Women and Self-Promotion: A Test of Three Theories

Abstract

Although self-promotion (communicating one’s past accomplishments and positive characteristics) is important for obtaining career and educational opportunities, women feel uncomfortable when doing it, which limits their self-promotion success. This study tested which of the three possible theoretical mechanisms explained women’s limited self-promotion success: (1) cognitive dissonance, (2) stereotype threat, and (3) backlash avoidance. In this experiment, college women (N = 123) wrote a scholarship application essay and the ownership of the essay was varied experimentally. The essays were evaluated by the authors themselves and independent judges. The results were most consistent with a backlash avoidance mechanism whereby women feel uncomfortable self-promoting due to perceived social consequences.

Keywords

Self-promotion women backlash avoidance cognitive dissonance stereotype threat

Introduction

Self-promotion is often required for securing valuable scholarships or career advancements. However, research shows that women who self-promote feel uncomfortable, and their discomfort is related to less promotion success (Smith & Huntoon, 2013). Specifically, women who were asked to write an essay describing why they deserved to receive a scholarship experienced uncomfortable arousal. Participants were assigned to write the essay on behalf of themselves (i.e., self-promote) or on behalf of a respected peer (i.e., other-promote). Borrowing from research on cognitive dissonance, a misattribution of arousal paradigm was used (Ben-Zeev, Fein, & Inzlicht, 2005; Olson, 1988). Half of the participants were told that an ominous black box would create a discomfort-inducing subliminal noise while they wrote their essay (i.e., external reason for discomfort present), whereas the other half of the participants were told nothing of the black box (i.e., no external reason). Regardless of the condition, there was a black box present in the room, but the difference between the conditions was that some participants were led to believe that the box could make them feel uncomfortable. The results showed that when women were not given a reason for feeling uncomfortable (i.e., the black box was not mentioned), self-promoting women achieved less promotion success compared with women who other-promoted. However, women who self-promoted with a reason for feeling uncomfortable (i.e., the discomfort-inducing black box), achieved more promotion success than women who self-promoted without an external reason present. Furthermore, women who self-promoted with an external reason present achieved as much promotion success as women who other-promoted. Promotion success was measured in several ways. First, women self-reported the extent to which they felt that they had promoted well in their scholarship application essay. Second, a separate group of naïve judges rated the essays and reported the amount of scholarship money each essay writer should receive. The results of this study showed that women experience arousal that limits their promotion success, but that when they are led to believe that the arousal is unrelated to their promotion behavior, they are free to self-promote successfully. This suggests that the arousal women experience is only debilitating when they perceive it as occurring because they are engaging in self-promotion.

A second study demonstrated that women do not necessarily need to be led to believe that an ominous black box is responsible for the arousal they are experiencing (Huntoon, Victor, Spring, & Smith, 2011). This was demonstrated in a follow-up study that was identical to Smith and Huntoon’s (2013) initial experiment with one exception. Namely, in this study, participants were told that the stereotypes society holds about women (e.g., women should be modest) might cause them to experience an uncomfortable arousal, rather than being told that the black box might cause them to experience arousal. The results were similar to those found in Smith and Huntoon’s original experiment. Women who self-promoted without being told about the effects of stereotypes promoted less well than women who self-promoted after being told about the effects of the stereotypes. Additionally, women who self-promoted after being told about the stereotype promoted as well as women who other-promoted. Again, these results suggest that the arousal women experience while self-promoting only impacts promotion success when women believe that the arousal is due to their behavior and when they are not given a reason for their experience. When women have an external reason for their experience of arousal, either a black box or societal stereotypes of women, they self-promote successfully. These studies suggest that women experience uncomfortable arousal when engaging in self-promotion.

Although Smith and Huntoon’s work shows that women experience arousal when they self-promote, the specific cause is not yet known. Three mechanisms have been proposed (Smith & Huntoon, 2013): (1) a cognitive dissonance mechanism suggests that women feel discomfort because of an inconsistency between their beliefs that they should be modest and self-promoting behavior; (2) a stereotype threat mechanism suggests that women feel discomfort because they are concerned about confirming the stereotype that women are bad at self-promoting; and (3) a backlash avoidance mechanism suggests that women feel discomfort because they fear being treated negatively for self-promoting. The current project tested against these possible mechanisms.

