Investigating the illusion of an equal world: The moderating roles of system justification beliefs and gender identification in the Queen Bee phenomenon

Abstract

The study at hand sought to replicate the study of Derks et al. (2011b) and expand the literature on the queen bee (QB) phenomenon by examining the possible moderating role of system justification beliefs (SJB). As women continue to reach positions of power increasingly, the barriers put in place are becoming more evident. One barrier is related to the perception of gender bias and discrimination. Women who recognise gender bias and discrimination within their organisations could disengage themselves from other women to advance further (Derks et al., 2011a). This is also known as queen bee behaviour, and it can lead to women defending the status quo, enforcing gender stereotypes, and decreasing advancement opportunities for other women. In line with this, we hypothesized that the relationship between gender bias and QB behaviours would be stronger when women identified lowly with their gender, and when they have high SJB. The current study examined 96 female managers across different companies and nationalities through an online experiment where they were either reminded of the existence of gender bias or not. The findings were mixed for both hypotheses, where only the denial of discrimination was in line with expectations for the first hypothesis. Additionally, only ingroup distancing had a marginally significant interaction, but the main effects were insignificant, thus the second hypothesis was not supported. Recommendations for future research and practical implications are discussed.