Reward allocation behavior as a function of psychological gender and biological sex : a study of advance[d] business students

Graduation date: 1983Women today represent a larger part of the American workforce\ud than ever before. The influx of women into the workplace raises\ud questions about differences in male and female work-related behaviors\ud particularly in groups, and decision making. For example, existing\ud research suggests that men and women have differing strategies in\ud groups which lead to allocating group rewards differently. Previous\ud research suggests that men divide group rewards equitably; with the\ud group members receiving awards in proportion to their productive\ud contributions. Previous research suggests that women divide group\ud rewards equally; all group members receive the same award regardless\ud of individual contributions to the group.\ud This study sought to determine reward allocation behavior of\ud men and women. The subjects, who were advanced business students,\ud acted as impartial third parties and made allocation decisions for\ud two workers in situations involving differences in productivity,\ud duration of work, and the expected future interaction of the workers. The subjects were further classified by Dr. Sandra Bern's Sex-Role\ud Inventory as "Masculine", "Feminine", or "Androgynous".\ud Although other studies have reported male and female differences,\ud no biological sex difference in reward allocation behavior was found\ud in this study. No psychological gender difference in reward allocation behavior was found in the worker situations involving productivity\ud and duration of work. However, the situation which involved the\ud expected future interaction of workers did produce differing allocation\ud responses by psychological gender categories. In summary, this\ud study found that advanced business students will most often allocate\ud rewards on the basis of productivity. When the factor of future\ud interaction of the workers was introduced "Feminine" males, and\ud "Masculine" and "Androgynous" females did not use this criterion,\ud however.\ud The results of this study may be explained by the particular\ud subject pool, by the bi-polar nature of the situations and decisions, or by the inapplicability of the theory at this time. Cross-sex\ud gender identification is found to confound allocation decision making\ud in a situation where the workers will interact in the future