Current Research Projects:

Dissertation: Just Saying “No”: An Examination of Gender Differences in the Ability to Decline Requests in the Workplace

There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence and many blogs and self help books that suggest that people, particularly women, have a hard time saying “no” to professional requests (Gartrell, 2009; Gerber, 2012; Hyatt, 2011; Inam, 2013). According to popular media, women may not say “no” because of a sense of duty or expectation or to avoid feelings of guilt when they say “no.” However, women may find it easier to say “no” once they have given pause and weighed the options and ramifications of responding to professional requests. Steele (2012) and Hyatt (2011) advise their readers that being discerning about the tasks that one is asked to do allows for more time (and sanity). Despite the abundance of advice and self-help resources, as a whole, almost no empirical research has focused on professionally saying “no” to requests and particularly as to whether gender differences emerge in successfully saying “no” to professional requests. The current dissertation not only focuses on gender differences in the ability to say “no” professionally, but also examines potential underlying mechanisms and ways to remediate some individuals’ seemingly chronic inability to say “no” professionally. There are a number of potential reasons that women might have particular trouble saying “no” and I try to clarify these reasons by examining the ramifications that female employees face when they do say “no” to professional requests. Clearly, there are times when both male and female employees should say “no;” hence, the sheer number of times individuals say “no” is of interest to me but may not give a complete picture of gender differences in saying “no.” That is, men and women not only need to say “no” to avoid being overburdened with work but they also need to carefully decide when to say “no” to certain requests while weighing how such responses might influence career outcomes and trajectories, personal and professional relationships, other career-related opportunities, and repercussions.

The current dissertation is important for a number of reasons. First, scant empirical research in this area means that the current dissertation adds a quantitative account to a sea of anecdotes. Second, there are many reasons posited for gender differences in advancement but differences in the ability to say “no” professionally, which have not been addressed empirically, may be another piece of the inequity puzzle. Third, it is important to examine not only whether this phenomenon occurs differentially for men and women but also to examine the mechanism(s) that might underlie a general predilection for not saying “no” professionally. Fourth and finally, the current dissertation is valuable in exploring two concrete strategies for how employees—both men and women—might be able to increase the rates at which they say “no,” and particularly to requests that they should be declining.

In this dissertation, I will conduct a series of three studies. In the first study, I assess the extent to which men and women respond affirmatively to professional requests. I will empirically gauge whether differences exist in men’s and women’s willingness to say “no” and explore individual differences as potential moderators. One such difference may be the extent to which people embrace gender norms and prescriptive stereotypes (Wood, Christensen, Hebl, & Rothgerber, 1997). That is, women may not say “no” because they feel good about responding in helpful ways more than men, and I will examine this in the first study.

In the second study, I will examine in more detail a theoretical explanation for the way in which people may differentially respond to professional requests. As mentioned previously, men and women may be viewed very differently when they say “no” professionally such that women may be penalized more than are men (e.g., Heilman & Okimoto, 2007; Heilman & Parks-Stamm, 2007). To examine if women are evaluated more negatively than are men when they do not adhere to gender norms (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007; Kidder & Parks, 2001), I will have participants read and evaluate male and female targets depicted in scenarios in which they either say “yes” or “no” to professional requests. Further, I will manipulate the goal of helping (either self-serving or communal) to test the mechanism of sex role stereotypes that may underlie the proposed differential reactions to men and women who say “no” professionally.

In the third and final study, I will assess two strategies geared at trying to increase one’s ability to say “no.” These strategies involve getting people a) to slow their response time down and b) to consider more fully the potential ramifications associated with their responses to professional requests, particularly on perfunctory tasks. One of the goals of my research is not simply to get people to say “no” more often but also to get them to say “no” to the right kinds of things—those that do not help their careers, those that they do not enjoy, those they are doing out of guilt, and those that take them away from family and/or things that they actually really do enjoy or should be doing. To do this, I will participants keep track for a week all requests that other make of them and how they respond to each. In three conditions, I will have participants 1) engage in no strategy (the control condition), 2) respond to each request with “Let me think about that and get back to you” (the time-delay condition) or 3) respond to a series of prompts designed to get them to think critically about the request (the “What Should My Best Friend Do?” [WSMBFD] condition). This final condition is the most involved and attempts to teach women to advise themselves as they would a close friend faced with a similar request, based on Crosby’s (1984) relative deprivation model, which states that individuals are better at recognizing deprivation toward others than toward themselves. In the second week, participants will reflect on each of the requests they reported and rated them on the extent to which the request professionally advanced them or was otherwise professionally or personally rewarding.

The current dissertation is important for both theoretical and applied reasons. From a theoretical perspective, this research might clarify the underlying importance that gender stereotypes and normative expectations may have on one’s willingness to engage in workplace behaviors that seem to be beneficial in pleasing others but may actually be harmful in getting one promoted. As Vescio’s (Biernat & Vescio, 2002; Vescio, Gervais, Snyder, & Hoover, 2005; Vescio, Snyder, & Butz, 2003) work shows, women are often accorded the praise not the power, and one of the implications of this work is that people believe that women are nice and want praise, not power. This belief about the niceness of women, laced with benevolent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996), means that women are expected to say “yes” and they typically do. For men, however, their willingness to say “yes” professionally may be more strongly linked to the powerful outcomes. Congruent research shows that women are often penalized for a communality and helping deficit (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007); hence, it is likely that saying “no” may result in women (but not men) being judged harshly for not engaging in stereotypically appropriate behavior of helping. From an applied perspective, this study may shed light on gender differences that still remain steadfast in the workplace and provide some strategies to guide individuals in how to remediate such differences. That is, the rates at which women advance relative to men are still disparate and underlying this may be gender differences in the inability to successfully differentiate workplace assignments that employees should versus should not accept. If women simply do not say “no,” they may be showing that they are open to the idea of promotions but closed to having the time and resources to accommodate such upward career moves. Accordingly women may be limiting their ability to shatter glass and succeed at rates similar to men because they are saying “yes” to tangential things that keep them busy but not advancing.

Other Ongoing Research

Great Expectations: Creating Accurate Work-Family Balance Perceptions Through a Realistic Job Preview

Fleeing the Ivory Tower: Gender Differences in Reasons for Turnover

Examining Men and Women in Academia: Refining the Unfolding Model of Voluntary Turnover

Policies that Make a Difference: A Case Study on Bridging the Work-Family Gap

 Scientific Development for Biomedical Researchers—Mentoring Functions

Meta-analysis of Gender Differences in Social Support

Experiences of Hispanics in the Workplace

Workplace Experiences of Individuals with Disabilities