An Attribution Theory of Sex Discrimination
| Published date | 01 April 1983 |
| Pages | 11-13 |
| Date | 01 April 1983 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055485 |
| Author | James C. McElroy,Paula C. Morrow |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
An Attribution Theory
of
Sex
Discrimination
by James C. McElroy
and
Paula C. Morrow
School
of
Business Administration, Iowa State University
Introduction
Sex discrimination in organisations operates
at
two distinct
levels.
On one
hand, women experience difficulty entering
certain occupations/organisations. This type
of
discrimination has been labelled
access
sex discrimination.
This form
of
discrimination relies heavily on stereotyping.
One form
of
stereotyping—sex characteristic stereotypes—
refers
to
widely held beliefs that
men and
women
are dif-
ferent
in
terms
of
their personalities
and
capabilities.
The
existence
of
these differences
is
used to justify the position
that women
are not
capable
of
successful performance
in
certain occupations.
A
second form
of
stereotyping—sex
role stereotypes—refers
to
widely held beliefs concerning
the appropriateness
of
behaviour. This form
of
stereotyp-
ing implies that while women could enter certain occupa-
tions as they have the capabilities, they should not[1].
Another form
of
sex discrimination, labelled treatment
sex discrimination[2], focuses
on the
treatment
of
women
after their entry into
an
organisation.
Of
particular
in-
terest,
for
example, would
be
such issues
as how
women
are evaluated
and
rewarded
in
comparison
to
men. When
differences
in
treatment have been found
to
be sex related,
this form
of
sex discrimination has traditionally been view-
ed
as a
rather intentional, conscious
act.
Recent social
science research
on
attribution theory, however,
has
shed
some light
on
this form
of
discrimination, indicating
it to
be less deliberate and overt than previously believed.
Attribution Theory
Atrribution theory
is a
branch
of
social psychology that
focuses
on the
explanations people devise
in
order
to
understand
the
world around them.
It is, in
effect,
a
post
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
as
the
attribution process. Attribution theorists
are in-
terested
in the
process
by
which these attributions
are
made, as well as in the factors that affect them.
In organisations, the most prominent events involve per-
formance information. According
to
attribution theorists,
knowledge
of
performance will move individuals
to ex-
plain what caused that performance. Managers,
in
par-
ticular, should have
a
vested interest
in
this cognitive pro-
cess
as
they seek
to
understand what motivates subor-
dinates
to
perform
at
high
or low
levels over time.
It is
within this process
of
assigning causes
for
performance
that the potential
for
treatment sex discrimination exists.
Attributions
are
defined
as the
perceptions that
something
has
caused something else.
For
achievement-
related situations (e.g.
job
performance), Bernard Weiner
has developed
a
model
for
classifying these perceived
causes
of
success
and
failure[3]. Weiner's model utilises
ability, effort, task difficulty
and
luck
as the
causes com-
monly thought
to be
most responsible
for
success
and
failure. That is,
on
receiving data about their past perfor-
mance, individuals will assess their performance
in
light
of
these four factors. These four performance-oriented
at-
tributions
lie
along
two
general dimensions.
The
first
dimension involves the locus
of
the perceived cause
of
per-
formance,
i.e. the
degree
to
which individuals attribute
their success/failure
to
personal
or
situational
characteristics. Thus, using ability
or
effort
to
explain
one's performance would constitute internal (personal)
at-
tributions, while task difficulty
or
luck would involve
ex-
ternal (situational) attributions.
The
second dimension,
stability, focuses
on the
degree
to
which
the
perceived
cause
for
performance
is of a
variable
or
relatively perma-
nent nature. Effort
and
luck
are
considered
to be
highly
variable from
one
performance episode
to the
next, while
ability
and
task difficulty
are
considered relatively stable
causes
for
performance.
This two-dimensional model, then, illustrates
how the
same performance information
can be
interpreted
dif-
ferently. That
is, the
same objective level
of
performance
may
be
attributed
to
different factors
by
different
in-
dividuals. More importantly, research
has
shown that
at-
tributional explanations will affect subsequent expecta-
tions
for
future performance. Herein lies
the
process
by
which treatment sex discrimination manifests
itself.
An Attribution Theory
of
Treatment Discrimination
Self-attributions
Attribution theory
can be
applied
to
behaviour
in
organisations
in two
ways.
The
first deals with
self-
attributions. Self-attributions are those explanations
an
in-
dividual uses
to
explain his/her
own
performance.
Research
has
consistently revealed
a
"self-serving bias"
associated with self-attributions.
In
general, individuals
tend
to
attribute success
to
internal factors (personal
characteristics such
as
ability
or
effort) while failure
is at-
tributed
to
external factors (such
as the
level
of
task
dif-
ficulty
or
luck)[4]. However, several studies report that
females, particularly those
in
career-oriented situations,
PR
12,4 1983 • 11
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