What She Expects When Expecting: Effects of Pregnancy Disclosure on Women's Meta-perecptions and Perceived Leader-member Exchange

Ho Kwan Cheung

Advisor: Lauren E. Kuykendall, PhD, Department of Psychology

Committee Members: Stephen Zaccaro, Timothy Curby, Eden King

Johnson Center, #240A
July 12, 2018, 01:00 PM to 03:00 PM

Abstract:

Due to the stigmatized nature of pregnancy, relationships with their leaders (i.e. leader-member exchange) is often one of women’s top concerns when making pregnancy disclosure decisions. As a result, women often engage in active meta-perceiving specific to stereotypes associated with pregnancy (competence, commitment, and flexibility), in order to assess the quality of the relationship. Drawing from leader-member exchange and stigma theories, I proposed and tested for the effect of pregnancy disclosure on women’s meta-perceptions and perceived LMX over time. Results from a longitudinal field sample using weekly survey methodology revealed that while perceived LMX does not change over time, meta-perceptions of competence, commitment, and flexibility decline over time during the course of women’s pregnancies. Furthermore, perceived LMX attenuates the decline of meta-perceptions over time. This suggests mere disclosure of a stigma may not have an immediate impact on perceived LMX and it underscores the importance of perceived LMX prior to acquisition of the stigmatized identity in buffering the activation of meta-stereotypes.