“Brilliance,” a state of extreme intellectual ability, is stereotypically associated with men but not women. Research finds that portrayals of brilliance as a prerequisite for success contribute to women's underrepresentation in certain academic fields and high-level positions. In this work, we examined whether gender roles contribute to the perception of women as less brilliant. In four preregistered experimental studies (N = 920), we tested whether brilliance deviates from ascribed and prescribed gender roles more for women than for men and whether such deviation places women who display their brilliance at a higher risk of experiencing backlash. In Study 1, an average intelligent and a brilliant man were rated as more similar on gender-specific traits than an average intelligent and a brilliant woman. In Study 2, while intelligence and gender individually influenced prescriptions of masculinity and femininity, their interaction did not support larger differences for female targets, indicating a lack of differential expectations by gender and intelligence. Study 3 showed that brilliant women are more likely to experience backlash at work than brilliant men, while Study 4 demonstrated that while brilliance enhances professional desirability across genders, it decreases social desirability, suggesting social costs that could affect workplace dynamics. Our results support that brilliance can be considered a form of gender-role deviance for women and might lead to a backlash. This underscores the need for policies to counteract gendered stereotypes of brilliance, which hinder women's career advancement and contribute to the gender gap in the workplace.

中文翻译：

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才华横溢是性别偏差：性别角色不一致是女性在学术领域取得成功的另一个障碍


“才华横溢”是一种极端智力状态，人们通常将其与男性联系在一起，但与女性无关。研究发现，将才华描述为成功的先决条件导致女性在某些学术领域和高层职位中的代表性不足。在这项工作中，我们研究了性别角色是否会导致女性被认为不够聪明。在四项预先注册的实验研究（N = 920）中，我们测试了女性的才华是否比男性更多地偏离既定和规定的性别角色，以及这种偏差是否使表现出才华的女性面临更高的遭受强烈反对的风险。在研究 1 中，平均智力和才华横溢的男性在性别特征上的相似度高于平均智力和才华横溢的女性。在研究 2 中，虽然智力和性别分别影响男性气质和女性气质的规定，但它们的相互作用并不支持女性目标存在更大的差异，这表明性别和智力缺乏差异期望。研究 3 表明，才华横溢的女性比才华横溢的男性更容易在工作中遭受抵制，而研究 4 则表明，虽然才华横溢会提高不同性别的职业吸引力，但会降低社会吸引力，这表明社会成本可能会影响工作场所的动态。我们的研究结果表明，才华可以被视为女性性别角色偏差的一种形式，并可能会引起强烈反对。这强调需要制定政策来消除对才华的性别陈规定型观念，这种观念阻碍了女性的职业发展并加剧了工作场所的性别差距。