences,” “initiative to
embrace gender differences,” or “initiative to promote ethical behavior among employees,”
which match on to the gender blindness, gender awareness, and control conditions respectively.
Perception of initiative. Participants indicated how much they liked the new initiative
implemented by ACME (either leading ethically, gender awareness, or gender blindness based
on condition) on three author-generated items on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly
agree), M = 5.46, SD = 1.22,  = .946. Example items include, “I like this initiative,” and, “I
agree with this initiative.” I included this variable as a possible covariate, such that participants
who like an initiative will have a more positive experience operating under that initiative than
those who do not like the initiative, regardless of the content of the initiative.
Demographics. Participants reported their gender identity, age, race/ethnicity, whether
they were born in the United States, sexual orientation, and political ideology. Notably, in the
preregistration I suggested that 1) gender composition of the team (i.e., percentage of women on

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the team), and 2) political ideology could be important covariates. First, I suggested the team
gender composition could be a possible covariate because participants’ comfort with speaking
about gender differences may be influenced by the number of women relative to men on the
team. I created a continuous gender composition variable by coding the percentage of women in
each team from 0 (no women) to 100 (all women), M = 49.80, SD = 25.10. I also suggested that
political ideology could be an important covariate, because previous research finds that political
ideology is correlated with dispositional endorsement of gender blindness and awareness (Hahn
et al., 2015; Martin & Phillips, 2017). Participants indicated their political ideology on a scale
from 1 (extremely liberal) to 7 (extremely conservative), M = 3.54, SD = 1.32.
Results
I conducted two separate sets of analyses. First, I tested whether condition affected
individual-level psychological safety, team openness, and vigilance using multilevel modelling. I
ran three separate two-level models in which participants’ outcomes (level 1 variable) were
nested within teams (level 2 variable). I effect coded condition (level 2 variable) as the predictor
(comparison 1: -1 = gender awareness, 1 = gender blindness, comparison 2: -1 = control, 1 =
gender awareness, and comparison 3: -1 = control, 1 = gender blindness). I controlled for
individual-level perception of the initiative (mean-centered; level 1 variable), because it
significantly influenced results for all outcomes.
10
I used a variance component covariance
matrix, specified a random intercept only, and estimated effect size with semi-partial R
2
(Edwards, Muller, Wolfinger, Qaqish, & Schabenberger, 2008). Based on large intraclass
correlation coefficients (ICCs) for the central dependent variables of interest (ρs > 0.48), it would

10
I also tested whether group gender composition and individual political orientation affected outcomes, but they
were non-significant and did not change the pattern or level of significance of results but for one exception. Group-
level gender composition was a significant covariate for the gender awareness versus gender blindness comparison
on individual-level vigilance, but this did not change the significance level of the effect of condition on vigilance.

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not be statistically sound to aggregate individual responses to the team level because
participants’ responses were not independent of each other based on team.
Second, I tested whether condition affected team-level communication and performance.
I ran a multivariate ANOVA to examine the effect of condition on team communication. For
team performance, I ran a binomial logistic regression because team performance is a
dichotomous outcome (0 = incorrect, 1 = correct). For all team-level analyses, I tested three
comparisons: 1) gender awareness versus gender blindness, 2) control versus gender awareness,
and 3) control versus gender blindness.
11

Individual-level results. See Tables 4-6 for results.

Table 4
Multilevel Model Analyses for Gender Awareness versus Gender Blindness in Study 3

Psychological Safety Team Openness Vigilance

t Semi-
partial
R
2

t Semi-
partial
R
2

t Semi-
partial
R
2

Main Effect

Perception of policy 4.84*** .076 4.28*** .063 4.55*** .067

Condition 2.36* .064 1.10 .014 1.43 .007
*p < .05. ***p < .001.

11
I did not include any covariates in this model because 1) team gender composition did not impact any outcomes,
and 2) there were large ICCs for both perceptions of the initiative and political ideology, ρs > 0.51).

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Table 5
Multilevel Model Analyses for Control versus Gender Awareness in Study 3

Psychological Safety Team Openness Vigilance

t Semi-
partial
R
2

t Semi-
partial
R
2

t Semi-
partial
R
2

Main Effect

Perception of policy 5.93*** .104 7.31*** .155 5.65*** .096

Condition -1.74
+
.038 -1.11 .015 -0.96 .012
+
p < .10. ***p < .001.

Table 6
Multilevel Model Analyses for Control versus Gender Blindness in Study 3

Psychological Safety Team Openness Vigilance

t Semi-
partial
R
2

t Semi-
partial
R
2

t Semi-
partial
R
2

Main Effect

Perception of policy 4.65*** .071 5.45*** .095 3.63*** .044

Condition 0.84 .009 0.70 .006 0.42 .002
***p < .001.

Psychological safety. Opposing my predictions, participants in the gender blindness
condition reported greater psychological safety than participants in the gender awareness
condition, b = 0.10, SE = .04, t (81.76) = 2.36, p = .021, semi-partial R
2
= 0.064, 95% CI [0.02,
0.18]. Further, participants in the control condition reported marginally greater psychological
safety than participants in the gender awareness condition, b = -0.07, SE = .04, t (76.76) = -1.74,
p = .087, semi-partial R
2
= 0.038, 95% CI [-0.16, 0.01]. Finally, there was not a significant

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difference in psychological safety between the control and gender blindness conditions, t (73.67)
= 0.84, p = .405 (See Figure 8).

Figure 8. General psychological safety as a function of condition in Study 3. Higher values
reflect greater individual-level psychological safety.

Team openness. Opposing my predictions, there was no difference between participants
in the gender blindness and gender awareness conditions in team openness, b = 0.06, SE = .06, t
(82.96) = 1.10, p = .275, semi-partial R
2
= 0.014, 95% CI [-0.05, 0.18]. There were also no
significant differences in team openness between the control and gender awareness conditions or
the control and gender blindness conditions, ts < +/- 1.12, ps > .270 (see Figure 9).
5
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
5.9
6
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Psychological Safety
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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Figure 9. Perceived team openness as a function of condition in Study 3. Higher values reflect
greater individual-level perceptions of team openness.

Vigilance. Opposing my predictions, there was no difference between participants in the
gender blindness and gender awareness conditions on vigilance, b = 0.08, SE = .06, t (286.00) =
1.43, p = .154, semi-partial R
2
= 0.007, 95% CI [-0.03, 0.20]. There were also no significant
differences in vigilance between the control and gender awareness conditions or the control and
gender blindness conditions, ts < +/- 0.97, ps > .342 (See Figure 10).
5
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
5.9
6
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Team Openness
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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Figure 10. Vigilance of speech as a function of condition in Study 3. Higher values reflect more
attention and caution used when speaking during the team discussion.

Team-level results. See Tables 7 and 8 for results.

Table 7
Multivariate ANOVA Analyses Predicting Team Communication by Condition in Study 3

Team Communication
Overall Effect
F η
2
p

0.24 .004
Comparisons
t p
Awareness vs. Blindness
0.60 .548

Control vs. Awareness -0.58 .560
Control vs. Blindness 0.02 .983

4
4.2
4.4
4.6
4.8
5
5.2
5.4
5.6
5.8
6
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Vigilance
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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Table 8
Binomial Regression Predicting Team Performance by Condition in Study 3
Team Performance

b p
Overall Effect
-0.32 .157
Comparisons

Awareness vs. Blindness
-0.28 .526

Control vs. Awareness -0.49 .202
Control vs. Blindness -0.63 .157

Team communication. There was not a significant main effect of condition on team
communication, F(2, 120) = 0.24, p = .790, p
2
= .004. There were no significant or marginal
comparisons across conditions, ts < +/- 0.61, ps > .547 (See Figure 11).

Figure 11. Team communication as a function of condition in Study 3. Higher values reflect
more unique information discussed at the team-level.