Cognitive dissonance: Conflicting cognitions and behavior

Extensive research has shown that people feel uncomfortable when their cognitions do not match their behaviors and are motivated to resolve the inconsistency to reduce the discomfort (e.g., Cooper, Zanna, & Taves, 1978; Festinger, 1957; Zanna & Cooper, 1974). If a woman believes that she should be modest, but then behaves immodestly (e.g., self-promotes), then she would experience cognitive dissonance.

There is a norm that women should be modest that is endorsed by both men and women (Gould & Slone, 1982; Kaman & Hartel, 1994; Moss-Racusin & Rudman, 2010). It is possible that when women self-promote, their behavior is inconsistent with their beliefs that women should be modest, which causes cognitive dissonance. The discomfort associated with cognitive dissonance may prevent women from self-promoting. Self-promotion may cause a woman to experience cognitive dissonance if she believes that her own behaviors are inconsistent with her beliefs that women should be modest. According to this theory, a woman who has adopted societal expectations that women should be modest yet behaves inconsistently with those expectations by self-promoting will experience discomfort.

Stereotype threat: Worry about confirming the stereotype

People worry about confirming negative stereotypes of their group, which is known as stereotype threat and causes performance decrements (Steele, 1997). Stereotype threat has performance-damaging effects for stereotyped groups (e.g., Schmader, 2002).

Within the context of self-promotion, perhaps the discomfort women experience is due to stereotype threat. There is a stereotype that women are not good at negotiating on their own behalf (Kray, Thompson, & Galinksy, 2001). Moreover, when gender is salient (i.e., condition for stereotype threat), women are less successful at negotiating on their own behalf (Tellhed & Bjorklund, 2011). It is possible that stereotype threat explains why women experience uncomfortable arousal while self-promoting, which inhibits their performance. Self-promotion may cause a woman to experience stereotype threat if she believes her behaviors reflect poorly on her or other women. According to stereotype threat theory, women experience discomfort when self-promoting because gender stereotypes of their gender dictate that women should behave modestly. Therefore, women should not feel discomfort self-promoting if she does so under the guise of being a man.

Backlash avoidance: Fear of consequences

Some research suggests that women do not self-promote because they fear the backlash that they might incur. Indeed, women are evaluated more negatively when they self-promote (Rudman, 1998). For example, women who self-promote during a job interview are liked less and derogated more than women who do not self-promote (Rudman & Glick, 1999). It is possible that women choose not to self-promote to avoid the consequences (Moss-Racusin & Rudman, 2010). Self-promotion may cause a woman to fear backlash if she believes her behaviors could be traced to her personally. Backlash avoidance theory suggests that a woman should only experience discomfort while self-promoting if others could feasibly identify her personally and therefore lash out at her for violating the modesty norm.

The experiment

Each of these mechanisms relies on different aspects of the context in which self-promotion occurs. Specifically, cognitive dissonance is relevant whenever a woman who endorses the modesty norm self-promotes, stereotype threat is relevant only if the self-promoter is a woman, and fear of backlash is relevant only if the self-promoter is identifiable. In this experiment, women were asked to write a scholarship application essay. Before writing, women were told whether or how the essay’s author would be identified (promotion ownership), in an effort to identify the mechanism by which women experience an uncomfortable arousal when self-promoting. Participants were randomly assigned to one of five conditions. In four conditions, women self-promoted their own accomplishments by writing a scholarship application essay and were told that the essay would be labeled with her own name (self-identified), another woman’s name, a man’s name, or with no name (anonymous). In a fifth condition, participants wrote an essay promoting the accomplishments of a person of their choice. The outcome variables included participants’ own perceptions as well as independent raters’ perceptions of the essay quality.

Competing predictions

Cognitive dissonance

Support for the cognitive dissonance hypothesis will be evident if performance is low in any condition in which a woman self-promoted her own accomplishments instead of someone else’s accomplishments.

Stereotype threat

Support for the stereotype threat hypothesis will be evident if performance is low in any condition in which a woman self-promoted her own accomplishments and is identified as a woman (i.e., as herself or as another woman), compared with as a man.

Fear of backlash

Support for the fear of backlash hypothesis will be evident if performance is low in any condition in which a woman self-promoted her own accomplishments and is identified as herself (vs. as another woman).

Method

Participants

Participants were 123 university women who participated in exchange for partial course credit as part of a class requirement. Eight participants were removed from analyses during data cleaning for failing to write an essay. The remaining sample of 115 participants was ethnically diverse (38% White; 38% Black; 16% Hispanic; 4% Asian; 4% other) and participant age ranged from 18 years to 30 years (M = 19.38, SD = 1.76).

