TY - JOUR
T1 - Me, a woman and a leader
T2 - Positive social identity and identity conflict
AU - Karelaia, Natalia
AU - Guillén, Laura
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2014/11/1
Y1 - 2014/11/1
N2 - This paper focuses on women leaders' self-views as women and leaders and explores consequences of positive social identity (i.e., positive evaluation of the social category in question) for women in leadership positions. We hypothesized that holding positive gender and leader identities reduced perceived conflict between women's gender and leader identities and thereby resulted in favorable psychological and motivational consequences. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that positive gender identity indeed reduced women leaders' identity conflict. In Study 3, we found that by lessening identity conflict, positive gender identity reduced stress, increased life satisfaction, and caused women to construe leading more as an attractive goal than a duty. In contrast, positive leader identity directly affected women's motivation to lead, but did not reduce their identity conflict. Overall, these results emphasize the protective role of women's positive gender identity for their advancement in organizations and leader identity development.
AB - This paper focuses on women leaders' self-views as women and leaders and explores consequences of positive social identity (i.e., positive evaluation of the social category in question) for women in leadership positions. We hypothesized that holding positive gender and leader identities reduced perceived conflict between women's gender and leader identities and thereby resulted in favorable psychological and motivational consequences. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that positive gender identity indeed reduced women leaders' identity conflict. In Study 3, we found that by lessening identity conflict, positive gender identity reduced stress, increased life satisfaction, and caused women to construe leading more as an attractive goal than a duty. In contrast, positive leader identity directly affected women's motivation to lead, but did not reduce their identity conflict. Overall, these results emphasize the protective role of women's positive gender identity for their advancement in organizations and leader identity development.
KW - Identity conflict
KW - Identity processes
KW - Motivation to lead
KW - Positive social identity
KW - Well-being
KW - Women leaders
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84909965048&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.08.002
DO - 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.08.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84909965048
SN - 0749-5978
VL - 125
SP - 204
EP - 219
JO - Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
JF - Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
IS - 2
ER -