1.95
2
2.05
2.1
2.15
2.2
2.25
2.3
2.35
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Team Communication
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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Team performance. There was not a significant main effect of condition on team
performance, b = -0.32, SE = 0.22, χ2(1) = 0.01, p = .157, Nagelkerke R
2
= .022, 95% CI [0.47,
1.13]. There were no significant or marginal comparisons across conditions, bs < +/- 0.64, ps >
.158 (See Figure 12).

Figure 12. Team performance as a function of condition in Study 3. Higher values reflect a
greater proportion of teams who chose the best company in which to invest.

Discussion
In Study 3, I again failed to support my hypotheses. Interestingly, I found evidence
directly opposing my hypotheses, such that participants working under a gender blindness norm
reported significantly greater psychological safety, and participants in the control condition
reported marginally greater psychological safety than those in the gender awareness condition. I
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
Control Gender Awareness Gender Blindness
Team Performance
Control
Gender Awareness
Gender Blindness

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did not find any additional effects of condition on psychological safety, team openness,
vigilance, team communication, or team performance.
General Discussion
Overall, I found inconsistent, and sometime contradictory, evidence for my prediction
that gender blindness leads to lower psychological safety and perceived team openness, greater
vigilance, less team communication, and worse team performance than gender awareness or no
strategy. While I found strong, full support that gender blindness led to lower psychological
safety and perceived team openness and greater vigilance compared to gender awareness and a
control group in Study 1, the subsequent studies revealed either no differences between gender
blindness versus gender awareness or a control group on these constructs (Study 2) or that
gender blindness led to greater psychological safety than gender awareness and no difference
between a control group (Study 3). I also did not find any evidence that gender strategy affected
team communication or performance. It is difficult to draw conclusions about why the results
were inconsistent across the three current studies due to vast differences in methodology. I
employed different methodologies to increase the external generalizability and validity of my
findings, thus trading off the ability to precisely identify the cause of the differences in results.
My original theorizing focused on the discomfort that may arise when attempting to look
past gender differences (as advocated by a gender blindness strategy), but I did not theorize
about the potential effects of embracing gender differences (as advocated by a gender awareness
strategy). In retrospect, my theoretical rationale is not inconsistent with the notion that gender
awareness may induce an increase in psychological safety because it makes conversations about
gender easier and more comfortable by virtue of validating the utility of discussing gender.
Indeed, such a notion is consistent with the finding from Study 2 in which participants in the

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gender awareness condition reported greater anticipated psychological safety than those in the
control condition. However, I also found evidence that gender awareness was detrimental to
psychological safety in comparison to gender blindness in Study 3. In summary, I found
inconsistent effects of gender awareness across studies. The reasons for this inconsistency
remain unclear and can therefore point the direction for future avenues of inquiry in this domain
of study.
Limitations and Future Directions
There are at least three limitations with the current research program related to
inconsistent samples across studies. First, I recruited only participants who were born and
currently lived in the United States for Studies 1 and 2, but I opened recruitment to participants
born across the world, but currently lived in the U.S., in Study 3. As I state in Study 1, my
rationale for recruiting participants born and living in the U.S. was that gender is a culturally
bound construct that takes on different meanings in different regions of the world. In addition,
the participants in Studies 1 and 2 were adults (average age across studies = 33.08) with full time
jobs, whereas the participants in Study 3 were undergraduate students with relatively little work
experience (average age = 20.44). The interpretation of gender differences, and particularly the
comfort in highlighting or downplaying gender differences, is likely affected by time of life and
context. More specifically, I speculate that highlighting gender differences may feel more
unpleasant 1) to younger people who are more resistant to traditional gender stereotypes and
roles in comparison to older individuals (Schwabel, 2017), and 2) in a university setting, which is
an increasingly female-dominated context where women typically stand on equal ground or are
the high performing group (Bidwell, 2018), compared to a biomedical engineering work setting
(i.e., the context from the vignette in Study 1) which is likely to be perceived as male-dominated

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and where women face problems like bias. Future research may choose to explore nationality,
time of life, and work context as potential moderators of the effect of gender strategies on
psychological safety, team communication, and team performance.
Another limitation is the lack of realism involved in the studies conducted. Studies 1 and
2 were both hypothetical situations, in which participants imagined what it would be like to
interact within a certain context and then predicted how they might feel. While Study 3
attempted to improve upon this limitation by creating a face-to-face team interaction, it was still
an imagined scenario in which undergraduate students had to imagine what it would be like to
make an acquisition decision on a top management team with which none of the participants had
direct prior experience. Future research on gender strategies may benefit from conducting
research in field settings to improve the validity of the experience of gender strategies. For
example, researchers may conduct a field experiment in which they manipulate gender strategies
across work teams or departments, or they may measure managers’ self-reported endorsement of
gender blindness versus awareness strategies and measure their subordinate teams’ psychological
safety, communication, and performance.
Conclusion
Despite the potential benefits, gender equity initiatives in organizations can yield
unintended negative consequences (Leslie, 2018). Gender blindness and gender awareness
strategies have gained traction as options to reduce bias toward and empower women (e.g.,
Apfelbaum et al., 2016; Koenig & Richeson, 2010; Martin & Phillips, 2017), but these
approaches may also carry the risk of negative spillover to other important outcomes in
organizations. In the current research, while I find inconsistent patterns, I do find that gender
strategies affect anticipated and experienced psychological safety. These findings suggest that

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organizations should understand the effects of gender strategies at team levels in addition to
individual and dyadic levels before implementing them.

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CHAPTER 4: CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Across five studies investigating the effects of gender ideologies and gender strategies on
multiple dependent variables at two separate levels of analysis, I was unable to uncover a
consistent pattern of empirical relationships among the central variables in these studies. The
lack of cohesion across the current studies is interesting considering 1) the strong, consistent
effects that Martin and Phillips (2017) found of gender ideologies, and 2) the strong, consistent
effects I found across outcomes in Study 1 of Chapter 3. Given the prevalence of gender equity
initiatives in organizations (Huang, 2017), it is crucial that further research examine the potential
underlying factors that explain these divergent findings. The moderating role of team,
organizational, and societal context may be critical to this endeavor.
First, the political climate surrounding gender in the United States may have played a role
in my inability to replicate Martin and Phillips’ (2017) findings. Specifically, due to the 2016
election of Donald Trump, as well as the emergence of the #MeToo movement, the political
climate regarding gender issues changed dramatically between when Martin and Phillips (2017)
likely ran their studies (presumably 2016 or earlier) and when I ran mine (2018 and 2019). It is
quite plausible that these dramatic shifts in the cultural conversation around gender could affect
the way women interpret the substantive meaning and likely implementation of different gender
strategies. In particular, gender awareness may be increasing in its normativity, particularly
within the United States. Consequently, it could be fascinating for future research to measure
shifts in the people’s preference for gender differences being highlighted versus downplayed
based on major cultural movements, political regimes, scandals in the popular press, and other
publicized events that may change how people perceive gender. What determines whether
women and men prefer gender blindness or awareness ideology is an open question that could

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help inform the climate of social interaction and communication surrounding gender more
broadly.
In Chapter 3, I identify differences in the participants (i.e., nationality, age) and the type
of environment (i.e., biotech firm vs. college campus) as potential factors that may have altered
the pattern of effects of gender strategies on psychological safety across studies. Based on these
observations, it may be fruitful for future research to explore both individual-level and team-
level moderators of the effects of gender strategies on team-level outcomes. Further, I encourage
future research to study gender strategies in field settings to increase the external validity of
research in this area. Asking participants to imagine what it is like to interact under norms of
gender blindness versus awareness may yield much weaker effects on psychological safety, team
communication, and team performance, than the real-time experience of gender strategies.
Altogether, the mixed nature of these findings should stand as a strong cautionary signal
to organizations that they should refrain from implementing gender blindness or awareness
strategies based on early and preliminary evidence. In particular, while there is preliminary
evidence that gender awareness reduces bias against women compared to gender blindness
(Nichol, 2011; Malicke, 2013), this research was conducted at least six years ago when the
cultural conversation surrounding gender was different. Moreover, while there is preliminary
evidence that gender blindness promotes confidence and agency among women, I was not able to
replicate that finding in my studies, an outcome that calls the robustness of those findings into
question (Martin & Phillips, 2017). Rather than implementing these strategies in the absence of
clear information about their efficacy, I therefore advocate that organizations partner with
researchers to help uncover and illuminate the various outcomes of all types of gender equity
initiatives.