Procedure

As in Smith and Huntoon’s study (2013), participants were told that they would be writing a scholarship application essay that would be used in workshops to help students develop writing skills. Participants reviewed the specific scholarship for which they would write an application essay and were randomly assigned to one of five conditions. Participants in four of the conditions were prompted to write the essay on their own behalf but were told that their essays would be labeled as their own (identified self-promotion), as belonging to another woman (female self-promotion), as belonging to another man (male self-promotion), or as not linked to any individual in particular (anonymous self-promotion). In other words, the only aspect of the task that varied across these conditions was how the author of the essay would be identified. In a final condition, participants were asked to write a scholarship essay, similar to a letter of recommendation, on behalf of a peer that they knew (other promotion condition). After writing their scholarship application essay, participants completed self-report measures of perceived performance.

Materials

Each essay was evaluated by the author herself as well as by outside judges.

Self-perceived essay quality

Two measures of self-perceived essay quality were adapted from Smith and Huntoon (2013). Four items used by Smith and Huntoon (2013) measured participants’ self-perceived promotion performance (e.g., “How well do you think you promoted in your essay today?”). Responses options ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (extremely). A mean composite of these four items served as the measure of self-perceived performance.

Participants also responded to the items “Given a scholarship amount between $0 and $5000, how much do you think the applicant should receive?” and “Given a scholarship can be funded for 0 to 5 years, how many years do you think the applicant should receive the scholarship?” The responses for these two items were multiplied together to create a total essay worth ranging from $0 to $25,000.

Judged ratings of essay quality

In a procedure borrowed from Smith and Huntoon (2013), a separate sample of participants rated the quality of the scholarship essays. A new sample of 36 students (66.7% female; 30.6% White; 37.4% Black; 17.1% Hispanic; 14.3% Asian; M_age = 19.14) participated for course credit. After reading a description of the scholarship, participants rated no more than six essays for quality. As in Smith and Huntoon’s work, the essays that were written on behalf of a peer (other-promotion condition) were revised to be written in the first person. At least two separate judges rated each essay for quality.

These independent judges responded to four items adapted from those used to measure self-perceived promotion performance (e.g., “How well do you think the applicant promoted in the essay?”). Response options ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (extremely). A mean composite of these four items served as the measure of other-perceived performance.

The independent sample also responded to the same items used to measure self-perceived essay worth. The items were “Given a scholarship amount between $0 and $5000, how much do you think the applicant should receive?” and “Given a scholarship can be funded for 0 to 5 years, how many years do you think the applicant should receive the scholarship?” The responses for these two items were multiplied together to calculate essay worth ranging from $0 to $25,000.

Analysis plan

Four orthogonal-planned contrasts tested the differences between the experimental conditions for each dependent variable. One contrast tested the pattern that would support each theory (see Table 1). The contrast testing the cognitive dissonance explanation compared the four self-promotion conditions with the other-promotion condition. The contrast testing the stereotype threat hypothesis compared the two conditions that were labeled as written by a woman with the condition that was labeled as written by a man. The contrast testing the fear of backlash hypothesis compared the condition in which the author was personally identified with the condition in which the author was a woman but not personally identified, excluding the others. One final contrast was included to make the set orthogonal.

Table 1.

Planned Contrasts Testing Theoretical Mechanisms and Cell Means and Standard Deviations.

	Self-identified self-promotion	Other woman self-promotion	Other man self-promotion	Anonymous self-promotion	Other-promotion
Planned contrasts
Cognitive dissonance	1	1	1	1	−4
Stereotype threat	−1	−1	2	0	0
Fear of backlash	−1	1	0	0	0
Additional contrast	−1	−1	−1	3	0
Cell means and standard deviations
Self-perceptions
Promotion success	3.67 (.87)	4.62 (1.01)	3.9 (1.4)	4.26 (1.36)	4.09 (1.25)
Promotion value	$5118 (5295)	$4961.36 (5494)	$5236 (5295)	$6106.96 (5358)	$9248 (8019)
Judge ratings
Promotion success	3.83 (1.33)	4.44 (1.14)	4.22 (1.12)	4.06 (1.33)	3.87 (1.26)
Promotion value	$4375 (5041)	$7633.15 (5252)	$5249 (4175)	$5056.56 (4253)	$5429 (1132)

Note. Ratings of success could range from 1 (low) to 6 (high) and monetary value could range from $0 to $25,000.

Results

Correlations among all dependent variables are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Correlation Between Dependent Variables.

