The contribution of gender identity and just world belief to the attribution of guilt in inter-gender vertical conflict in an organization

Abstract

The present article is dedicated to the study of the contribution of sex of respondents, sex of characters, just world belief (JWB) and indicators of gender identity to the attribution of guilt to participants of inter-gender vertical conflict in an organization. Study participants included 140 students from different Moscow universities, 70 of them female. The average age of respondents was 20. Participants were invited to respond a vignette. The vignette described the situation of unfair punishment of a worker by a boss and was presented in two variants: in the first the boss was female and the worker was male, in the second vice versa. Respondents were asked to assess the guilt of both the worker and the boss. The analysis of the results showed that differences in attribution of guilt to characters that depend on sex of participants take place solely towards female boss who is attributed more guilt by male respondents and less guilt by female respondents. Differences in attribution of guilt to boss towards male boss are insignificant. However, gender favoritism is not related to the level of identification with one’s gender group in both cases. Indicators of gender identity are inversely related to the attribution of guilt to members of one’s gender group solely in the situation of the traditional role distribution: male boss and female subordinate. Male respondents have gender identity indicators inversely related to the attribution of guilt to male boss only in situation of female respondents having gender identity indicators inversely related to the attribution of guilt to female subordinate. JWB indicators do not have significant relations to the attribution of guilt to conflict’s participants by neither male nor female respondents.