Women's and Men's Career Referents: How Gender Composition and Comparison Level Shape Career Expectations
研究通过一家大型企业的数据发现，职业参照对象的层级比性别构成更能影响职业期望；即使女性参照对象层级与男性相同，其职业期望仍显著更低，可能与极端向上比较的性别差异有关。
This study examines how women's and men's career referents—the people they see as having similar careers—affect career expectations. We raise two questions. First, what is the relative effect of the gender composition and comparison level of career referents on such expectations? Second, what happens to career expectations when women and men identify career referents at the same comparison level? Current research suggests that women have lower career expectations than men because they compare themselves with women who hold lower-level positions than the career referents identified by men. Thus, if women and men identify with career referents at a similar level, their career expectations should be equal. However, this chain of reasoning has not been tested. Using data collected from a large organization, we identify both the specific individuals that women and men perceive as having similar careers and these referents' career levels, defined as their hierarchical level in the firm. The results show that the level of career referents is more important than their gender composition in explaining individuals' career expectations. In contrast to extant explanations, the results show that even when women identify career referents at the same levels as men do, they still exhibit significantly lower career expectations. Drawing on social comparison theory, we speculate that this occurs because men's expectations are bolstered by extreme upward comparisons, whereas women's expectations are dampened, perhaps because they see high-achieving others as representing a less probable goal.