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A n Attribution Theory of Sex

Discrimination
by J a m e s C. McElroy and Paula C. Morrow
School of Business Administration, Iowa State University

Introduction Attributions are defined as the perceptions that


Sex discrimination in organisations operates at two distinct something has caused something else. For achievement-
levels. On one hand, women experience difficulty entering related situations (e.g. job performance), Bernard Weiner
certain occupations/organisations. This type of has developed a model for classifying these perceived
discrimination has been labelled access sex discrimination. causes of success and failure[3]. Weiner's model utilises
This form of discrimination relies heavily on stereotyping. ability, effort, task difficulty and luck as the causes com-
One form of stereotyping—sex characteristic stereotypes— monly thought to be most responsible for success and
refers to widely held beliefs that men and women are dif- failure. That is, on receiving data about their past perfor-
ferent in terms of their personalities and capabilities. The mance, individuals will assess their performance in light of
existence of these differences is used to justify the position these four factors. These four performance-oriented at-
that women are not capable of successful performance in tributions lie along two general dimensions. The first
certain occupations. A second form of stereotyping—sex dimension involves the locus of the perceived cause of per-
role stereotypes—refers to widely held beliefs concerning formance, i.e. the degree to which individuals attribute
the appropriateness of behaviour. This form of stereotyp- their success/failure to personal or situational
ing implies that while women could enter certain occupa- characteristics. Thus, using ability or effort to explain
tions as they have the capabilities, they should not[1]. one's performance would constitute internal (personal) at-
Another form of sex discrimination, labelled treatment tributions, while task difficulty or luck would involve ex-
sex discrimination[2], focuses on the treatment of women ternal (situational) attributions. The second dimension,
after their entry into an organisation. Of particular in- stability, focuses on the degree to which the perceived
terest, for example, would be such issues as how women cause for performance is of a variable or relatively perma-
are evaluated and rewarded in comparison to men. When nent nature. Effort and luck are considered to be highly
differences in treatment have been found to be sex related, variable from one performance episode to the next, while
this form of sex discrimination has traditionally been view- ability and task difficulty are considered relatively stable
ed as a rather intentional, conscious act. Recent social causes for performance.
science research on attribution theory, however, has shed This two-dimensional model, then, illustrates how the
some light on this form of discrimination, indicating it to same performance information can be interpreted dif-
be less deliberate and overt than previously believed. ferently. That is, the same objective level of performance
may be attributed to different factors by different in-
Attribution Theory dividuals. More importantly, research has shown that at-
Atrribution theory is a branch of social psychology that tributional explanations will affect subsequent expecta-
focuses on the explanations people devise in order to tions for future performance. Herein lies the process by
understand the world around them. It is, in effect, a post which treatment sex discrimination manifests itself.
hoc theory of behaviour in that an event (e.g. someone's
behaviour) occurs prior to an analysis of what caused the
event. This process of assigning causes to events is known An Attribution Theory of Treatment Discrimination
as the attribution process. Attribution theorists are in- Self-attributions
terested in the process by which these attributions are Attribution theory can be applied to behaviour in
made, as well as in the factors that affect them. organisations in two ways. The first deals with self-
In organisations, the most prominent events involve per- attributions. Self-attributions are those explanations an in-
formance information. According to attribution theorists, dividual uses to explain his/her own performance.
knowledge of performance will move individuals to ex- Research has consistently revealed a "self-serving bias"
plain what caused that performance. Managers, in par- associated with self-attributions. In general, individuals
ticular, should have a vested interest in this cognitive pro- tend to attribute success to internal factors (personal
cess as they seek to understand what motivates subor- characteristics such as ability or effort) while failure is at-
dinates to perform at high or low levels over time. It is tributed to external factors (such as the level of task dif-
within this process of assigning causes for performance ficulty or luck)[4]. However, several studies report that
that the potential for treatment sex discrimination exists. females, particularly those in career-oriented situations,