Variable	1	2	3	4
1. Self-perception of Promotion Success	.88	.44**	.31**	.23*
2. Self-perception of Promotion Value		—	.13	.04
3. Judge rating Promotion Success			.94	.68**
4. Judge rating of Promotion Value				—
Mean	4.11	$6153	4.09	$5607
Standard deviation	1.22	$6109	1.24	$4890

Note. Cronbach’s alpha is presented in bold on the diagonal where applicable. Ratings of success could range from 1 (low) to 6 (high) and monetary value could range from $0 to $25,000.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Hypothesis testing

Self-perceived essay quality

When the four contrast codes were used to predict self-perceived performance, one contrast was significant. Participants in the identified self-promotion condition (M = 3.67, SD = .87) rated their promotion as being lower in quality than those in the other woman self-promotion condition (M = 4.62, SD = 1.01; see Table 3). This is consistent with the fear of backlash hypothesis.

Table 3.

Planned Contrast Results for Each Dependent Variable.

		Cognitive Dissonance		Stereotype Threat		Fear of Backlash		Additional Contrast
Variables	df	t	sig	t	sig	t	sig	t	sig
Self-perceptions
Promotion success	110	0.09	.93	−0.8	.43	2.7	.01*	0.68	.50
Promotion value	108	−2.78	.01*	0.13	.90	−0.09	.93	−0.09	.93
Judge ratings
Promotion success	110	0.94	.35	0.27	.78	1.64	.11	−0.36	.72
Promotion value	110	−0.1	.93	−0.616	.54	2.25	.03*	−0.6	.55

*p < .05.

When the contrast codes were used to test differences in self-perceived essay value, again only one contrast was significant. Unlike in the previous analysis, the effect revealed that participants in the four other-identified promotion conditions (M = 9247.82, SD = 8019.46) rated their promotion essays as being worth more than those in the self-identified promotion condition (M = 5362.55, SD = 5288.40). This result is consistent with the cognitive dissonance theory explanation of women’s promotion experiences.

Judge ratings of essay quality

When testing differences in other-perceived performance, none of the contrasts were significant.

When the contrasts compared differences between conditions on other-perceived essay worth, one effect emerged. Essays written by participants in the identified self-promotion condition (M = 4375.07, SD = 5040.94) were judged to be worth less than those written by participants in the other woman self-promotion condition (M = 7633.15, SD = 5251.68). Like the results of self-perceived promotion performance, this result is consistent with the backlash avoidance theory of women’s self-promotion experiences.

Discussion

Our results provide some insight into women’s self-promotion experiences suggesting that women who self-promoted under a feminine pseudonym perceived their performance to be of higher quality than those who self-promoted using their own name. This pattern suggests that women perceive their own promotion to be limited when it is identifiable, but they can self-promote more effectively when they do so under a feminine pseudonym. This result is consistent with the idea that women’s self-promotion is limited by fear that others will derogate them for bragging about their accomplishments as is suggested by backlash avoidance theory. When women recognized that their essay would be read as authored by a woman but not them personally, women perceived themselves as promoting well.

The monetary value attributed to the essay revealed a different pattern. In line with Smith and Huntoon’s findings, women perceived the essays written on behalf of other people to be worth more than essays written on their own behalf. This finding suggests that women felt that the peer they selected to showcase was more deserving of the scholarship than they were, even though there were no differences between any of the self-promotion conditions and the other-promotion condition. This pattern suggests that women perceive that others are more deserving of the scholarship regardless of how well the applicant promoted in the scholarship essay. This is consistent with a cognitive dissonance explanation for why women experience promotion-limiting arousal because all women in the self-promotion conditions violated feminine modesty norms by self-promoting whereas those in the other-condition did not. However, if cognitive dissonance theory explained the findings, it is unclear why a similar pattern did not emerge on the self-perceived promotion performance measure, given this explanation would suggest that performance would be limited in all four of the self-promotion conditions. Another plausible explanation of this result fits with a backlash avoidance theoretical framework. Women may have chosen not to advocate on their own behalf by rating their own essay of deserving of a large sum of money perhaps because they feared what others might think. However, women felt comfortable advocating on the behalf of others.

Although women reported promoting better when writing under a feminine pseudonym compared with their own name, the judges’ ratings did not reflect the same pattern. In fact, no significant effects emerged on the judges’ perceptions of promotion success. Yet, the judges’ ratings did suggest that essays that were written under a feminine pseudonym were perceived to be worth more than those written under participants’ own name. This result is consistent with the pattern observed for participants’ own perceptions of promotion-performance and consistent with the backlash avoidance hypothesis.

