Benevolent Sexism, Self-Depletion, Career Growth and Employee Mindfulness: A Conservation of Resources Perspective

Shuang Song

Abstract

Purpose: Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study investigates how benevolent sexism (BS) affects women’s career growth through the mediating mechanism of self-depletion, while examining the moderating role of employee mindfulness in mitigating the adverse effects of BS.
Methods: Data were collected from 388 female employees across multiple industries in Chinese state-owned enterprises using a snowball sampling approach, with a response rate of 86.2%. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling and moderated mediation analysis with Mplus 8.3 and the SPSS PROCESS macro.
Results: The findings demonstrate that BS negatively affects career growth both directly and indirectly by increasing self-depletion. Self-depletion serves as a significant mediator in the relationship between BS and career growth. In addition, employee mindfulness moderates the first stage of the mediated relationship, such that the indirect effect of BS on career growth through self-depletion is weaker when mindfulness is high.
Conclusion: This study develops an integrated theoretical framework that explains how BS impedes women’s career growth through psychological resource depletion while identifying mindfulness as a protective psychological resource. The findings extend COR theory by revealing the resource-depleting nature of BS and demonstrating how mindfulness may help preserve psychological resources in response to workplace stressors. The study also provides a theoretical foundation for future research on additional mediating and moderating mechanisms and offers practical implications for organizational interventions.

 

Keywords: benevolent sexism; self-depletion; career growth; employee mindfulness; conservation of resources theory.

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55463/hkjss.issn.1021-3619.67.1


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