Gender Differences in Entitlement: The Role of System-Justifying Beliefs

Abstract Two studies examine the relationship between system-justifying beliefs and perceived pay entitlement and how this relationship differs as a function of gender. In Study 1, personal endorsement of system-justifying beliefs was associated with higher levels of pay entitlement among men. In contrast, personal endorsement of system-justifying beliefs was associated with slightly, but not significantly, lower levels of pay entitlement among women. In Study 2, a system-justification prime significantly increased reports of pay entitlement among men but had no effect on reports of pay entitlement among women. Results illustrate that system-justifying beliefs contribute to the creation and maintenance of gender differences in entitlement. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Graham Talley and Brian Awe for their assistance with data collection. Notes 1A description of the results of a subset of the present data was included in a literature review on entitlement (O'Brien & Major, Citation2009). 2There were an additional seven participants between the ages of 27 and 35 who were excluded from the analyses because they qualified as outliers on age (more than 1.5 box lengths above the interquartile range). Consistent with the notion that age may be another status indicator, this group of older participants (M = 9.57) scored higher in entitlement than the younger participants (M = 8.63), t(58) = −1.89, p = .06. Including these seven participants in the analyses did not alter the interpretation of the results. 3Eighty-nine participants were originally run through the experimental procedure. We removed two participants from the data set because they objected to study procedures out of principle (taking bonus pay—one of our dependent variables). Eight more participants were removed because they indicated suspicions as to the purpose of the experiment. The degrees of freedom vary slightly between different analyses due to missing data points. *p < .05. **p < .001.