Women’s Psychosocial and Physiological Experience of Speaking in Work Teams

平均而言，女性比男性更不可能表达自己的想法，成为领导者，并花时间在工作团队中交谈。这可能会损害妇女的职业发展、薪酬和对劳动力的贡献。为了解决这一问题并促进妇女在劳动力中取得成功，有必要了解妇女在工作团队中发言的原因和时间。该项目探讨了女性在工作团队中发言的潜在障碍，包括社会和心理后果，以及社交焦虑可能在加剧这些负面体验方面发挥的关键作用。该项目就如何促进妇女参与工作团队并最终提高其职业成功率提出明确建议，从而对参与者、其所在组织和整个劳动力队伍产生直接和积极的影响。该项目通过两项研究测试潜在的机制，促进人们了解为什么女性不太可能发声并成为工作团队的领导者。研究1是一项为期两周的实地研究，约150名成年雇员使用经验抽样方法，捕捉日常预期和实际经验，在工作团队中发言，以及他们的心理社会后果。研究2采取了更细粒度的重点，使用观察性实验室研究，其中大约125个团队聚集在一起进行一次性会议。在这些会议期间，记录相互作用和个体心率变异性、皮肤电反应和呼吸率的音频和视频记录。通过研究在团队中发言之前和之后的瞬间生理变化，这项研究将压力过程、认知过程及其解决方案分开。总体而言，该研究项目评估了男性与女性在工作团队中发言的经历如何在不同的时刻和日子里不同地展开，以及社交焦虑在这一过程中所起的作用。这个奖项反映了国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

On average, women are less likely than men to express their ideas, emerge as leaders, and spend time talking in work teams. This can harm women’s career advancement, pay, and contribution to the workforce. To address this issue and facilitate women’s success in the workforce, it is necessary to understand why and when women speak up in work teams. This project explores potential barriers to women speaking up in work teams including social and psychological consequences, as well the key role social anxiety may play in exacerbating these negative experiences. This project directly and positively impacts participants, their organizations, and the overall workforce by creating clear suggestions on how to facilitate women’s participation in work teams, and ultimately increase their career success. This project fosters an understanding of why women are less likely to speak up and emerge as leaders in work teams by testing potential mechanisms across two studies. Study 1 is a two-week field study of approximately 150 employed adults using experience sampling methodology, capturing daily anticipated and actual experiences with speaking in work teams as well as their psychosocial consequences. Study 2 takes a more granular focus, using an observational laboratory study in which approximately 125 teams come together for one-time meetings. During these meetings, audio and video recordings of interactions and individual heartrate variability, galvanic skin response, and respiration rate are recorded. By studying the momentary physiological changes leading up to, and following speaking in a team, this study teases apart stress processes, cognitive processing, and their resolutions. Overall, this research project evaluates the how the experience of speaking up in work teams differentially unfolds over moments and days for men versus women, and the role social anxiety plays in this process. The project addresses critical theoretical and practical questions about women’s participation in workforce leadership.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.