GENDER, INTERACTION, AND LEADERSHIP

This article describes research on gender and processes of power and p restige in task groups. We depart from standard analyses and use a mea sure of opinion change to describe leadership on power and prestige or ders. We use data from laboratory studies of single-gender and mixed-g ender groups to test gender-role socialization, status characteristic, and legitimation arguments. We find that all-female and all-male grou ps are equally likely to develop power and prestige orders. Among init ially leaderless, mixed-gender groups, males are five times more likel y than females to exercise opinion leadership. Gender differences vani sh, however, when we make a pretask assignment of leaders to mixed-gen der groups. These findings are most consistent with status characteris tic and legitimation theories, which correctly predict the outcomes of three out of four studies. Gender-role arguments predict only one out come out of four. Finally, our analyses of sociometric data provide ev idence of gender bias in peer evaluations of female and male members o f mixed-gender groups. We conclude by discussing the implications of o ur research for additional work on gender and leadership processes.