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Appendix A: Chapter 2, Study 1 Experimental Manipulations
Gender Awareness Strategy Condition
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender issues are a
top concern for the United States. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to embrace
gender differences, rather than downplaying them. For example, research has shown that by
highlighting differences between men and women, both genders thrive in their work, school and
lives, and they are better able to provide a richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction, and
problem solving strategies. In this view, acknowledging differences between women and men
with respect to strengths, weaknesses, and working styles makes the both the classroom and the
workplace more effective and leads to better outcomes for society as a whole.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern American
society is better off when people acknowledge that we can use differences to our advantage,
using them to encourage input, teamwork, and collaboration by everyone. Michael Klein, a
Sociology Professor at Columbia University, agrees with Richardson’s point of view, noting that,
‘‘Appreciating the differences between how men and women approach life tasks is productive to
society.” For all these reasons, social scientists increasingly tout the advantages of embracing
gender differences.

Downplay Differences Strategy Condition
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender issues are a
top concern for the United States. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to
downplay gender differences, rather than embracing them. For example, research has shown that
by ignoring any differences between men and women, both genders thrive in their work, school
and lives, and they are better able to provide a richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction, and
problem solving strategies. In this view, downplaying differences between men and women with
respect to strengths, weaknesses, and working styles makes the both the classroom and the
workplace more effective and leads to better outcomes for society as a whole.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern American
society is better off when people move past differences between men and women and focus on
encouraging input, teamwork, and collaboration by everyone. Michael Klein, a Sociology
Professor at Columbia University, agrees with Richardson’s point of view, noting that,
‘‘Downplaying differences between how men and women approach life tasks is productive to
society.” For all these reasons, social scientists increasingly tout the advantages of downplaying
gender differences.

Focus on Similarities Strategy Condition
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender issues are a
top concern for the United States. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to focus on
similarities between the genders, rather than differences. For example, research has shown that
by focusing on similarities between men and women, both genders thrive in their work, school,
and lives, and they are better able to provide a richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction, and
problem solving strategies. In this view, emphasizing similarities between men and women with
respect to strengths, weaknesses, and working styles makes both the classroom and the

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workplace more effective and leads to better outcomes for society as a whole.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern American
society is better off when people focus on similarities between men and women in order to
encourage input, teamwork, and collaboration by everyone. Michael Klein, a Sociology
Professor at Columbia University, agrees with Richardson’s point of view, noting that,
‘‘Appreciating the similarities between how men and women approach life tasks is productive to
society.” For all these reasons, social scientists increasingly tout the advantages of emphasizing
similarities across the genders.

Control Condition
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that technology issues
are a top concern for the United States. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to
focus on how interacting with technology affects our daily lives. For example, research has
shown that by focusing on some technologies rather than others, we can thrive in our work,
school, and lives, and become better able to enact a richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction,
and problem solving strategies. In this view, learning about the way technology affects us with
respect to strengths, weaknesses, and working styles makes the both the classroom and the
workplace more effective and leads to better outcomes for society as a whole.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Technology Paradox, suggests that modern American
society is better off when people focus on useful technologies in order to encourage input,
teamwork, and collaboration by everyone. Michael Klein, a Sociology Professor at Columbia
University, agrees with Richardson’s point of view, noting that, ‘‘Appreciating the effects of
technology on how people approach life tasks is productive to society.” For all these reasons,
social scientists increasingly tout the advantages of understanding how technology affects daily
life.

Gender Awareness Ideology Condition (Martin & Phillips, 2017)
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender issues are a
#1 concern for the U.S. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to embrace our
differences, rather than denying them. According to this perspective, we will be in a better
position to advance as a society if we embrace that the two genders bring difference perspectives
to life, providing a richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction, and problem solving strategies.
Each gender can contribute in its own unique way. Recognizing this diversity would help build a
sense of harmony and complementarity amongst men and women. Men and women have their
own talents, as well as their own problems, and by acknowledging both these strengths and
weaknesses, we validate the identity of each gender.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern American
society would be better off if people would recognize that women and men have their own
strengths, weaknesses, experiences, and issues. Acknowledging this diversity would help build a
sense of harmony and unity amongst men and women. ‘‘That is really the story here – the most
striking thing about men and women is how different they are. There is great variety between the
two groups. The most important thing is to pay attention to these differences - recognizing these

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differences builds a sense of harmony and complementarity to each group”.

‘‘The notion of ‘the opposite sex’ has some truth,” says Michael Klein, a Sociology Professor at
Columbia University, who agrees with Richardson’s point of view. ‘‘The genders are more
different than they are alike.” Klein points out that these differences could be due to biological
make-up or they may simply be learned and socialized through our culture. According to Klein,
where the differences come from is unimportant. ‘‘Understanding men and women approach life
tasks in different ways is productive to society,” says Klein.

Klein believes that men and women would be more successful, more satisfied with their lives,
and interact more cooperatively if people embraced the idea that the genders often approach
situations and problems differently. According to Klein, understanding and utilizing women and
men’s unique strongpoints would not only contribute to a more cooperative and efficient
workplace, but could help people in interpersonal relationships between men and women. Thus,
social scientists encourage us to see the larger picture, and to appreciate that at our core, we
really are all different.

Gender Blindness Ideology Condition (Martin & Phillips, 2017)
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender issues are a
#1 concern for the U.S. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to heed our creed in
the Declaration of Independence that ‘‘all men and women are created equal.” According to this
perspective, we will be in a better position to advance as a society if we remember that we are
all, first and foremost human beings, and second, we are all American citizens. According to this
perspective, we will be in a better position to advance as a society if we stop thinking of men and
women as different from each other, and instead see each person as an individual.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern American
society would be better off if people would recognize that women and men are much more
similar than they are different. Acknowledging this similarity would help build a sense of
harmony and unity amongst men and women. ‘‘That is really the story here – The most striking
thing about men and women is how much they have in common. There is simply so much
overlap between the two groups. The most important thing is to pay attention to the
characteristics that make a person a unique individual rather than focusing on his or her gender.”

‘‘The notion of ‘the opposite sex’ is really just a historical artifact,” says Michael Klein, a
Sociology Professor at Columbia University who agrees with Richardson’s point of view. "The
genders are much more alike than they are different." Klein points out that these similarities may
be due to the largely identical biological make-up that all humans share, or they may be shaped
and molded through our culture. According to Klein, where the similarities come from is
unimportant. "Pretending men and women approach life tasks in fundamentally different ways in
counterproductive to society," says Klein.

Klein believes that men and women would be more successful, more satisfied with their lives,
and interact more cooperatively if people embraced the idea that the genders typically approach
situations and problems in much the same way. According to Klein, understanding and focusing
upon individual differences, not group differences, would not only contribute to a more

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cooperative and creative workplace, but could also help people in interpersonal relationships
between men and women. Thus, social scientists encourage us to see the larger picture, and to
appreciate that at our core, we really are all the same.

