Individual Task Choice and the Division of Challenging Tasks Between Men and Women
研究发现男女在单独选择挑战性任务时没有差异，但在异性二人组中分配任务后，男性承担了更多挑战性任务，女性则承担了更多非挑战性任务，这可能影响女性职业发展。
Challenging experiences are considered important for career development, and previous studies have suggested that women have fewer o f those experiences in their jobs than men have. However, the nature and possible determinants of this gender gap in job challenge have hardly been empirically studied. In the present study, the authors examine (a) gender differences in individuals’ choice to perform challenging tasks and (b) gender differences in the allocation of challenging tasks in opposite-sex dyads. Results show that the men and women in the sample did not differ in their individual choice to perform challenging tasks, but after task allocation in opposite-sex dyads men ended up with more of the challenging tasks, whereas women ended up with more of the nonchallenging tasks. The authors discuss the possible consequences of these results for women’s career development.