Women as Managers Scale

Abstract

The Women as Managers Scale (WAMS), developed by Peters, L. H., and colleagues in 1974, is a psychometric instrument designed to measure attitudes toward women occupying management positions. Initially comprising 55 items, the scale was rigorously refined through item analysis and statistical procedures, resulting in a finalized 21-item measure. The WAMS addresses both general traits deemed necessary for managerial success and specific gender-based stereotypic traits that potentially impede women’s advancement into leadership roles. It was initially validated on a diverse sample of advanced undergraduates and employees from an international distributing company.

Keywords

Women as Managers Scale, WAMS, attitudes toward women, management positions, gender stereotypes, leadership, psychometric scale, organizational psychology

Authors

Peters, L. H., et al.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Women as Managers Scale (WAMS) is to provide a reliable and valid measure of individuals’ attitudes regarding the appropriateness and capability of women in managerial roles. The scale helps researchers and practitioners quantify prevailing biases, stereotypes, and support levels for female executives within various organizational and educational settings.

While the authors originally suggested utilizing the WAMS primarily in field settings, there is recognized potential for its adaptation and use within educational contexts to study evolving perceptions of gender roles in professional leadership.

Construct

The WAMS measures a composite psychological construct reflecting overall favorability toward women in management. The scale construction was specifically designed to capture two distinct, yet related, dimensions that influence these attitudes:

• General Managerial Traits: Items that assess whether women possess the universal skills (e.g., objectivity, responsibility, self-confidence) generally attributed to successful managers.
• Female-Specific Stereotypic Traits: Items that address traditional gender stereotypes, such as concerns regarding emotional influence, ambition, assertiveness, and the prioritization of family responsibilities (e.g., motherhood and pregnancy), which may be perceived as barriers to managerial success for women.

Validity

The validity of the WAMS was established through hypothesis testing involving six specific predictions related to attitudes toward women in management. The results demonstrated strong initial support for the instrument’s construct validity:

• Four of the six predictions tested were supported at the stringent 0.05 significance level.
• One prediction received marginal support at the 0.10 significance level.
• Only one prediction—concerning the influence of female participants’ mothers’ work history—was not supported.

Furthermore, an important measure of external validation was achieved by utilizing a portion of the original sample in a dedicated cross-validation study, reinforcing the generalizability of the WAMS findings across different subsamples.

Reliability

The internal consistency and stability of the Women as Managers Scale were assessed using the split-half method. The corrected split-half (odd-even) reliability coefficient was reported as 0.91. This high coefficient indicates that the items within the 21-item scale consistently measure the underlying construct of attitudes toward women in management, demonstrating strong internal reliability.

Factor Analysis

The initial structural evaluation of the WAMS involved a principal components analysis on the initial 55-item pool. While this initial analysis suggested the presence of three underlying factors, subsequent and more refined statistical analysis ultimately pointed toward a simpler, single-factor structure for the finalized 21-item scale. This suggests that, despite the differentiation in item content (general traits vs. stereotypic traits), the WAMS primarily measures a single, global dimension of attitudes toward female managers.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychometric Attitude Scale

Format: 21-item questionnaire utilizing a 7-point Likert-type response scale.

Language Available: English (Original Publication)

Population Group: General population, students, and organizational employees.

Age Group: Advanced undergraduate level and working adults.

Population Details: The original sample included 541 advanced undergraduates from four universities (Midwest and South). The validation sample included 280 employees (180 men and 100 women) from an international distributing company.

Test Methodology: The scale uses a 7-point response range: Strongly Disagree (1) to Strongly Agree (7). Scoring requires reversal for 10 specific items (1, 3, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, and 21) to ensure high scores reflect positive attitudes toward women in management. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, One-way ANOVAs to test predictions, and step-wise regression analysis linking attitudes to personal and organizational data.

Keywords

WAMS, managerial attitudes, gender roles, organizational behavior, psychometric properties, scale development, Likert scale, principal component analysis

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in original source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in original source.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in original source.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1974

Permissions/Fee: The original publication was documented in the JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology (Ms. No. 585). Users should consult the original authors or publisher for current usage and licensing details.

Reference’s

Peters, L. H., et al. (1974). Women as Managers Scale (WAMS): A measure of attitudes toward women in management positions. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, Ms. No. 585.

Barnes, J. (2007). Women leaders in China: A comparative study of the influence of culture on leadership characteristics of Chinese, Chinese-American, and American women in China. EdD dissertation, Indiana Wesleyan University.

Crino, M. D., et al. (1981). A comment on the dimensionality and reliability of the Women as Managers Scale (WAMS). Academy of Management Journal 24:866–76.

Garland, H., and Price, K. H. (1977). Attitudes toward women in management and attributions for their success and failure in a managerial position. Journal of Applied Psychology 62:29–33.

Meyer, B. (2003). Attitudes toward women in church leadership positions. PhD dissertation, Alliant International University, Los Angeles.

Terborg, J. R., et al. (1977). Organizational and personal correlates of attitudes toward women as managers. Academy of Management Journal 20:89–100.

Items of the Women as Managers Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. It is less desirable for women than men to have a job that requires responsibility.
2. Women have the objectivity required to evaluate business situations properly.
3. Challenging work is more important to men than it is to women.
4. Men and women should be given equal opportunity for participation in management training programs.
5. Women have the capability to acquire the necessary skills to be successful managers.
6. On the average, women managers are less capable of contributing to an organization’s overall goals than are men.
7. It is not acceptable for women to assume leadership roles as often as men.
8. The business community should someday accept women in key managerial positions.
9. Society should regard work by female managers as valuable as work by male managers.
10. It is acceptable for women to compete with men for top executive positions.
11. The possibility of pregnancy does not make women less desirable employees than men.
12. Women would no more allow their emotions to influence their managerial behavior than would men.
13. Problems associated with menstruation should not make women less desirable than men as employees.
14. To be a successful executive, a woman does not have to sacrifice some of her femininity.
15. On the average, a woman who stays at home all the time with her children is a better mother than a woman who works outside the home at least half time.
16. Women are less capable of learning mathematical and mechanical skills than are men.
17. Women are not ambitious enough to be successful in the business world.
18. Women cannot be assertive in business situations that demand it.
19. Women possess the self-confidence required of a good leader.
20. Women are not competitive enough to be successful in the business world.
21. Women cannot be aggressive in business situations that demand it.

Scoring Details

The WAMS utilizes a 7-point Likert scale, scored as follows:

• Strongly Disagree = 1
• Disagree = 2
• Slightly Disagree = 3
• Neither Disagree nor Agree = 4
• Slightly Agree = 5
• Agree = 6
• Strongly Agree = 7

Reverse Scoring: To ensure that a higher total score reflects a more favorable attitude toward women in management, scoring is reversed for the following items: 1, 3, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, and 21.