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Appendix B: Complete List of Chapter 2, Study 1 Items
Dependent
Variable
Items
Filler Items
1. The excerpt was well-written.
2. The excerpt was boring.
3. The excerpt was easy to understand.
4. The excerpt was interesting.
Manipulation
Check
According to the except you read…
1. We should embrace differences between genders.
2. We should downplay differences between genders.
3. We should focus on similarities between genders.

Identification with
Stereotypically
Masculine Traits
(Bem, 1974)
Assertive, strong leader, dominant, forceful, defends beliefs,
aggressive
Identification with
Stereotypically
Feminine Traits
(Bem, 1974)

Sensitive, compassionate, loving, affectionate, gentle, warm

Identification with
Stereotypically
Masculine Traits
(Rosette & Tost,
2010)

Confident, skillful, competitive, powerful, capable
Identification with
Stereotypically
Feminine Traits
(Rosette & Tost,
2010)
Good natured, friendly, considerate, caring, understanding
Workplace
Confidence

1. I generally accomplish what I set out to do.
2. I am confident in my ability to attain any goal I set for
myself.
3. I am confident in most of the decisions I make.
4. I feel comfortable tackling any work-related challenge that
comes my way.

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5. I never feel uncomfortable challenging a co-worker's idea
in front of other people.
6. I think I am performing better than others in the same
role/position as my self at work.

Overall Confidence

1. I have confidence in my ability to succeed.
2. I am confident in my judgment.
3. I have confidence in my skills and abilities.

Action
1. Imagine that you are sitting at a card table playing
BlackJack. The goal of the game is to get as close to 21 as
you can without going over and to beat the dealer. In this
round, you have two cards that equal 16 in value and the
dealer's face-up card is a 10. What do you want to do? [take
a card/don’t take a card]
2. You are a member of a three-person debate team and you
are in the state finals. It has been a long and grueling
season and you find yourself in the final round. The
protocol of the final round is that each team’s name is put
into a hat and one name is drawn from that hat. The team
whose name is drawn gets to decide whether to go first or
second. Your team’s name is drawn. The other two
members of your team are in disagreement over whether to
go first or second. One wishes to go first and the other
thinks it is better to go second. The person who wants to go
first thinks it is best because it allows your team to frame
the debate. The other person thinks going second is better
because it allows you to rebut specific arguments the other
side makes. The choice of whether your team goes first or
second is up to you. [make the first argument (i.e., go
first)/make the rebuttal argument (i.e., go second)
3. Michael Pardue is a prisoner currently serving a life
sentence in Alabama. In 1973 he was convicted of murder
and sent to prison for life. In 1997, all charges against him
were dropped because his gun did not match the weapon
used in the murder and his finger and shoeprints did not
match with those of the murderer. Above this, there is
proof that he was 8 miles away from the crime scene at the
exact time of the murder. Michael Pardue was however not
released because he had tried to escape three times between
1973 and 1997. Under Alabama's Habitual Felony
Offender Law, a convict is sentenced for life after
committing three felonies. The irony of course is that
Michael would not have committed these felonies if he
hadn't been sentenced in the first place. After hearing this,

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will you join the movement to free Michael Pardue? [yes, I
will join the movement to free Michael Pardue/no, I will
not join the movement to free Michael Pardue]
4. Imagine you are buying a new car. Do you want to
negotiate the price of the car? [yes, I want to negotiate the
price of the car/no, I do not want to negotiate the price of
the car]
Psychological
Safety Surrounding
Gender

1. I'm uncomfortable talking about gender because I worry
something I say may be held against me.
2. It doesn't feel safe to bring up tough issues about gender
relations.
3. People might reject me if I say something about gender that
they disagree with.
4. Talking about gender is too risky.
5. It's difficult for me to ask others what they think about
gender issues.

Belonging:
Acceptance

When I am at work I feel…

1. Like I fit in.
2. Like an outsider.
3. Respected.
4. Valued.
5. Accepted.
6. Appreciated.
7. Disregarded. (reverse-coded)
8. Neglected. (reverse-coded)
9. Excluded. (reverse-coded)
10. Insignificant. (reverse-coded)
Belonging: Affect

When I am at work I feel...

1. At ease.
2. Comfortable.
3. Content.
4. Calm.
5. Anxious. (reverse-coded)
6. Tense. (reverse-coded)
7. Nervous. (reverse-coded)
8. Inadequate. (reverse-coded)

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Belonging: Desire
to Fade

When I am at work…

1. I enjoy being an active participant. (reverse-coded)
2. I wish I were invisible.
3. I wish I could fade into the background and not be noticed.
4. I try to say as little as possible.

Belonging: Trust

When I am at work…

1. I trust the evaluation procedures used by my superiors and
peers to be unbiased.
2. I have trust that I do not have to constantly prove myself.
3. I trust my superiors and peers to be committed to helping
me develop.
4. Even when I do poorly, I trust my superiors and peers to
have faith in my potential.

Belonging:
Community

When I am at work…

1. I feel that I belong at work.
2. I consider myself a member of the community at work.
3. I feel like I am part of the work community.
4. I feel a connection with the community at work.

Self-reliance
1. I'd rather depend on myself than others.
2. I rely on myself most of the time.
3. I rarely rely on others.
4. I often do "my own thing."
5. My personal identity, independent of others, is very
important to me.
Leader Identity

1. I believe I have the characteristics of a leader.
2. I see myself as a leader.
3. Being a leader is very important to my sense of who I am.
4. I am the type of person who's not interested to lead others.
(reverse-coded)
5. It is important to my sense of self that others see me as a
leader.
6. I am definitely not a leader by nature. (reverse-coded)

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Gender
Identification
1. I have a strong sense of connection to other people of my
gender identity.
2. My gender identity is an important reflect of who I am.
Gender Beliefs
Do you believe that there are core differences between men and
women? [yes/no]

1. Men and women are more different than they are alike.
2. Women and men are fundamentally different from one
another.
3. Men and women differ in many important ways.
Gender
Discrimination

1. I have personally experienced gender discrimination.
2. I have been deprived of opportunities because of my
gender.
3. I feel like I have been discriminated against because of my
gender.
4. I regularly encounter sexism against my gender.
5. Prejudice against my gender group has affected me
personally.

Gender Blindness

1. All people are basically the same regardless of their gender.
2. We should describe others in terms of their individual traits
rather than their gender.
3. Talking about differences between men and women causes
unnecessary tension.
4. We should try not to notice or think about when an
individual is male or female.
5. It is easier for men and women to get along if they
acknowledge they approach things differently. (reverse-
coded)
6. We need to recognize and celebrate cultural differences
between men and women to create an equal society.
(reverse-coded)
7. The differences between men and women should be
acknowledged and celebrated. (reverse-coded)
8. We should adjust our behavior when interacting with men
and women because men and women are different.
(reverse-coded)

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Demographics

Gender, race/ethnicity, age, educational attainment, born in the
U.S., native language, mother’s educational attainment, father’s
educational attainment, guardian’s educational attainment,
household income, subjective socioeconomic status, political
orientation about economic issues, political orientation about
social issues, political orientation, managerial experience

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Appendix C: Chapter 2, Study 2 Experimental Manipulations
Gender Awareness Strategy Condition
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender
issues are a top concern for the United States. Social scientists note that it is extremely
important to embrace gender differences, rather than downplay them. For example,
research has shown that by highlighting the unique strengths of men and women, both
genders thrive in their work, school, and lives, and they are better able to provide a
richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction, and problem solving strategies.
In this view, acknowledging differences between women and men with respect to
strengths, weaknesses, and working styles makes both the classroom and the workplace
more effective and leads to better outcomes for society as a whole.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern
American society is better off when people acknowledge that we can use differences to
our advantage, leveraging them to encourage input, teamwork, and collaboration by
everyone. Michael Klein, a Sociology Professor at Columbia University, agrees with
Richardson’s point of view, noting that ‘‘appreciating the differences between how men
and women approach life tasks is productive to society.” For all these reasons, social
scientists increasingly tout the advantages of embracing gender differences.