The results we report take a step toward understanding the conditions under which women’s self-promotion is limited. This study was designed to extend work that suggests that women experience discomfort while self-promoting by testing possible sources of this arousal. These results are most consistent with a backlash avoidance theoretical model of how women experience self-promotion. It seems that women’s self-promotion is limited by fear of how other people might perceive and react to them when they self-promote. This study attempted to understand the theoretical reasons for the discomfort Smith and Huntoon (2013) found women to experience while engaging in self-promotion. By varying the perceived source of the self-promotion, we attempted to test which of three theories were most consistent with the discomfort women experience while engaging in self-promotion. Together, the results of this study suggest that backlash avoidance theory fits best with the current findings.

Limitations and future directions

In our study, we followed in the footsteps of past research (Moss-Racusin & Rudman, 2010; Smith & Huntoon, 2013) by only sampling women, so we cannot conclusively say that these results do not apply to men’s experience. Little work to date has investigated these relationships among men, although there is certainly reason to believe that men vary in their beliefs about when and how it is acceptable for them to self-promote. Future research should investigate men’s self-promotion experiences, possibly using similar conditions as used in this design as well as modified conditions that might address contexts that are unique to men.

Our findings are consistent with a backlash avoidance explanation, yet it is unclear how women should best overcome this obstacle. Our findings might suggest that when women self-promote, they should imagine that they will not be personally identifiable as the source of promotion. Given this suggestion is unrealistic in most instances requiring self-promotion, future research should investigate strategies women can use to overcome backlash avoidance.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We thank Anna Sheikh for her help understanding our data. We also thank Wilmar Perez-Castro for her help with data entry. Finally, we thank the research assistants in the Durik Lab for their help with data collection.

Article Notes

References

Ben-Zeev

Fein

Inzlicht

(2005) Arousal and stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 41: 174–181. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2003.11.007.

Cooper

Zanna

M. P.

Taves

P. A.

(1978) Arousal as a necessary condition for attitude change following induced compliance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36: 1101–1106. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.36.10.1101.

Festinger

(1957) A theory of cognitive dissonance, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Gould

R. J.

Slone

C. G.

(1982) The “Feminine Modesty” effect: A self-presentational interpretation of sex differences in causal attribution. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 8: 477–485. doi:10.1177/0146167282083014.

Huntoon, M., Victor, R., Spring, B., & Smith, J. L. (2011). I’m Incredible! An Experimental Investigation on Facilitating Women’s Self-Promotion. Poster presented at the annual Rocky Mountain Psychological Association conference, Salt Lake City, UT.

Kaman

V. S.

Hartel

C. E.

(1994) Gender differences in anticipated pay negotiation strategies and outcomes. Journal of Business and Psychology 9: 183–197. doi:10.1007/BF02230636.

Kray

L. J.

Thompson

Galinsky

(2001) Battle of the sexes: Gender stereotype confirmation and reactance in negotiations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80: 942–958. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.942.

Moss-Racusin

C. A.

Rudman

L. A.

(2010) Disruptions in women's self-promotion: The backlash avoidance model. Psychology of Women Quarterly 34: 186–202. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2010.01561.x.

Olson

J. M.

(1988) Misattribution, preparatory information, and speech anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54: 758–767. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.5.758.

10.

Rudman

L. A.

(1998) Self-promotion as a risk factor for women: The costs and benefits of counterstereotypical impression management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74: 629–645. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.629.

11.

Rudman

L. A.

Glick

(1999) Feminized management and backlash toward agentic women: The hidden costs to women of a kinder, gentler image of middle managers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77: 1004–1010. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.5.1004.

12.

Schmader

(2002) Gender identification moderates stereotype threat effects on women's math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38: 194–201. doi:10.1006/jesp.2001.1500.

13.

Smith

J. L.

Huntoon

(2013) Women's bragging rights overcoming modesty norms to facilitate women's self-promotion. Psychology of Women Quarterly 38: 447–459. doi:10.1177/0361684313515840.

14.

Steele

C. M.

(1997) A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist 52: 613–629. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.52.6.613.

15.

Tellhed

Björklund

(2011) Stereotype threat in salary negotiations is mediated by reservation salary. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52: 185–195. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.2010.00855.x.

16.

Zanna

M. P.

Cooper

(1976) Dissonance and the attribution process. New Directions in Attribution Research 1: 199–217.