Influence of gender stereotypes in the rating of workplace incivility

Abstract

The goal was to explore how gender stereotypes influence young students' ratings of the forms of workplace incivility. Drawing from the theory of selective incivility and the social role theory, the existence of gender differences in the detection and tolerance of different forms of incivility and the perception of its consequences were explored. Participants were 800 Spanish high school and professional training students (452 females and 348 males) in a between-subjects factorial design in which forms of incivility, gender dominated work domain, and participants' gender were manipulated. The results indicated that females and males gave different ratings. Females always detected incivility whereas males only detected it when it was exclusive than offensive, and both genders tolerated exclusive incivility to a lesser extent. In fact, females perceived that exclusive incivility reduced job satisfaction in engineering and emotional well-being in nursing, whereas no significant effects were found in males. To conclude, the study contributes specific developments about gender stereotypes, workplace incivility, its incidence, and sensitization towards the problem.