Towards glass ceiling: binding moral foundations and gender essentialism mediating the role of need for cognitive closure on attitudes towards women managers

Purpose Women in managerial roles are targets of negative evaluation and opposition. This research investigated the direct and indirect effects of need for cognitive closure (NCC; i.e. the need to maintain the stability of knowledge) on negative attitudes against women as leaders via the unexplored sequential mediating role of binding moral foundations (i.e. group-protecting moral concerns) and gender essentialist beliefs (i.e. the belief that women and men are unchangeably and naturally different). Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 248 Italian workers (57% men, 43% women). Self-report measures assessing individual NCC, endorsement of binding moral foundations, gender essentialist beliefs and negative attitudes towards women as managers were employed. Bootstrap mediational analysis was conducted to test the expectations. Findings The results confirmed the association between the NCC and the negative attitudes against women as leaders, as consistently demonstrated in the literature. Most importantly, the results revealed that the positive relation between the NCC and negative attitudes against women in managerial positions was sequentially mediated by binding moral foundations and gender essentialism. Originality/value By considering the underexplored intertwined effects of multiple social psychological factors at the roots of negative evaluation of women as managers, the study addresses the complex psychological process that enables the continuance of gender discrimination in leadership roles.