Gender Blindness Strategy Condition
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender
issues are a top concern for the United States. Social scientists note that it is extremely
important to direct attention away from gender differences, rather than highlight them.
For example, research has shown that by downplaying differences between men and
women, both genders thrive in their work, school and lives, and they are better able to
provide a richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction, and problem solving strategies. In
this view, emphasizing similarities and ignoring differences between men and women
with respect to strengths, weaknesses, and working styles makes both the classroom and
the workplace more effective and leads to better outcomes for society as a whole.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern
American society is better off when people move past considerations of differences
between men and women, and instead emphasize the similarities between men and
women to encourage input, teamwork, and collaboration by everyone. Michael Klein, a
Sociology Professor at Columbia University, agrees with Richardson’s point of view,
noting that ‘‘downplaying differences between how men and women approach life tasks
is productive to society.” For all these reasons, social scientists increasingly tout the
advantages of downplaying gender differences.

Control Condition (Martin & Phillips, 2017)
Research from many disciplines, from sociology, finance, economics, and behavioral
science – all agree that big data is a growing source of information field for decision and
policy-making. These scientists note that it is important to use this data to our advantage
for the U.S. to remain a strong and growing economy, as it allows us to capture important

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and diverse information from millions of people. According to this perspective, we will
be in a better position to advance as a society if we can leverage data from healthcare, to
advertising, to safety, to understand human behavior and decision-making.

Big data allows us to understand both the similar and different perspectives that people
bring to life, providing an understanding of the ways in which people differ and agree on
a number of viewpoints and perspectives. Though such data includes millions of data-
points, it allows each individual to contribute to policies, research, and decision making
in their own way. This could help bring an understanding of the opinions amongst people
that would contribute to policies and decisions that affect us all.

New research shows in a number of simulations that collecting data from millions of blog
and Facebook posts, comments on news articles, and discussions on forums, match
census data survey on opinions on beliefs. In a recent interview, professor James North
noted “while traditional ways of making inferences have been useful for understanding
human behavior, big data provides an exciting new opportunity for decision making –
especially in areas where people are reluctant to express opinions candidly.” he says,
“there are indisputable benefits to collecting data using traditional methods, like census
data and opinion surveys — but recognizing the potential accuracy of big- data collection
can help supplement these methods to provide new ways of decision-making”.

“These notions are important to recognize,” says Mary Fine a second author on the paper.
Fine points out that these data matched surveyed opinions almost exactly and took far
less time to collect than traditional methods. According to Fine, ignoring the potential
utility of big data in policy-making counterproductive to society and simply like “sticking
our heads in the sand”. According to Fine, “understanding the potential of this
information would not only contribute to a more efficient society and could help inform
policy decisions that affect everyone, such as political and healthcare policies.” She
encourages us to see the larger picture, and to appreciate that big data is the future for
decision-making.

Gender Awareness Ideology Condition (Martin & Phillips, 2017)
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender
issues are a #1 concern for the U.S. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to
embrace our differences, rather than denying them. According to this perspective, we will
be in a better position to advance as a society if we embrace that the two genders bring
different perspectives to life, providing a richness in viewpoints, styles of interaction, and
problem solving strategies. Each gender can contribute in its own unique way.
Recognizing this diversity would help build a sense of harmony and complementarity
amongst men and women. Men and women have their own talents, as well as their own
problems, and by acknowledging both these strengths and weaknesses we validate the
identity of each gender.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern
American society would be better off if people would recognize that women and men

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have their own strengths, weaknesses, experiences, and issues. Acknowledging this
diversity would help build a
sense of harmony and unity amongst men and women. ‘‘That is really the story here – the
most striking thing about men and women is how different they are. There is great variety
between the two groups. The most important thing is to pay attention to these differences
- recognizing these differences builds a sense of harmony and complementarity to each
group”.

‘‘The notion of ‘the opposite sex’ has some truth,” says Michael Klein, a Sociology
Professor at Columbia University, who agrees with Richardson’s point of view. ‘‘The
genders are more different than they are alike.” Klein points out that these differences
could be due to biological make-up or they may simply be learned and socialized through
our culture. According to Klein, where the differences come from is unimportant.
‘‘Understanding men and women approach life tasks in different ways is productive to
society,” says Klein.

Klein believes that men and women would be more successful, more satisfied with their
lives, and interact more cooperatively if people embraced the idea that the genders often
approach situations and problems differently. According to Klein, understanding and
utilizing women and men’s unique strongpoints would not only contribute to a more
cooperative and efficient workplace, but could help people in interpersonal relationships
between men and women. Thus, social scientists encourage us to see the larger picture,
and to appreciate that at our core, we really are all different.

Gender Blindness Ideology Condition
Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists all agree that gender
issues are a #1 concern for the U.S. Social scientists note that it is extremely important to
heed our creed in the Declaration of Independence that ‘‘all men and women are created
equal.” According to this perspective, we will be in a better position to advance as a
society if we remember that we are all, first and foremost human beings, and second, we
are all American citizens. According to this perspective, we will be in a better position to
advance as a society if we stop thinking of men and women as different from each other,
and instead see each person as an individual.

Dr. Katherine Richardson, author of The Gender Paradox, suggests that modern
American society would be better off if people would recognize that women and men are
much more similar than they are different. Acknowledging this similarity would help
build a sense of harmony and unity amongst men and women. ‘‘That is really the story
here – The most striking thing about men and women is how much they have in common.
There is simply so much overlap between the two groups. The most important thing is to
pay attention to the characteristics that make a person a unique individual rather than
focusing on his or her gender.”

‘‘The notion of ‘the opposite sex’ is really just a historical artifact,” says Michael Klein, a
Sociology Professor at Columbia University who agrees with Richardson’s point of view.
"The genders are much more alike than they are different." Klein points out that these

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similarities may be due to the largely identical biological make-up that all humans share,
or they may be shaped and molded through our culture. According to Klein, where are
much more alike than they are different." Klein points out that these similarities may be
due to the largely identical biological make-up that all humans share, or they may be
shaped and molded through our culture. According to Klein, where the similarities come
from is unimportant. "Pretending men and women approach life tasks in fundamentally
different ways is counterproductive to society," says Klein.

Klein believes that men and women would be more successful, more satisfied with their
lives, and interact more cooperatively if people embraced the idea that the genders
typically approach situations and problems in much the same way. According to Klein,
understanding and focusing upon individual differences, not group differences, would not
only contribute to a more cooperative and creative workplace, but could also help people
in interpersonal relationships between men and women. Thus, social scientists encourage
us to see the larger picture, and to appreciate that at our core, we really are all the same.

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Appendix D: Completed List of Chapter 2, Study 2 Items
Dependent
Variable
Items
Identification with
Stereotypically
Masculine Traits
Assertive, leader, dominant, forceful, defends beliefs, aggressive
Identification with
Stereotypically
Feminine Traits

Sensitive, compassionate, loves children, affectionate, gentle,
warm

Workplace
Confidence

1. I generally accomplish what I set out to do.
2. I am confident in my ability to attain any goal I set for
myself.
3. I am confident in most of the decisions I make.
4. I feel comfortable tackling any work-related challenge that
comes my way.
5. I never feel uncomfortable challenging a co-worker's idea
in front of other people.
6. I think I am performing better than others in the same
role/position as myself at work.

