Is ambition a gendered issue? Students´ vs employees´ antecedents of Ambition about Leadership

Authors

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6018/analesps.435341
Keywords: Ambition, Employees, Gender role-congruency, Leadership, Students

Abstract

Obstacles along women career demonstrate how ambition for becoming a leader is complex because it is influenced by gender stereotypes and roles. In this study, 625 participants (54.24% women) from two statuses (379 students and 246 employees) were asked to imagine how they would react to a promotion to a leadership position and then completed a questionnaire including their beliefs about the consequences, core self-evaluations, ambition, positive and negative emotions, and gender role ideology.

Students were more ambitious than employees, regardless of their gender. However, when analyzing the impact of ambition on the decision of accepting a leadership position we observe that positive affect generated by imagining a promotion is the key aspect to finally decide to accept the promotion in both students and employees. However, in students, regardless of their gender, the decision is predicted by negative affect, core-self evaluations but not by levels of ambition.

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Author Biographies

Esther Lopez-Zafra, Professor. University of Jaén

Degree in Psychology in University of Granada and PhD in Social Psychology in UNED Madrid. Full Professor of Social Psychology at the Universidad de Jaén (Spain), coordinates a Research group founded in 1999, and the main researcher of three projects that are currently in progress. Co-founder and Secretary of the Scientific Society of the Spanish Social Psychology from 2012 onwards. She has made international stays at Northewestern University (USA), Clermont-Ferranz (France), Lisbon (Portugal), or Zagreb (Croatia) and has published more than sixty research papers in the fields of leadership, emotional intelligence and gender.

Nicolás Sánchez-Álvarez, University of Málaga

Nicolás Sánchez-Álvarez, PhD, ORCID: 0000-0002-5910-5734. Postdoctoral researcher and teacher in the University of Málaga. He is currently a professor of the subject Methodology of Behavioral Sciences of the degree of Psychology. He has been actively participating in research groups in private psychological centers, hospital centers and public and private universities since 2008, focusing his research in the fields of Emotional Intelligence, Positive Psychology, well-being and suicide. The achievements are focused on the dissemination of results in conferences and journals of high international impact, as a result of the experience of research projects.

Isabel Carmona-Cobo, Assistant professor. University of Jaén

Isabel Cobo-Carmona, PhD, ORCID: 0000-0003-1689-4195. Assistant Professor at the University of Jaén. Formerly at the Catholic University of Temuco, Chile. Doctor in Clinical and Health Psychology from the Autonomous University of Madrid with a thesis by compendium of publications and International Mention. She has made international stays at Universität Mannheim, New York University, Universidade de Brasília and Universidade de São Paulo. Her research and scientific publication focuses on two main lines: (a) psychosocial processes of stress and health at work with the development of journal studies, and (b) gender and work through experimental design.

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Published
25-04-2021
How to Cite
Lopez-Zafra, E., Sánchez-Álvarez, N., & Carmona-Cobo, I. (2021). Is ambition a gendered issue? Students´ vs employees´ antecedents of Ambition about Leadership. Anales de Psicología / Annals of Psychology, 37(2), 352–360. https://doi.org/10.6018/analesps.435341
Issue
Vol. 37 No. 2 (2021): May - September
Section
Social and Organizational Psychology

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