Equal Performance, Different Grade: Women's Performance in Discussion Perceived Worse Than Men's

Abstract

We investigate how men and women are evaluated in group discussions. In five studies (N = 761) using a variant of a Hidden Profile Task, we find that, when experimentally and/or statistically controlling for actual gender differences in behavior, the female performance in a group discussion is devalued in comparison to male performance. This was observed for fellow group members (Study 1) and outside observers (Studies 2-5), in both primarily student (Studies 1, 4, and 5) and mixed samples (Studies 2 and 3), for different measures of performance (perceived helpfulness of the contribution, for work-related competence), across different discussion formats (preformulated chat messages, open chat), and when controlling for the number of female group members (Study 5). In contrast to our hypothesis, we did not find a moderating effect of selection procedure in that women were devalued to a similar degree in both situations with a women's quota and without.

Keywords: discrimination; gender gap; group discussion; hidden profile task; women’s quota.