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tend to rely on external attributions as reasons for their Sex of subordinate and nature of the task. According to
performance, whether it be success or failure[5]. Jones and Davis, observers tend to attribute socially unac-
These findings suggest that some differential treatment ceptable behaviours to personal characteristics[12]. Utilis-
may be the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, in ing sex role stereotypical information, the sex of the per-
situations where men and women demonstrate equal per- former combines with the nature of the task to yield social-
formance, men will emerge with higher expectations of ly acceptable or unacceptable behaviours. However, the
their future performance than will women as a result of nature of the resulting attributions depends on the expecta-
having taken credit for their past success (i.e. internal at- tions of the observer, with socially unacceptable
tributions). To the extent that motivation is tied to expec- behaviours yielding lower expectations. Therefore, women
tations of success, as in the goal-setting model of motiva- working on male-oriented tasks would produce lower ex-
tion, men will be moved to expend greater levels of effort pectations on the part of observers of those female per-
in future situations than women[6]. This may subsequently formers. Success would then be unexpected and attributed
lead to actual performance differences. Moreover, if to variable factors, such as luck or effort.
women publicly voice their external assessments for their Failure, the expected performance level, would, in turn,
performance, it is likely that at least some relevant others be attributed to such internal factors as the female's lack
(e.g. peers and supervisors) will accept that explanation. of ability. On the other hand, success on the part of males
Thus, women may be treated differentially on the basis of working on masculine tasks would be expected, resulting in
performance differences that are a function of the inter- ability or effort attributions, while failure, unexpected,
pretation women give to their own performance levels. would tend to be attributed to such external factors as the
While this is not discrimination per se, this process is difficulty level of the task or bad luck. Various ex-
detrimental to the advancement of women and can lead to periments have borne out these predictions[13].
discriminatory practices in those cases where someone else
is evaluating performance.
Degree of empathy. One additional factor posited by Jones
and Nisbett[14] as affecting the types of attributions
Observer Attributions observers make is the relationship between the observer
In organisational settings, individuals are not left to and the performer. Observers who have empathy toward a
themselves to evaluate their performance. Indeed, part of a performer are more likely to adopt that person's point of
manager's job involves evaluating subordinate perfor- view and look to the situation for possible explanations for
mance. Attribution theory researchers have concluded that performance. Given the nature of stereotypes discussed
individual performers and observers of those performers earlier, women are not likely to formulate close mentor-
exhibit different attributional tendencies[7]. Observers type relationships with their male superiors in male-
tend to place greater weight on the personal characteristics oriented professions. This lack of empathy may well ex-
of the performer (ability and effort), while performers acerbate the previously mentioned tendency on the part of
themselves tend to emphasise the characteristics of the managers to attribute poor performance to the performer
situation (task difficulty and luck). The two most com- and success to situational factors.
monly offered explanations for this bias in perspective are
(a) the perceiver's focus of attention and (b) the salience of
information. The former refers to the idea that the situa-
tion is the primary focus of attention for the performer Conclusions
while the performer is the dominant focus of attention for To summarise, research based on attribution theory has
the observer[8]. The latter explanation refers to the notion clearly demonstrated that equivalent performance by
that situational information is more important to the per- males and females is not explained by the same attribu-
former, while performer personal characteristics are more tions. Therefore, women, particularly those working in
important to the observer[9]. What this amounts to is a male-dominated occupations/organisations, may find
tendency on the part of observers to attribute the perfor- themselves being treated inequitably as a result of these
mance of others to personal characteristics. The specific observer-attributional tendencies.
context of a situation, however, complicates matters con- The implications of attributional biases in performance
siderably. appraisal are far ranging and will be difficult to
ameliorate. First, the attributional biases we have un-
Managers as observers. Stephen Green and Terence Mit- covered are insidious and complex. They are the result of
chell[10] have proposed that managers constitute a special subconscious mental processes engendered by lifelong
class of observer. That is, the nature of their role leads socialisation practices. Moreover, they are mediated by a
them to exhibit rather unique attributional tendencies. Ac- number of situational factors (e.g. sex role congruency of
cording to Edward Jones and Keith Davis[11], behaviour the task) making generalisations difficult. Sensitising
that is seen as having an impact on the observer is more managers about these perceptual biases is therefore dif-
likely to be attributed by the observer to the personal ficult. Other problems revolve around the manager's dif-
characteristics of the performer. However, Green and ficulty in divorcing his/her own involvement or respon-
Mitchell argue that managers are likely to attribute perfor- sibility (i.e. an external attribution) in the subordinate's
mance to subordinate personal characteristics only in those performance. Despite these problems, it is in industry's
cases where the performance is poor, and particularly in best interest to find ways of educating managers on the
those cases where the impact of the outcome is serious. nature of attributional processes.
Success will tend to be attributed to external factors (e.g. Firms that are successful in eliminating treatment sex
quality of managerial supervision). This pattern is not only discrimination will benefit through increased ability to hire
a convenient response, as opposed to searching for other and retain the best female employees and will see higher
reasons for performance, it is one that maintains the productivity among those women whose successes and
manager's self-esteem. failures are attributed to the proper underlying cause. Male

12 • PR 12,4 1983
employees would likewise benefit from improved appraisal 129-44; Deaux, K. and Farris, E., "Attributing Causes for One's
Own Performance: The Effects of Sex, Norms and Outcomes",
procedures. Indeed, the exceptional manager of tomorrow Journal of Research on Personality, 1977, pp. 59-72; Wiley, M.G.,
will have the ability to make correct unbiased assessments Crittendon, K.S. and Brig, L.D., "Why a Rejection? Causal At-
about the causes of behaviour and will be able to help tribution of a Career Achievement Event", Social Psychology
subordinates explain their job behaviour to themselves in Quarterly, 1979, pp. 214-22.
ways which will stimulate them to try even harder. The 6. Locke, E.A., Shaw, K.N., Saari, L.M. and Latham, G.P., "Goal
alternative is to continue our present course of "filling in Setting and Task Performance: 1969-1980", Psychological
Bulletin, 1981, pp. 125-52.
the blanks" with our latent attributional tendencies and
7. Jones, E.E. and Nisbett, R.E., "The Actor and the Observer:
perpetuating self-confirming cycles[15]. Such a position is Divergent Perceptions of the Causes of Behavior", in Jones, E.E.
difficult to defend on any grounds. et al.(Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior,
General Learning Press, Morristown, N.J., 1972, pp. 79-94.
8. Ibid.
9. Kanouse, D.E., "Language, Labeling, and Attribution", in
Jones, E.E., et al. (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of
Behavior, op. cit.
10. Green, S.G. and Mitchell, T.R., "Attributional Processes of
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