Facing an Unexpected Negotiation Partner: the Impact of Hiring Manager Gender Role Violation on Job Candidates

We conducted three studies to explore how job candidates perceive and respond to hiring managers who commit gender role violations during salary negotiations, extending previous studies restricted to economic outcomes and backlash effects by focusing on a range of job candidate reactions. We apply expectancy violation and role incongruity theories to suggest that job candidates respond more strongly to hiring managers who violate gender role expectations than those who conform to expectations. We suggest that this reaction is more negative in response to agentic female hiring managers than any other type and more positive in response to communal male hiring managers than any other type. Across the three studies, the pattern of mean differences supports our predictions, although significance tests were not fully supportive across all outcomes and studies. Job candidates perceived hiring managers as more extreme on characteristics that violate gender role expectations (agentic female hiring managers were perceived to be more agentic than male counterparts, communal male hiring managers were perceived to be more communal than female counterparts). Job candidates were also less engaged with an agentic female hiring manager than an agentic male hiring manager. Significance tests were mixed for negative affect, self-efficacy, and trust, but mean differences were mostly consistent with the expectation that those negotiating with an agentic female hiring manager would experience the least favorable outcomes, whereas those negotiating with a communal male hiring manager would experience the most favorable outcomes. These results demonstrate that gender role violations extend beyond their impact on the violator (e.g., backlash), dramatically influencing job candidates on a range of outcomes as well.