Bystander Reactions to Workplace Incivility: The Role of Gender and Discrimination Claims
Will men and women receive the same support at work when they claim to have been discriminated against? This paper reports a scenario based experimental study (N 240, 50.4% women, M age 25.65) that investigated bystanders' reactions to an incident where a co worker is treated in a condescending manner by another co worker. The results showed that women reacted more strongly to the incivility incident and were more willing to support and defend the co worker. As expected, the gender difference in helping intentions was especially prominent when the co worker attributed the incident to gender discrimination, compared to a control condition with an attribution unrelated to gender. Further, when the incident was attributed to discrimination, the female co worker evoked somewhat stronger helping intentions than the male co worker, suggesting the presence of gender bias. The results are discussed in relation to the prototype perspective of perceived discrimination.
Europe's journal of psychology