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，不太可能成为领导者，也不太可能花时间在工作团队中交谈。这可能会损害女性的职业发展、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大军中取得成功，有必要了解妇女为什么以及何时在工作小组中发言。该项目探讨了女性在工作团队中畅所欲言的潜在障碍，包括社会和心理后果，以及社交焦虑在加剧这些负面经历中可能发挥的关键作用。该项目通过就如何促进妇女参与工作团队并最终提高她们的职业成功提出明确的建议，直接和积极地影响参与者、她们的组织和整个劳动力队伍。这个项目通过在两项研究中测试潜在的机制，促进了对为什么女性不太可能直言不讳并成为工作团队中的领导者的理解。研究一是对大约150名在职成年人进行为期两周的实地研究，采用经验抽样方法，获取在工作团队中讲话的日常预期和实际经验以及它们的心理社会后果。研究2采用了一项观察性实验室研究，其中约125个团队聚集在一起举行一次性会议，这项研究的重点更加细化。在这些会议期间，互动和个人心率变异性、皮肤电反应和呼吸频率的音频和视频记录被记录下来。通过研究在团队发言之前和之后的瞬间生理变化，这项研究梳理了压力过程、认知过程及其解决方案。总体而言，这项研究评估了男性和女性在工作团队中发声的经历在不同时刻和几天内的不同表现，以及社交焦虑在这一过程中所起的作用。该项目解决了有关妇女参与劳动力领导的关键理论和实践问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.