Power-seeking women incur social penalties known as backlash, yet research has identified two motive bases for leadership: power and status. Across five studies (N = 1683) using samples of working professionals, MBA students, undergraduates, and online participants, we investigate perceptions of individuals with varying motives for power and status. We uncover the motive for status is more congruent with feminine stereotypes compared to the power motive (Study 1), and that women who desire status are less likely to incur backlash compared to women who desire power (Study 2). We find that women who desire power appear to have greater perceived leadership potential compared to women who desire only status. However, women who desire both power and status benefit, as they are perceived as highly leaderlike but incur less backlash than women who only desire power (Study 3). We detect support for the novel “Status Compensation Effect” in experimental (Studies 1–3) and naturalistic settings (Studies 4–5), such that the negative social consequences typically incurred by power-seeking women (i.e., backlash) are reduced for women who simultaneously desire status. The current research highlights how women's desires for power and status serve competing functions in impacting their likelihood of incurring backlash.

寻求权力的女性会招致被称为反弹的社会惩罚，但研究已经确定了领导力的两个动机基础：权力和地位。在五项研究 ( N  = 1683) 中，我们使用在职专业人士、MBA 学生、本科生和在线参与者的样本，调查了对权力和地位动机不同的个人的看法。我们发现，与权力动机相比，地位动机更符合女性的刻板印象（研究 1），并且与渴望权力的女性相比，渴望地位的女性不太可能招致强烈反对（研究 2）。我们发现，与只渴望地位的女性相比，渴望权力的女性似乎具有更大的领导潜力。然而，想要两者兼得的女性权力和地位的好处，因为她们被认为是高度领导者，但比只渴望权力的女性受到的反对更少（研究 3）。我们在实验（研究 1-3）和自然主义环境（研究 4-5）中检测到对小说“地位补偿效应”的支持，从而减少了通常由寻求权力的女性（即反弹）造成的负面社会后果。同时渴望地位的女性。目前的研究强调了女性对权力和地位的渴望如何发挥相互竞争的作用，从而影响她们招致强烈反对的可能性。