Descriptive norms and gender diversity: Reactance from men
Open accessAbstract
Descriptive norms provide social information on others’ typical behaviors and have been shown to lead to prescriptive outcomes by “nudging” individuals towards norm compliance in numerous settings. This paper examines whether descriptive norms lead to prescriptive outcomes in the gender domain. We examine whether such social information can influence the gender distribution of candidates selected by employers in a hiring context. We conduct a series of laboratory experiments where ‘employers’ decide how many male and female ‘employees’ they want to hire for male- and female-typed tasks and examine whether employers are more likely to hire more of one gender when informed that others have done so as well. In this set-up descriptive norms do not have prescriptive effects. In fact, descriptive norms do not affect female employers’ hiring decisions at all and lead to norm reactance and backlash from male employers when informed that others have hired more women.
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There are contexts and domains where descriptive norms have not been effective.
“There are contexts and domains where they have not been effective (Richter et al. [2018]; Paryavi et al. [2019]).”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as Paryavi et al. [2019]
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- Authors
- Paryavi, M., Bohnet, I., & Van Geen, A.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Behavioral Public Administration
- Published
- 2019-02-21
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2576-6465 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2915340247
- Cited by
- 10
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 1.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Diversity and Inequality
- Keywords
- descriptive norms, gender diversity, backlash, hiring decisions, gender stereotypes, rule compliance, gender bias in employment
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