Action

From Martin & Phillips (2017):
1. Imagine that you are sitting at a card table playing
Blackjack. The goal of the game is to get as close to 21 as
you can without going over and to beat the dealer. In this
round, you have two cards that equal 16 in value and the
dealer's face-up card is a 10. What do you want to do? [take
a card/don’t take a card]
2. You are a member of a three-person debate team and you
are in the state finals. It has been a long and grueling
season and you find yourself in the final round. The
protocol of the final round is that each team’s name is put
into a hat and one name is drawn from that hat. The team
whose name is drawn gets to decide whether to go first or
second. Your team’s name is drawn. The other two
members of your team are in disagreement over whether to
go first or second. One wishes to go first and the other
thinks it is better to go second. The person who wants to go
first thinks it is best because it allows your team to frame
the debate. The other person thinks going second is better
because it allows you to rebut specific arguments the other
side makes. The choice of whether your team goes first or

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second is up to you. [make the first argument (i.e., go
first)/make the rebuttal argument (i.e., go second)
3. Michael Pardue is a prisoner currently serving a life
sentence in Alabama. In 1973 he was convicted of murder
and sent to prison for life. In 1997, all charges against him
were dropped because his gun did not match the weapon
used in the murder and his finger and shoeprints did not
match with those of the murderer. Above this, there is
proof that he was 8 miles away from the crime scene at the
exact time of the murder. Michael Pardue was however not
released because he had tried to escape three times between
1973 and 1997. Under Alabama's Habitual Felony
Offender Law, a convict is sentenced for life after
committing three felonies. The irony of course is that
Michael would not have committed these felonies if he
hadn't been sentenced in the first place. After hearing this,
will you join the movement to free Michael Pardue? [yes, I
will join the movement to free Michael Pardue/no, I will
not join the movement to free Michael Pardue]
4. After years of applying for your dream job, you have
progressed to the third round of interviews. You are in the
final stage for landing your dream job and you know there
are still three other candidates they are considering! You
currently make $50,000. You know this position pays
anywhere between $45,000 and $60,000. The interviewer
tells you that you should expect $55,000. Would you
negotiate? [yes/no]

Author-generated additions in Study 2:
5. The commonwealth of Puerto Rico is in dismay after
Hurricane Maria. Hurricane Maria is considered the worst
natural disaster on record in Puerto Rico and the deadliest
Atlantic hurricane since 2005. Originating as a small
tropical wave, unexpected environmental conditions
allowed the storm to undergo an explosive intensification
as it approached mainland Puerto Rico. The most recent
estimates of casualties are up to 1,500 dead. The estimated
cost of damage is over $91 billion, and thousands of homes
and business are still without electrical power. The
American Red Cross is accepting donations. Would you
donate? [yes/no]
6. You find out that one of your peers at work has recently
been evicted from her apartment, and that she does not
currently have a place to stay. Your peer was evicted due to
insufficient funds in her bank account, because she has
been helping pay her mother’s hospital bills. From your

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time working with your peer, you have formed the
impression that she is kind, considerate, and introverted.
Your peer explains her situation to you, and mentions that
she feels very overwhelmed by the process of looking for a
new apartment while juggling work and taking care of her
mother. Would you offer her help in her search for a new
apartment? [yes/no]

Gender Blindness

1. All people are basically the same regardless of their gender.
2. We should describe others in terms of their individual traits
rather than their gender.
3. Talking about differences between men and women causes
unnecessary tension.
4. We should try not to notice or think about when an
individual is male or female.
5. It is easier for men and women to get along if they
acknowledge they approach things differently. (reverse-
coded)
6. We need to recognize and celebrate cultural differences
between men and women to create an equal society.
(reverse-coded)
7. The differences between men and women should be
acknowledged and celebrated. (reverse-coded)
8. We should adjust our behavior when interacting with men
and women because men and women are different.
(reverse-coded)

Manipulation
Check
According to the except you read…
1. We should embrace differences between genders.
2. We should downplay differences between genders.
Author Perceptions

Sexist:
1. The author of the article is sexist.

Wants to Achieve Gender Equality:
1. The author of the article wants to achieve gender equality.

Gender Beliefs:
1. The author of the article believes that there are
fundamentally important differences between men and
women.

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2. The author of the article thinks men and women are
fundamentally the same. (reverse-coded)

Workplace Gender
Composition

Please estimate what proportion of your workplace is composed of
each of the following groups. I.e. if in your workplace there are
100 people and 90 of them are U.S. citizens please put “90%” in
“U.S. Citizens”
1. U.S. Citizens
2. African Americans
3. Asians
4. Older Individuals (over 60)
5. Women

Demographics

Gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, trans status, age,
educational attainment, born in the U.S., native language,
household income, years of work experience, political orientation
on social issues, political orientation on economic issues

Gender
Identification

1. I feel a bond with women as a group.
2. I feel solidarity with women as a group.
3. I feel committed to women as a group.
4. I am glad to be a woman.
5. I think that women have a lot to be proud of.
6. It is good to be a woman.
7. Being a woman gives me a good feeling.
8. I often think about the fact that I am a woman.
9. The fact that I am a woman is an important part of my
identity.
10. Being a woman is an important part of how I see myself.

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Appendix E: Chapter 3, Study 1 Experimental Manipulations
Gender Awareness Condition
Apex, Inc. is a medical technology company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Apex’s
goal is to improve the outcomes for individuals living with chronic illness. The company was
founded in 2010 by three M.D./M.B.As who saw an opportunity to use rapidly advancing
genomic coding technology and data services to better match patients to treatment options and
accelerate the development of new therapies. Today, Apex employs approximately 300 people
and partners with over 30 other biopharma companies. Apex has profiled more than 180,000
patients and has over 200 journal publications, which they expect to at least triple by 2020.

Gender issues are a top concern for Apex. As a way of proactively addressing gender
inequality in the workplace, Apex launched a new, company-wide Gender Equality initiative. In
accordance with recent social scientific work, Apex took the official stance that it is extremely
important to embrace gender differences, rather than downplay them. This decision is based on
research that shows that celebrating differences between men and women with respect to
strengths, weaknesses, and working styles helps both genders thrive in their work and makes the
workplace more effective. For example, Dr. Katherine Richardson, a management professor at
Columbia Business School, suggests that modern organizations are better off when members
accept that we can use the acknowledgment of gender differences to our advantage to encourage
input, teamwork, and collaboration by all employees.

Gender Blindness Condition
Apex, Inc. is a medical technology company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Apex’s
goal is to improve the outcomes for individuals living with chronic illness. The company was
founded in 2010 by three M.D./M.B.As who saw an opportunity to use rapidly advancing
genomic coding technology and data services to better match patients to treatment options and
accelerate the development of new therapies. Today, Apex employs approximately 300 people
and partners with over 30 other biopharma companies. Apex has profiled more than 180,000
patients and has over 200 journal publications, which they expect to at least triple by 2020.

Gender issues are a top concern for Apex. As a way of proactively addressing gender
inequality in the workplace, Apex launched a new, company-wide Gender Equality initiative. In
accordance with recent social scientific work, Apex took the official stance that it is extremely
important to downplay gender differences, rather than acknowledge them. This decision is based
on research that shows that directing attention away from differences between men and women
with respect to strengths, weaknesses, and working styles helps both genders thrive in their work
and makes the workplace more effective. For example, Dr. Katherine Richardson, a management
professor at Columbia Business School, suggests that modern organizations are better off when
members accept that we can encourage people to disregard gender differences in order to
encourage input, teamwork, and collaboration by all employees.

Control Condition
Apex, Inc. is a medical technology company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Apex’s
goal is to improve the outcomes for individuals living with chronic illness. The company was
founded in 2010 by three M.D./M.B.As who saw an opportunity to use rapidly advancing

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genomic coding technology and data services to better match patients to treatment options and
accelerate the development of new therapies. Today, Apex employs approximately 300 people
and partners with over 30 other biopharma companies. Apex has profiled more than 180,000
patients and has over 200 journal publications, which they expect to at least triple by 2020.

