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Sex Roles (2010) 63:500514 DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9828-9
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Gender Differences in Responding to Conflictin the Workplace: Evidence from a Large Sample of Working Adults
Mark H. Davis & Sal Capobianco & Linda A. Kraus
Published online: 30 July 2010# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract This investigation tested for gender effects in conflict behaviors by examining the ratings made by the bosses, peers, and subordinates of over 2,000 working adults participating in leadership development programs conducted in the U.S.; the effects of two confounding factorsage and organizational statuswere controlled in all analyses. Consistent with predictions derived from a gender role analysis, women were rated as significantly more likely to engage in almost every constructive behavior. Also as predicted, men were rated as more likely to engage in active destructive behaviors. Rater gender had no effect for peers and subordinates, but female bosses made more positive ratings of targets than male bosses. In general, bosses rated targets somewhat higher on passive responses.
Keywords Gender roles . Gender differences . Conflict style . Workplace Conflict
Introduction
This paper tests the proposition that there are reliable gender differences in the way that adults respond to conflict in the workplace. Based on the well-known arguments of Bakan (1966) and Parsons and Bales (1955) regarding the cultural gender stereotypes involving agency and commu-
nion, we hypothesize that men and women will respond to workplace conflict in distinctive ways that are consistent with these cultural expectations. To evaluate these ideas we asked the bosses, peers, and subordinates of over 2,000 working adults in the United States to rate how frequently they engaged in a variety of conflict behaviors. Given the ubiquity of workplace conflict and its complex impact on morale and productivity (e.g., DeDreu et al. 2004; DeDreu and Weingart 2003; Simons and Peterson 2000), a better understanding of how gender affects this phenomenon has much value.
Do Gender Differences Exist?
Are there gender differences in the way people respond during interpersonal conflicts? It has long been hypothesized that there arethat men and women display behaviors during conflict that are consistent with broad gender role stereotypes (e.g., Rubin and Brown 1975). Thus, men have been hypothesized to act in a more forceful, dominating manner during conflict, consistent with their gender stereotype...