The Effect of WAGES-Academic on Men's and Women's Ability to Detect Subtle Sexism in the Workplace.

Open Access
- Author:
- Demeusy, Elizabeth Marilyn
- Area of Honors:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Stephanie A Shields, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Richard Alan Carlson, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- WAGES
WAGES-Academic
sexism
wage gap
modern sexism - Abstract:
- Despite society’s best efforts to narrow the gendered wage gap over the past few decades, evidence indicates that sexism in the workplace has not been eradicated. The purpose of this study is to assess whether participants playing WAGES-Academic will have an increased ability to detect subtle sexism in comparison to participants in the control conditions. WAGES (Workshop Activity or Gender Equity Simulation)-Academic is an experiential learning game that educates participants on subtle sexism in the workplace. In this study, the participants were first pretested for their ability to detect subtle sexism based on the Perceiving Subtle Acts as Sexist scale (Swim, Cohen, & Hyers, 1998). They were then assigned to one of three conditions: WAGES-Academic, Chutes and Ladders or Information only. After participating in one of these conditions, the participants completed the PSS scale again. Finally, participants were emailed to participate in the third part of the study which they did not know was connected to the first and second part. During the third part, participants completed the PSS scale a final time. At the baseline and intervention time points, there was a main effect of gender, in that females scored higher than males on the PSS scale. There was also a main effect of time, in that participants scored higher on the PSS scale at intervention than at the baseline time point. Finally, there was an interaction between game type and gender, in that the female participants in the WAGES condition scored the highest on the PSS scale when compared to females and males in the Information only condition and the Chutes and Ladders condition. When analyzing the frequencies of the baseline scores on the PSS scale, I found that 52% of the participants were already scoring in the upper limit of the scale, 6 or 7. Therefore, I further analyzed the female participants who had scored a 5 or lower on the PPS scale at baseline in order to assess improvement. When examining this subgroup for all three conditions across all three time points, I found a main effect of game type, indicating that participants in the WAGES condition scored significantly higher than those in the Information only or Chutes and Ladders conditions. There was also a main effect of time, in that participants scored significantly higher at the intervention and follow-up time point than at the baseline time point. These results imply that further research could be conducted in order to discover more successful research mechanisms for uncovering subtle sexist beliefs in the workplace. Ultimately, the implications for this research could help create a more egalitarian work environment for both women and men.