Doering, Laura, Jan Doering, and András Tilcsik. 2023. “Was it Me or Was it Gender Discrimination? How Women Respond to Ambiguous Incidents at Work.”

Question 1

what is discrimination

Answer 1

Involves treating people differently, often negatively, based on their group affiliation rather than individual merit
○ Often targets individuals or groups based on characteristics (ex. race, age, gender)
○ It can be overt (direct) or subtle (indirect)
○ It can be intentional or unintentional

Question 2

why should we care about this topic

Answer 2

Discrimination affects a range of workplace processes and outcomes (“life chances”)
§ Hiring
§ Compensation
§ Performance evaluations and rewards
Quality of everyday interactions

Question 3

why this topic matters

Answer 3

In this study, the researchers propose that the effects of such ambiguous incidents extend beyond personal emotional costs to include socially consequential action (or inaction) at work.

Question 4

what research design did this use

Answer 4

a mixed-methods design to create and refine their research tools, with an initial qualitative approach (in-depth interviews) informing subsequent quantitative approaches (survey and vignette experiment).
- Their mixed-methods approach allows them to ask
○ How do women see ambiguous incidents as affecting their work experiences?
And what actions do they anticipate taking in response to more vs less ambiguous incidents?

Question 5

sample for interviews

Answer 5

31 professional women. They selected professional women because they tend to report higher levels of discrimination and have the realistic (but difficult) option of confronting discrimination, which allows the researchers to observe responses.

Question 6

sampling method for interviews

Answer 6

○ Snowball sampling
§ They began recruiting participants by asking acquaintances and colleagues for referrals and then used snowball sampling to ensure sample variation.
§ Form of convenience sampling and a nonprobability sampling approach
Researcher draws a sample from part of the population that is convenient to obtain (ex. because potential interviewees are located near the researcher or otherwise are readily available)

Question 7

survey findings

Answer 7

○ In their survey data, they asked an optional open-ended question in which they invited respondents to describe their experiences of ambiguous or obvious gender discrimination
Respondents provided detailed descriptions of ambiguous incidents, many resembling the content from the in-depth interviews.

Question 8

results of in depth interviews

Answer 8

Showed that ambiguous incidents were common and occurred more frequently than obvious incidents. But maybe their interviewees’ impressions reflected that of a small, select group of individuals?

Question 9

survey

Answer 9

• Based on interview findings, the researchers then designed a survey of professional women (N=600) to evaluate whether respondents in a large, diverse sample experienced ambiguous incidents as regularly as their interviews revealed.
  In this way, their survey approach serves as a confirmatory extension of their interview-based findings (“triangulation”).

Question 10

similarity to motherhood penalty reading

Answer 10

vignette experiment made it possible to examine how women anticipate responding to incidents that differ only in their degree of ambiguity but are otherwise identical

Question 11

why did they use a vignette experiment

Answer 11

○ Interviews showed that uncertainty shapes how women respond to potential discrimination, and survey data showed the frequency of ambiguous incidents in a larger sample, but neither of these approaches could isolate the causal effect of uncertainty from the influence of other situational factors.
- So, they designed a vignette experiment
○ To measure the effects of uncertainty in perceptions of discrimination on anticipated behavior while holding all other aspects of the incident constant (random assignment).

Question 12

how did the vignette work

Answer 12

○ Each participant read 1/3 vignettes
○ Within each, the researchers manipulated the level of ambiguity: either obvious (control) or ambiguous discrimination (experimental/treatment condition)
After reading a vignette, respondents then completed a set of items to indicate how they would respond to the situation
○ Participants read a vignette with either the less ambiguous manipulation or the more ambiguous manipulation and then indicated whether gender discrimination occurred in the situation using a 100-point sliding scale (0= obviously yes, 50 = unclear, 100 = obviously no)
Within each vignette, the average response in the ambiguous condition was near the “unclear” anchor, whereas the average response in the ambiguous condition was closer to the “obviously yes” anchor

Question 13

why did they not use a field experiment rather than a vignette

Answer 13

In this, women would be randomly assigned to experience ambiguous incidents and others to otherwise identical incidents but with obvious discrimination
§ Exposing people to actual discrimination and monitoring their behavior would be unethical, so they used a vignette experiment.
§ Research finds that individuals’ anticipated responses to vignettes are associated with their actual responses to similar situations in the real world
Although not perfect, a vignette study of anticipated responses provides an ethical, feasible, and informative empirical approach.