Business partnerships: Sex and attractiveness stereotypes
- Keywords:
- social behavior, social psychology, business partnerships, sex, attractiveness, stereotypes, preference, men, women, business partners, law office, masculine, sex bias, legal profession, masculine image, attractive males, unattractive females, dyadic par
- Abstract
- Three studies are presented, all concerned with the preference for men over women as business partners. In the first study subjects made up names of imaginary partners in a law office. The majority of men and women made up masculine names. While these results support the hypothesized preference for men, they could be due to a confounding of the effects of sex bias and the masculine image of the legal profession. Therefore, in the second study a more neutral line of business (export/import) was employed. Subjects chose an imaginary partner from a set of photographs. As expected, attractive males were chosen most often while unattractive females least often, by men and women. The subjects tended to justify their choices by attributing desirable personal qualities to the chosen individual. The third study looked at the sex composition of existing dyadic partnerships. 90% of the partnerships investigated were of the same sex. It was argued that the paucity of mixed partnerships may be due, at least in part, to fear of rejection or actual rejection of the female member by a potential male partner. The findings tend to support the existing preference for men over women as business partners.
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- Published
- 1982-08-01
- Issue
- Volume 10, 1982, Issue 2
- Section
- Articles
- License
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