Does gender status bias carry over from in-person to virtual interaction?

It is well-established that in in-person settings, status-based performance expectations often result in gender disparities in performance. While video conferencing increasingly dominates social interactions, substituting for in-person interactions, we know little about whether status biases persist in video conferencing and contribute to gender inequality. We conducted a preregistered experiment with an undergraduate sample of 252 participants. Participants were randomly assigned to in-person or video conferencing settings. Within each condition, we further varied status ranking as either implicit (i.e., participants’ competence is inferred from gender) or explicit (i.e., competence is explicitly shared with a third party—social status dimension of competition), replicating prior research. We examined how these conditions affected gender differences in performance—measured by the number of correct answers and attempts, focusing on whether the in-person findings hold in video conferencing. Our findings reveal significant gender disparities in performance in both in-person and video conferencing settings, disadvantaging women in both contexts. However, these disparities manifested differently across conditions. In-person, gender differences emerged only under explicit status ranking, replicating prior research. Conversely, in video conferencing, gender differences were observed only under implicit status ranking. To explore potential mechanisms, we conducted follow-up interviews, suggesting the mirrored self-view significantly heightens self-focused attention, activating status processes. These results suggest that while gender status biases are consistent across settings, their manifestation is influenced by interaction context. This work advances social status theory by testing its relevance in video conferencing and provides empirical evidence on the persistent influence of gender status biases in virtual environments.