New study from UA Eller College shows men who cry during performance reviews experience more negative consequences than women

TUCSON, Ariz. – Oct. 20, 2016 – Men who cry during a negative performance review at work are more likely to receive lower performance evaluations, decreased assessments of leadership ability and more negative written recommendations, according to a new study by researchers with the University of Arizona Eller College of Management.

The study, entitled “Boys, Don’t Cry: Gender and Reactions to Negative Performance Feedback,” was recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. The study is the first of its kind to examine how crying during a performance review at work can impact both the employee and the supervisor who provided the negative feedback.

“For men who are expected to exhibit more dominant characteristics, crying is not an option,” said Aleksander Ellis, research director at the Eller College Center for Leadership Ethics. “When men cry, our results suggest that they are labeled as atypical, which has negative consequences for how others evaluate them at work.”

To examine how crying during a negative performance review impacts a supervisor’s perception of an employee, Ellis and his co-author, doctoral student Daphna Motro, presented four different performance review situations to 169 participants.

Each participant was shown a video of either a female or a male receiving a negative performance review. In half of the videos, the employee receiving the negative review cried as a result. After watching the video, participants were asked to complete a performance review, assess leadership capability and write a letter of recommendation for the employee.

Study results showed that men who cried during the performance reviews were seen by participants as more atypical than the women who cried. In addition, the study shows that men who cried during negative reviews were more likely to experience negatively biased outcomes on their performance evaluations, perceived leadership capabilities and written recommendations.

When a woman receiving a negative evaluation cried, it did not have a significant impact on her perceived performance or leadership capability or her written recommendations.

“The overwhelming majority of research in the field of gender and diversity has focused on sexism in one direction – sexism that contributes to the plight of women,” said Motro. “While there may be fewer situations where men experience sexism, they do exist, as indicated by our results. We need to acknowledge that gender bias can harm men just as it can harm women.”
 
###

The Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona is internationally recognized for pioneering research, innovative curriculum, distinguished faculty, excellence in entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller undergraduate program #9 among public business schools and two of its programs are among the top 20 — Entrepreneurship and MIS. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller MBA Full-Time program #60 in the U.S. In addition to a Full-Time MBA program, the Eller College offers an Evening MBA program and the Eller Executive MBA. The Eller College of Management supports more than 5,800 undergraduate and 750 graduate students on the UA campus in beautiful Tucson, Arizona, as well as a satellite campus at the Phoenix biomedical campus downtown.

Press Contacts:
Sue Kern-Fleischer, (602) 810-1404 or sue@publicizethis.com
Liz Warren-Pederson, Eller College of Management
520.626.9547, news@eller.arizona.edu