Research Library

In this study, men and women viewed corporate mission statements and websites conveying that the organization espoused an entity (fixed) or incremental (malleable) theory. Results revealed that women—more so than men—trusted the entity company less than the incremental company. Furthermore, only women’s mistrust of the entity company was driven by their expectations about being stereotyped by its management. Notably, when combined with high or low representations of female employees, only these organizational lay theories predicted trust. People’s—particularly women’s—mistrust of the entity company led them to disengage more before interacting with a representative.