They won’t listen to me: Anticipated power and women’s disinterest in male-dominated domains

Abstract

We hypothesized that women avoid male-dominated domains because they anticipate lacking the power to influence others in those contexts. In Study 1, a questionnaire study, male undergraduates were more interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors than were female undergraduates, and this gender disparity was mediated by women anticipating having less power in STEM fields than men did. Study 2 experimentally demonstrated that a lack of female representation within an academic context (MBA program) led women to infer that they would lack power in that context. Consequently, they became less interested in the program and in business schools in general. Our findings indicate that expecting low interpersonal power is an important mechanism by which women lose interest in pursuing male-dominated fields.