Article summary of Gender differences in entitlement: The role of system-justifying beliefs by O'Brien et al. - 2012 - Chapter

Preface

Women earn less than men, even if they do the same work. What contributes to this? Experience with earlier work, the value you give to salary in relation to other factors such as flexibility, marital status, responsibility to look after a child, unified membership, interrogation and discrimination. This all contributes to the gender pay gap. This research examines the role that system justification processes play in creating and maintaining gender differences.

Differences in law

This research examines personal law: what you think you can earn based on your performance. Research shows that men think they have a higher personal right than women. They think they are more entitled to a high amount compared to what women think about themselves. According to the status construction theory, people who are in group A and get paid less than group B think that they have indeed contributed less and therefore earn less. However, this does not have to be the case.

System justification and law

This is a process in which differences between groups are justified. People want the system to be fair. System justifications include Protestant work ethics and individual mobility. This system ensures that people themselves are responsible for their outcomes. In short: it shows that differences, including wages, are fair. The SROs make people think that men apparently have more input than women, so that they also earn more output (salary). This can reinforce existing gender differences. This has also been shown by a study. This research tests the hypothesis that approval or activation of SROs will increase the sex gap in terms of personal law. So if one is convinced that a gender pay gap is justified, women will think that they indeed deserve less, so their sense of personal right will be less. It is thought that it will lead to an increased sense of personal rights in men and that it will decrease in women.

However, it has been found that the approval or confirmation of the SROs have fewer implications for the low status groups (in this case the women) and more for the high status groups (men). So with SROs, women will show less effect in decreasing personal law and men will show more effect in increasing personal law. This is called ideological asymmetry. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between SROs and law and also how this relationship can differ due to the gender function. The research consists of two different studies:

1. It investigates the relationship between individual differences in SRO entitlement and the personal payment entitlement received between men and women (correlational relationships).
2. Priming procedure. It examines the impact of SROs on payment law (causal relationships).

Study 1

People at a university had to fill in a questionnaire about SROs (very much agree to very much disagree) and read and evaluate vignettes (short stories). They also had to report their personal rights and enter demographic information.

Results

There was a significant positive relationship between SROs and law regarding men. At SROs, men reported a higher personal right. In women, the relationship was negative, although it was not significant. People who had high SROs showed a significant effect of gender; men reported higher law than women. For people who had low SROs, there was no gender difference.

Discussion

In men, SROs are associated with higher salaries. There were only gender differences measured at high SROs. Furthermore, there is no difference between reported personal rights between men and women. Why study 2? An important goal is to determine whether the experimental priming of SROs influences law. If so, we can suggest that SROs have a causal impact on law. Secondly, they also want to measure behavioral law in which people actually pay themselves. They want to determine whether SROs have an influence on behavioral measurements of law, just like the self-report measurement of law (in study 1).

Study 2

There were three changes from the first study. They had to determine their right to salary after doing real work, instead of the right to salary for imagined future work. They tested the impact of SROs on received salary rights by experimentally priming SROs (i.e. offering them unknowingly), instead of measuring it as an individual difference. Thirdly, a measure of behavior was added, participants were allowed to pay themselves for work.

It was thought that women would work harder, give themselves less money and pay themselves less. Moreover, it was thought that gender differences would be greater after primed SROs. They had to do a circular task: they were given a text and had to circle all the e's. With the SRO priming condition they were given a task in which the SROs would be activated, for example by offering texts that contained prejudices about women.

Finally, they had to pay themselves, up to 5 dollars. They also had to report what they would give themselves, what their personal rights were.

Results

Regarding complete work: women had made significantly more than men. Accuracy: although women had done more than men, they were no less accurate. It is therefore not significant. Self-reported law: men found significantly that they earned more than women. After priming, men felt much stronger that they earned a lot. After priming, they therefore awarded themselves a higher salary than in the other condition. In women this effect was the other way around and only minimal: not significant. So after SROs, women did not grant themselves significantly less salary than without the SROs.

Men also reported after the SROs that they really earn more than the women in the SRO condition. In the control condition also, but still less and not significant. Behavioral law: men actually gave themselves more than women.

Discussion

Men indeed felt that they deserved more than women and this idea was reinforced by the prime condition. The reinforcement is mainly because men allowed themselves more after the SRO condition. For women it was the other way around: they felt that they did earn a little less. But this was not significant.

The behavioral situation was different: men paid themselves more than women, but this did not depend on the prime condition. This is striking, because women had done more work than men.

But there is a difference between the reported condition (so what would you give yourself) and the behavioral condition (what did you actually give yourself). And why? Researchers usually find a behavioral condition better, more reliable, but in this study the other seems purer. The behavioral condition depends on, for example, how much money someone needs.

General discussion

SROs create and maintain gender differences in the right to payment by increasing men's sense of right and decreasing women's sense of right. This has been demonstrated by two studies. Study 1 looked at the correlation between individual differences in entitlements of SROs and entitlements received in future payments. Study 2 manipulated the SROs and looked at the impact of that manipulation on the right received for work that has already been carried out.

In some studies, members of a low status group justify the social system less than members of a high status group. For people in a low status group, the system justifications (that think salary differences are fair) are in conflict with the ego and the motives for justice of the group. This can cause a feeling of unfairness, ambivalence and instability. These conflicting motives can explain why it has sometimes been found that there are weaker relationships between SROs and outcomes in people in a low status group compared to people in a high status group. This is called the ideological asymmetrical effect. It is also possible that an SRO is interpreted differently: men get a lot because they work hard or men get a lot so they work hard. However, this is not both positive for women. This could explain that they work harder; then they can earn more.

People often compare themselves with others: social comparison. For example, men compare their wages with other men, women compare their wages with other women. Since there is a gap between men's and women's wages, the comparisons also lead to skewed relationships as to the expectation of wages. If gender inequality exists, SROs would encourage men and women to think that those differences are fair and well deserved. However, if equality exists and men and women have the same expectations, SROs would also encourage men and women to think that it is fair and deserved. However, this has not yet been investigated.

Conclusion

Because men have a great sense of entitlement, they dare to ask for raise sooner. They are also less satisfied with their salary. It can also cause men to be blind when they actually get too much, justifying their good position.

Women have a lesser sense of justice. This prevents them from realizing when they are discriminated against and it reduces the chance that they will participate in a collective action that changes the distribution of social good (revolution).