The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

286 Chapter 8

is cross-sectional, so it is not clear whether

relationships with men influenced the job

outcomes or the job outcomes influenced the

relationships.

Friendships at work are usually formed

among peers, people who are working at sim-

ilar job levels. In fact, the promotion of one

person in a friendship may present problems

for the relationship. However, friendships

also form among people who have unequal

work statuses. Friendships between supervi-

sors and supervisees have benefits and costs.

On the downside, such friendships make dis-

ciplinary action more difficult for the super-

visor; on the upside, such friendships may

encourage greater cooperation and facilitate

getting the job done. If the subordinate is fe-

male and the supervisor is male, people are

often suspicious of the friendship.

There has been little research on how

gay men and lesbians form friendships at

work. One study of gay men showed that it

was difficult for men to find friends at work,

in part because the work environment is pre-

dominantly heterosexual and it is difficult to

identify gay men (Rumens, 2008). Gay men

find it difficult to be friends with men be-

cause others may be suspicious that the rela-

tionship is more than a friendship.

Because a friendship at work involves

the merging of two roles—coworker and

friend, it is vulnerable torole conflict, which

occurs when the demands of one role are in-

consistent with the demands of another role.

You might have found yourself suffering from

role conflict when your role as student re-

quired that you study for an upcoming exam

and your role as a member of some organiza-

tion (band, fraternity/sorority) required that

you work on the upcoming festivities at your

school. Bridge and Baxter (1992) outlined

four different kinds of role conflict among

friends at work. They did not examine the

issue of gender, however, so I will speculate as

Work is a good setting to study cross-sex

friendships. Although the workplace is still

sex segregated, there is increasing opportunity

for women and men to work together. Men

and women are more likely to develop cross-

sex friendships at work if they perform similar

jobs. However, there are barriers to cross-sex

friendship at work (Elsesser & Peplau, 2006).

Men and women may be concerned that

friendliness at work will be misinterpreted as

romantic or sexual interest—or, worse yet, as

sexual harassment. Even if the recipient of the

friendly overture does not misinterpret the

behavior, women and men may be concerned

that coworkers will! In other words, the audi-

ence challenge of cross-sex friendship may be

especially relevant in the work environment.

In a study of men and women profession-

als at work, men and women were equally

likely to voice these concerns about cross-sex

friendship at work (Elsesser & Peplau, 2006).

However, married employees expressed fewer

concerns about cross-sex friendship than un-

married employees, and more concerns were

expressed about cross-sex friendships with su-

pervisors or subordinates than peers.

Unlike friendships outside of work,

women may be less desirable as friends at

work. According to Ibarra (1993), women

may not be selected as friends because

(1) they are in the minority in terms of num-

bers at the upper level, (2) they are in lower-

status positions at work, and (3) sex-role

stereotypes lead to unfavorable attributions for

their performance. In a study of friendships

at work among information technologists,

lawyers, and middle managers, the quality

of friendships with men but not women pre-

dicted work outcomes (Markiewicz, Devine,

& Kausilas, 2000). For example, a stronger

relationship with a male friend was associ-

ated with a higher salary, and greater conflict

with the closest male friend was associated

with less job satisfaction. Of course, the study

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