We normally think about stereotypes as preconceptions we have about other people because of their gender, race, economic status, education, dress, domestic situation, and so forth. But we also hold stereotypes about ourselves because of the categories we fall into. This means you are likely to have stereotypes about your own talents, capacities, opportunities, and appropriate goals and activities because you are a woman. These gender stereotypes operate as unconscious assumptions you have about yourself. Such assumptions can be quite positive and lead you to be expansive, adventuresome, and self-confident. Stereotype assumptions, however, can also be quite negative. For example, you might assume that as a woman, you are not good at X, Y is not an appropriate pursuit for you, or you would be uncomfortable doing Z. Stereotypes of this negative sort are self-limiting beliefs; they cause you to become anxious and uncertain when faced with tasks at which you (unconsciously) assume you are not as good as a man.

Take one well-documented phenomenon: Men typically apply for jobs when they meet approximately 60 percent of the job criteria, but women typically don’t apply for jobs until they feel they meet 100 percent of the criteria. Gendered behavior of this sort is probably because women fear that unless they are fully qualified for a job, they are likely to fail at it — a fear that does not appear to affect men’s behavior at all. For the same reason, women at work too often choose assignments and positions that involve less risk, lower visibility, fewer challenges, and less responsibility than those chosen by their male colleagues.

What’s behind self-limiting beliefs

This self-limiting behavior is often the result of stereotype threat. For example, stereotype threat is at work if you become anxious and uncertain about your abilities when you are expected to perform a task strongly associated with male stereotypes — a difficult negotiation, control of a large meeting, or arguing for a radical change in your organization’s business strategy. Stereotype threat is also at work when you worry you will not perform up to your full potential in situations in which gender is highly salient — you are one of a very few women in a meeting, assigned to a project, or invited to make a presentation. And stereotype threat is operating if you behave as though certain activities are appropriate for a woman and certain activities are not.

If you believe women are good at personal relationships but poor at finance, you are more likely to take a job in human resources than the treasury department. And if you believe women are not particularly good negotiators but are good administrators, you are unlikely to volunteer to work on a major merger or acquisition and more likely to offer to develop a new employee training system.

Self-limiting bias and gender segregation

The gender segregation in America is most often attributed to “demand-side” influences: that is, employers’ decisions about whom they hire and whom they make feel welcome. There is some recent evidence, however, that “supply-side” factors also play a role. That is, women’s and men’s personal decisions about where and at what they want to work contribute to this segregation. For example, consider the extreme occupational segregation in America — 80 percent of social workers are women but only 15 percent of computer programmers are. Much of this is based in choice. Consider also, in a 2014 study, women MBA graduates were found to be far less likely to apply for jobs in finance and consulting than were comparably credentialed men. The researchers concluded that the women’s choices were due in large part to the strong male stereotypes associated with finance and consulting.

We are pointing out the gender segregation in America’s occupations and career responsibilities to alert you to the need to think carefully about your own work-related attitudes, choices, and behavior. You need to be certain you are not being guided by gender stereotypes you hold about yourself simply because you are a woman. Your career success does not depend on your acting more like a man but it does depend on your believing you can do anything in your career that a man can do — and do it just as well, if not better.

Learn how to recognize the five biases against women, including self-limiting beliefs, in our article about gender stereotypes in the workplace.