Transcript Gender Differences in Directly and Indirectly Elicited

The Effect of Gender-Stereotypes
on Explicit and Implicit Career
Preferences
Reuma Gadassi and Itamar Gati
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Presented at the
International Counseling Psychology Conference
Chicago, March 2008
THE GOAL
studying
– the possible effects of gender-stereotypes on the
process of choosing occupations
– the effects of approaching career choices in terms of:
• Preferred occupations
versus
• Preferences in important career-related aspects
The question: does the method of eliciting
occupational aspiration moderates the effect of
gender-stereotypes on occupational choices?
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METHOD
 Participants
226 females (74.1%) and 79 males (25.9%) who
entered the Future Directions Internet site, and
chose to fill out the research questionnaire in return
for feedback.
– Age: 17-30, mean=23 (median = 22)
– Years of education: mean=12. 7 (median 12)
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Future Directions
http://www.kivunim.com
An Israeli website in
Hebrew, designed for
assisting deliberating
individuals in making
their career decisions.
It is a public service
and is offered free of
charge.
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Making Better Career Decisions an Internet-based career guidance system
(http://mbcd.intocareers.org)
The Rationale
the dialogue is divided into distinct stages,
corresponding to the PIC Model’s stages
(Gati & Asher, 2001):
- Prescreening (based on sequential elimination)
- In-depth exploration
- Choice
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Making Better Career Decisions
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On-line Questionnaire
1. Background information (age, gender, years of
education)
2. Participants were asked to "specify 5 to 10 (or more)
occupations that you think are suitable for you" (the
directly elicited list)
3. The Career Preference Questionnaire used to elicit the
participants’ career preferences in terms of career
related-aspects (relative importance & preferred levels)
4. Personal information: participants were asked to report
a mailing address for receiving feedback
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Procedure
 The data consisted of two lists of occupations for each
participant:
 the directly elicited list – the preferred occupations as
reported by the individual
 the indirectly derived list – occupations that were found
compatible with the user’s aspect-based preferences by
MBCD based on the sequential-elimination-search
 Gender Dominance Ratings of occupations
(1-feminine – 5-masculine)
 Each participant received (by mail or e-mail):
 a list of promising alternatives that was produced by MBCD
 a user code for MBCD (= 16 US$)
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Design
Data from
participant:
Preferences in careerrelated aspects
Directly Elicited list
of preferred
occupations
comparison
MBCD
Occupational
information
database
Matching
preferences
& database
Indirectly Derived
list of
recommended
occupations
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RESULTS
Means of the Gender-Dominance
According to Type of List and Gender
3.18
3.13
2.96
Men
Women
2.71
IndirectlyDerived
3.3
3.2
3.1
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2.9
2.8
2.7
2.6
2.5
2.4
Directly Elicited
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Conclusion
The comparison of the directly elicited and
the indirectly derived lists of occupations
supported the hypothesis:
using preferences in terms of aspects may
lead to a less gender-stereotypical choice for
both men and women
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Implications
 When discussing clients’ future options, it is
important to elicit the individual’s preferences in
terms of aspects rather than in terms of
occupational titles
 In this manner, individuals’ career decisions are
less likely to be influenced by stereotypes, and
would perhaps consider a wider range of
occupations
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For further information, write to:
[email protected]
WWW.CDDQ.ORG
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