Logistical tracking is a top concern for Apex. As a way of proactively addressing logistical
needs of various locations, Apex launched a new, company-wide logistical operations initiative.
In accordance with recent scientific work, Apex took the official stance that it is extremely
important to address logistical challenges when they arise. The decision is based on research that
shows that logistics and operations can have an important impact on performance, such that
efficient workflow and work processes help both employees thrive in their work and makes the
workplace more effective. For example, Dr. Katherine Richardson, a management professor at
Columbia Business School, suggests that modern organizations are better off when logistics and
operations are prioritized and can be used to our advantage to encourage input, teamwork, and
collaboration by all employees.
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Appendix F: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 1 Items
Dependent
Variable
Items
Uncertainty
Surrounding
Speech
(Uncertainty)
Within Apex…
1. There might be taboo issues that I’m not aware of.
2. I wouldn’t be sure what types of ideas or opinions might upset
people.
3. It’s not clear what is appropriate to say to other employees.
4. Norms about appropriate speech are ambiguous.

Psychological
Safety
Surrounding
Gender

If I worked for Apex…
1. I would feel uncomfortable talking about gender because I
would worry something I said might be held against me.
2. It would not feel safe to bring up tough issues about gender
relations.
3. People might reject me if I said something about gender that
they disagree with.
4. Talking about gender would be too risky.
5. It would be difficult for me to ask others what they think about
gender issues.

Perceptions
of
Organization
Openness
(Openness)

Apex…
1. Is open to new ideas
2. Is receptive to suggestions
3. Is interested in employees’ unique ideas
4. Rejects new ideas
5. Encourages both positive and negative comments from
employees
6. Encourages all employees to express diverse opinions
7. Encourages dissenting opinions
8. Encourages debate about different ideas

Vigilance of
Speech
(Vigilance)

Within Apex…
1. I would be very aware of everything I say.
2. I would be careful with the words I use.
3. I would pay attention to how I express myself.
4. I would be cautious about the way I speak with other employees.

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Perception of
Initiative

Earlier, you read about Apex adopting a new initiative within their
organization. Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with each
of the following statements about that initiative:
1. I like this initiative.
2. I agree with this initiative.
3. I would support this initiative.

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Appendix G: Chapter 3, Study 2 Experimental Manipulations
INTRODUCTION FOR ALL MANIPULATIONS. CONTROL CONDITION STOPS AFTER
THIS PARAGRAPH:
Paid Online Group Discussion

Our research group is gathering information about interest in the
opportunity to engage in a one-time, 1-hour online group discussion. The
group discussion will occur using an online platform at a later date and
participants will be paid for their time. The topic of discussion will be
generating ideas for a new smart phone app that will help people with
time management and productivity.

GENDER AWARENESS, STUDY 2:
Embracing Gender Differences During Group Discussions

It is important to note that our research group wants to achieve the most
fruitful discussion possible. In order to do so, we want to follow best
practices for managing group discussions. Therefore, our research
group encourages all participants to embrace any gender differences during
group discussions, rather than downplay them.

This approach stems from research that indicates that celebrating any
differences between women and men creates a more effective
environment. Scholars suggest that acknowledging any gender
differences is beneficial because this approach encourages input,
teamwork, and collaboration by all group members. We believe that
by highlighting any unique strengths of men and women, all members of the
group will be heard and we will inspire the most productive discussion
possible.

GENDER BLINDNESS, STUDY 2:
Downplaying Gender Differences During Group
Discussions

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It is important to note that our research group wants to achieve the most
fruitful discussion possible. In order to do so, we want to follow best
practices for managing group discussions. Therefore, our research
group encourages all participants to downplay any gender
differences during group discussions, rather than embrace them.

This approach stems from research that indicates that deemphasizing any
differences between women and men creates a more effective
environment. Scholars suggest that directing attention away from any
gender differences is beneficial because this approach encourages input,
teamwork, and collaboration by all group members. We believe that
by disregarding any differences between men and women, all members of
the group will be heard and we will inspire the most productive
discussion possible.

POLITICAL BLINDNESS, STUDY 2:
Downplaying Political Differences During Group
Discussions

It is important to note that our research group wants to achieve the most
fruitful discussion possible. In order to do so, we want to follow best
practices for managing group discussions. Therefore, our research
group encourages all participants to downplay any political
differences during group discussions, rather than embrace them.

This approach stems from research that indicates that deemphasizing any
differences between people who possess different political beliefs creates a
more effective environment. Scholars suggest that directing attention
away from any political differences is beneficial because this approach
encourages input, teamwork, and collaboration by all group members.
We believe that by disregarding any differences between people despite their
varying political ideologies, all members of the group will be heard and we
will inspire the most productive discussion possible.

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As I report in Footnote 8, I ran a preliminary Study 2 in which the comprehension check failure
rate was abnormally high (i.e., 22%). Below, I report the manipulations I used in that study,
before using the above manipulations for Study 2.
GENDER AWARENESS, STUDY 2 PILOT:
More Information

It is important to note that our research group wants to achieve the most
fruitful discussion possible. In order to do so, we want to follow best
practices for managing group discussions. Therefore, our research
group encourages all participants to embrace any gender differences during
group discussions, rather than downplay them.

This approach stems from research that indicates that appreciating any
differences between how men and women approach work tasks creates a
more effective environment. By highlighting any unique strengths of men
and women, we believe all members of the group will be heard and we
will inspire the most productive discussion possible.

GENDER BLIDNESS, STUDY 2 PILOT:
More Information

It is important to note that our research group wants to achieve the most
fruitful discussion possible. In order to do so, we want to follow best
practices for managing group discussions. Therefore, our research
group encourages all participants to direct attention away from any
gender differences during group discussions, rather than highlight
them.

This approach stems from research that indicates that deemphasizing any
differences between how men and women approach work tasks creates a
more effective environment. By downplaying any differences between men
and women, we believe all members of the group will be heard and we
will inspire the most productive discussion possible.

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169

POLITICAL BLINDNESS, STUDY 2 PILOT:
More Information

It is important to note that our research group wants to achieve the most
fruitful discussion possible. In order to do so, we want to follow best
practices for managing group discussions. Therefore, our research
group encourages all participants to direct attention away from any
political differences during group discussions, rather than highlight
them.

This approach stems from research that indicates that deemphasizing any
differences between people who possess different political beliefs creates a
more effective environment. By downplaying differences between people
despite their varying political ideologies, we believe all members of the
group will be heard and we will inspire the most productive discussion
possible.

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Appendix H: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 2 Items
Dependent
Variable
Items
Psychological
Safety

Imagine what it would be like to engage in the one-hour, online,
paid group discussion.

Please indicate how (in)accurate each of the following statements
are about your predictions for what the group discussion would be
like:

1. If you made a mistake during this discussion, it would be held
against you. (reverse-coded)
2. People would be able to bring up problems and tough issues
during the discussion.
3. During the discussion, people would reject others for being
different. (reverse-coded)
4. It would be safe to bring up risky topics during the discussion.
5. It would be difficult to ask other discussants for help. (reverse-
coded)
6. No one in the discussion would deliberately act in a way that
undermined me.
7. During the discussion, my unique skills and talents would be
valued and utilized.

Vigilance of
Speech
(Vigilance)

Imagine what it would be like to engage in the one-hour, online,
paid group discussion.

Please indicate how much you (dis)agree with each of the following
statements about your predictions for what the group discussion
would be like:

1. I would be very aware of everything I say.
2. I would be careful with the words I use.
3. I would pay attention to how I express myself.
4. I would be cautious about the way I speak with other employees.

Self-reported
Interest
On a scale from 1 (extremely disinterested) to 10 (extremely interested),
how interested are you in participating in this one-hour, online, paid
group discussion?

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Money
Required to
Participate
(Money
Required)

Consider the opportunity to engage in this group discussion about a new
app. If you were to participate, how much would you like us to pay you
to participate in this one-hour, online discussion?

