Abstract
Prejudice against women is often stated as a reason why women do not achieve the same success as men in the workplace. Previous research has suggested that this discrimination may in part be due to a pro-male evaluation bias. Evaluations of others are not only affected by their gender, but also by traits belonging to the evaluator. Respondents often assume that their own traits and preferences will be more common in a population than what is actually the case. This bias is called the false consensus effect. The present study combines the externally triggered pro-male bias with the internally triggered false consensus effect to investigate the evaluation of a fictive stimulus person. The Cognitive Style Index was completed by 186 employees, 65 women and 121 men, at the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. The respondents were asked to judge the perceived rationality of a fictive stimulus decision made in the workplace. In half of the administered questionnaires the stimulus person bore a female name, in the other half the stimulus person was male. In the present study, no pro-male bias was found. The respondents judged the cognitive style of the stimulus person to be similar to their own cognitive style, suggesting a false consensus effect. Earlier studies have found men to be more prone to the use of heuristics. In the present study the false consensus effect was found for the female respondents in the sample only. This surprising result is discussed against the backdrop of motivational explanations of the false consensus effect.