I’m going to talk about my master’s thesis from last year, which was entitled agency and communion in a hiring situation : a psychosocial study.
The aim of this study is to highlight the fact that men and women are assessed differently in a hiring situation, based on their gender. Those differences are emphasized by the agentic and communal traits of both gender. Social psychology has been interested in the Big Two theory, composed of agency (which is the tendency to be task-centered) and communion (which tends to be centered on social relations) (Abele & Wojciszke, 2013). Many studies have pointed out that these characteristics may influence the judgment of recruiters when it comes to the gender of the candidate, generating inequalities in the assessment and selection of their future employees.
This study attempts to show that men and women are assessed differently in a hiring situation, based on their gender and the agency or communal traits that they present. Three hypotheses emerged, the first being the presence of a simple gender effect, where men are expected to be more recruited and better valued than women. The second predicts a simple effect of the agency and communion profile, where a preference is expected for agency targets that would be better recruited and evaluated than communal targets. Third, an interaction effect between thegender and the profil (agency or communal) of candidates on recruitment.
In terms of methodology, this study seeks to measure target assessment and target recruitability. It involves two indepndent variables : the first concerned the gender of the candidates (man vs. woman), the second dealt with the characteristics of the candidates (agency with competence or dominance vs. communion with morality or sociability). 186 students had to assess an excerpt from a candidate’s cover letter in order to apply for a manager position which does not promote either gender. The profile of manager was neutral, which means it favored neither sex, or neither characteristics (agency or communion).
The results showed that even if female candidates tend to be more appreciated than male candidates, they are not more hired. Communal targets are more appreciated and hired than agentic targets. However, there is no interaction effects between gender and candidates’ traits. All the hypotheses aren’t validated. Withal, those results must be interpretated carefully because biases are present as the age or the gender of the participants, and they can influence the outcomes.
My name is Océane. I am 23 years old. I live in Nantes. Later, I would like to become a recruitment psychologist. In social psychology, what interests me more specifically are the notions of recruitment, management, personality, stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination. During my first year of Master’s which was entitled “Agency and communion in a hiring situation : a psychosocial study”.