Perception of
Norm

Thinking again about what you read about our research group, you
read that we encourage embracing [downplaying] gender [political]
differences. Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with
each of the following statements about that approach:

4. I like this approach.
5. I agree with this approach.
6. I would support this approach.

Extroversion

Please use this list of common human traits to describe yourself as
accurately as possible. Describe yourself at the present time, not as
you wish to be in the future.

I am...
1. Introverted
2. Extroverted
3. Silent (reverse-coded)
4. Talkative
5. Timid (reverse-coded)
6. Bold
7. Inactive (reverse-coded)
8. Active
9. Unassertive (reverse-coded)
10. Assertive

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Appendix I: Chapter 3, Study 3 Experimental Manipulations

October 20, 2018

TO: ACME Employees

FROM: ACME Human Resources Dept.

SUBJECT: Updated Cultural Values Statement

CONTROL CONDITION:
At ACME, we recognize our company culture as a foundation of our
strength and potential as an organization. We care intensely about
communicating our central beliefs and values to facilitate ACME’s success.
Most crucially, integral to the values of ACME is to have a passionate
workforce by encouraging ethical leadership practices.

Historically, our employees have shown immense care for ACME’s success
as an organization. We firmly encourage tenacity and optimism in our
workforce, and are consistently undertaking several steps in order to
optimize the passion experienced by all employees at ACME.

Leading Ethically

In support of our mission to achieve a passionate workforce, we want to
encourage employees to develop their talent by providing sufficient
opportunities. By providing ample mentorship and training, we believe
our employees will thrive in their work and will be better able perform
their work tasks effectively.

We took great care to investigate organizational research and best
practices among our competitors, and we found that there is consensus
among leaders in the field that promoting ethical behavior among
employees in all of their work tasks creates a more effective
environment. Overall, we believe that we can and should strive to lead
ethically in order to create a more effective organization.

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173

GENDER AWARENESS CONDITION:
At ACME, we recognize our company culture as a foundation of our
strength and potential as an organization. We care intensely about
communicating our central beliefs and values to facilitate ACME’s success.
Most crucially, integral to the values of ACME is to achieve a gender-
diverse workforce by embracing gender differences.

Historically, women have been underrepresented in the upper echelons of
organizations, including top tier investment groups and top management
teams. We firmly stand against gender inequity and are undertaking
several steps in order to optimize the experience of women at ACME.

Embracing Gender Differences

In support of our mission to achieve gender equity, we want to encourage
employees to embrace gender differences, rather than downplay them.
By highlighting any unique strengths of men and women, we believe
both genders will thrive in their work and will be better able perform their
work tasks effectively.

We took great care to investigate organizational research and best
practices among our competitors, and we found that there is consensus
among leaders in the field that appreciating any differences between
how men and women approach work tasks creates a more effective
environment. Overall, we believe that we can and should celebrate gender
differences in order to create a more effective organization.

GENDER BLINDNESS CONDITION:
At ACME, we recognize our company culture as a foundation of our
strength and potential as an organization. We care intensely about
communicating our central beliefs and values to facilitate ACME’s success.
Most crucially, integral to the values of ACME is to achieve a gender-
diverse workforce by downplaying gender differences.

Historically, women have been underrepresented the upper echelons of
organizations, including top tier investment groups and top management
teams. We firmly stand against gender inequity and are undertaking
several steps in order to optimize the experience of women at ACME.

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174
Downplaying Gender Differences

In support of our mission to achieve gender equity, we want to encourage
employees to direct attention away from gender differences, rather than
highlight them. By downplaying differences between men and women,
we believe both genders will thrive in their work and will be better able to
perform their work tasks effectively.

We took great care to investigate organizational research and best
practices among our competitors, and we found that there is consensus
among leaders in the field that deemphasizing any differences between
how men and women approach work tasks creates a more effective
environment. Overall, we believe that we can and should appreciate the
similarities between men and women in order to create a more effective
organization.

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Appendix J: Complete List of Chapter 3, Study 3 Items
Dependent
Variable
Items
Psychological
Safety

Please circle the number that best conveys your response to each of
the following statements about the group’s decision-making
process.

1. If you made a mistake on this team, it would have been held
against you. (reverse-coded)
2. Members of this team were able to bring up problems and tough
issues.
3. People on this team rejected others for being different. (reverse-
coded)
4. It was safe to take a risk on this team.
5. It was difficult to ask other members of this team for help.
(reverse-coded)
6. No one on this team would have deliberately acted in a way that
undermined my efforts.
7. Working with members of this team, my unique skills and
talents were valued and utilized.

Team Openness

Please circle the number that best conveys your response to each of
the following statements about your team:

My team…
1. Was open to new ideas
2. Was receptive to suggestions
3. Was interested in team members’ unique ideas
4. Rejected new ideas
5. Encouraged both positive and negative comments from team
members
6. Encouraged all team members to express diverse opinions
7. Encouraged dissenting opinions
8. Encouraged debate about different ideas

Vigilance of
Speech

Please circle the number that best conveys your response to each of
the following statements about your participation in the group’s
decision-making process using the following prompt:

When working on this team…

1. I was very aware of everything I said.

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176
2. I was careful with the words I used.
3. I paid attention to how I expressed myself.
4. I was cautious about the way I spoke with other teammates.

Self-reported
Team
Communication
(i.e., Memory
Quiz)

Based on the information you can recall from both your reading and
your group discussion of the case, please indicate to the best of your
ability whether the following statements are True or False (circle one):

1. The market for company A is expected to grow in the near
future (Unique to participant A)
2. Company A has a thorough and careful recruitment process
(Unique to participant A)
3. Company A has a near certain probability of a first-year loss
(Partially shared among participants B, C, D)
4. The leadership of Company A is addressing their problems head
on (Partially shared among participants B, C, D)
5. Company A is young and its management has little experience
(Shared by all participants)
6. The off-shore drilling and exploration by Company B is risky
(Unique to participant B)
7. Company B’s recent problem has resulted in fines and clean-up
costs (Unique to participant B)
8. Recent estimates indicate flat growth in Company B’s industry
(Unique to participant C)
9. Foreign competition is likely to enter Company B’s market
(Unique to participant C)
10. Company B management moved it to the top of the market 15-
20 years ago (Unique to participant D)
11. There is growing concern for environment mandating changes in
energy firms (Unique to participant D)
12. Company C is in a mature industry (Shared by all participants)
13. The management team of Company C is solid and respectable
(Shared by all participants)
14. Company C has an untroubled relationship with unions (Shared
by all participants)

Perception of
Initiative

Please circle the number that best conveys your response to the
following prompt:

1. I like ACME’s new initiative.
2. I agree with ACME’s new initiative.
3. I would support ACME’s new initiative.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Organizations increasingly care about creating gender equity, as it leads to many positive individual and organizational outcomes. However, the best strategies for achieving gender equity remain unclear. Organizations may choose to adopt a gender blindness strategy, which encourages downplaying gender differences among employees and emphasizes viewing each employee as an individual. Alternatively, organizations may use a gender awareness strategy, which encourages celebrating the unique strengths that each gender contributes to the organization (Koenig & Richeson, 2010

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Asset Metadata

Creator Smallets, Stephanie (author)

Core Title The individual- and team-level effects of organizational gender strategies

School Marshall School of Business

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Business Administration

Publication Date 07/11/2019

Defense Date 04/05/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag action orientation,confidence,empowerment,gender,gender awareness,gender blindness,OAI-PMH Harvest,psychological safety,team performance

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Tost, Leigh (committee chair), Bonner, Sarah (committee member), Mayer, Kyle (committee member), Townsend, Sarah (committee member)

Creator Email smallets@usc.edu,steph.smallets13@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-182084

Unique identifier UC11661513

Identifier etd-SmalletsSt-7539.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-182084 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SmalletsSt-7539.pdf

Dmrecord 182084

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Smallets, Stephanie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA