| A gender gap in ambition has been cited in the popular media as a reason that fewer women are in leadership positions. I examine this possibility as well as two potential reasons for the gender difference in leadership positions. The first is belief in the malleability of leadership traits; greater perceived malleability may translate into greater striving toward ambitious career goals. The second concerns gender differences in career ambition--women may have stronger intrinsic ambition, whereas men have stronger extrinsic ambition. In the present study, then, I examined implicit person theories (IPTs), workplace achievement goals, and career ambition among women (n = 216) and men (n = 215), who were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Participants completed online measures of incremental versus entity implicit person theories; mastery, performance approach, and performance avoidance achievement goals, career ambition (including creation of an original ambition scale), and demographic data. The factor structures of these measures and their equivalence across genders were assessed, using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). ESEM results revealed evidence of measurement equivalence across gender on the implicit person theories, achievement goals, and ambition scales. In addition, an ESEM of the original ambition scale revealed that it assessed, as expected, intrinsic and extrinsic ambition, as well as an unanticipated needs component. Consistent with research on the consequences of implicit theories for educational outcomes, incremental views predicted mastery and performance approach goals, while entitative views predicted performance avoidance goals. Mastery goals were positively related to intrinsic ambition and negatively related to extrinsic ambition. Performance approach goals predicted extrinsic ambition, while performance avoidance goals had negative consequences for intrinsic ambition. Finally, women and men did not differ on a trait measure of career ambition. As expected, however, men exhibited significantly greater extrinsic ambition compared to women; there was no evidence of a gender difference in intrinsic ambition. Theoretical and practical implications for employees and organizations are discussed. |
