The Effects Of Gender Stereotype On CMC Groups Decision-making

This paper intended to investigate how the gender stereotype would be evoked under computer mediated communication (CMC) and how it would affect the some factors during decision-making of groups, which included the stereotype threaten and the social loafing and compensation as well as the corresponding changes of expectance, behavior and attitude. The participant gender, group composition (the gender of the group members), communication media and the gender of tasks were designed as independent variables in this study. In our laboratory experiments, we use only-choice task with genders as materialfor decision-making, with 270 subjects from two universities in Zhejiang province. The findings were as following:1. In dealing with the neutral tasks, participants would not be evoked the gender stereotype; however, in dealing with the gender tasks, participants would be evoked the gender stereotype.2. In a major-gender group, those stereotype-and-task-mismatch solo-gender subjects had suffered stereotype threaten. In this case, their conficacy and rate of correction were shown lower than the major-gender subjects. Moreover, after discussion, the solo-gender subjects had made significantly greater improvement than the major gender subjects in these sides mentioned above. No differences between different media(CMC and FTF) were found.3. In a major-gender group, those mismatch-stereotype-and-task solo-gender subjects were more likely to conform to the group decision after discussion and less likely to insist on their own opinions. No differences between different media were found. Furthermore, when the solo-gender subjects conform to the group decision, their efficiency would be improved more than those who insisted their opinions. Nodifferences between different media were found.4. Gender-task discussion time was shorter than that of neutral-gender-task, and CMC media discussion time was longer than face to face (FTF) media discussion time. During gender-task discussion, major-gender participants spoke much more comparing to neuraltask, and the solo-gender participants spoke less comparing to neural-gender-task. Moreover, under CMC media, the stereotype-task-mismatch participants were more likely to apply "meta-process", "loafing", and "relationship", while under FTF media, the stereotype-task-mismatch participants were more likely to apply"explanation".5. In major-gender groups, the members perceived that the major-gender members contributed more to the performance of groups rather than the solo-gender members. No differences concerning contribution between different media were found. In solo-gender groups, no differences concerning contribution among three members could be found.6. There was no difference on process satisfaction between CMC and FTF media. However, satisfaction of members of groups on total outcome under CMC was higher than that under FTF.7. Females were more likely to be affected by the stereotype-task-mismatch on solo status than males.