The Influence of Gender Biased Job-Advertisements - Does Gender and Personality Traits Matter?

Abstract

Previous research have established that men and women react differently to jobadvertisements that are masculinely and femininely formulated, and biased wording have proven to affect feeling of belongingness, and ultimately the inclination to apply for a job (Gaucher, Friesen & Kay, 2011). However, we propose that certain personality traits matter more than gender itself, as personality has proven to be highly decisive for the choices we make (McCrae & John, 1992; Hogan & Holland, 2003). Traits are according to researchers found to be the most useful concept structuring personality, explaining or describing differences between people, and also in allowing for detailed and solid personality judgments (e.g., Allik, 2018 ; Kreitler, 2018 ; Weiss, 2018 ; Fajkowska, 2018). The concept of personality in regards to gender biased wording is to our knowledge not extensively examined, and there is a lack of empirically demonstrated findings. This may be a heretofore unacknowledged topic of inequality maintenance, illustrating how biased wording may contribute to a limited and narrow pool of applicants. The experiment found no effect of gender, but rater supported our prediction of how personality traits moderates the effect between gendered wording and inclination to apply for a job. The results indicate that self-consciousness, assertiveness, modesty and competence has significant effect, but not consistently in the hypothesized direction.