In this episode, psychologist and researcher Leila Ainge explores the quiet tension many women experience in business — the space between ambition and the pressure to be “good.” Drawing on findings from Good Girl Economics, her research collaboration with Nicky Denson-Elliott, Leila examines why conversations about profit, visibility, and ambition can feel uncomfortable for women, even in supportive entrepreneurial spaces.

Listeners will hear how gendered expectations and internalised narratives shape pricing decisions, confidence, and self-presentation — and why women often soften their ambition in order to belong. Leila highlights the gap between what women say they value and how they behave in practice, revealing how context, impression management, and identity dynamics influence those choices.

This episode explores:

• The cultural scripts that link likability with being underpaid
• Why “being nice” can quietly undermine business growth
• How impression management and belonging shape what women say (and don’t say) about money
• The emotional labour of performing goodness in business
• How psychological safety influences conversations about profit and success

And as a bonus, listeners also get a first sneak preview of the two goal-setters joining Leila for Season 4 of Psychologically Speaking, where she follows real people working towards their 2026 goals

references and links

Mazzei, L. A. (2003). Inhabited Silences: In Pursuit of a Muffled Subtext. Qualitative Inquiry, 9(3), 355–368.

Morison, T., & Macleod, C. (2014). When veiled silences speak: reflexivity, trouble and repair as methodological tools for interpreting the unspoken in discourse-based data. Qualitative Research: QR, 14(6), 694–711

www.leilaainge.co.uk/research

Hi, I'm Leila Ainge, psychologist and researcher.

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Welcome back to Psychologically Speaking, a podcast all about human behavior, bringing

together fascinating research insights and real life experiences.

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In the next season of Psychologically Speaking, we are going to follow people who have set

goals and New Year's resolutions.

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But whilst I'm busy recording those sessions, I'm going to use this time to share some of

the findings from my recent research project,

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Good Girl Economics in collaboration with Nicky Denson Elliott.

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The whole project was really looking for evidence around internalised misogyny.

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So this is the idea that women hold sexist beliefs and this unfolds in the way that we do

business.

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We were very curious and we surveyed over 200 women.

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and then followed this up with interviews led by Nikki.

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All of our participants gave their informed consent, of course, and we conducted the

research in line with British Psychological Society ethical standards.

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The first white paper is out and that report is all about money.

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We wanted to understand how women thought about money and what follows is a piece that

I've written for Substack and LinkedIn this week.

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on a phenomenon of silence.

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Enjoy.

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the polite silence keeping women underpaid.

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When we asked women how they decided on pricing in their business, the answers could as

easily have been for a question such as, you kind in business or how do you show

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generosity?

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And isn't that curious?

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Over the summer, I collaborated on a big research project, Good Girl Economics, with Nicky

Denson-Elliott She wanted to explore the internalised misogyny and the narratives and

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thoughts that women hold against other women.

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The results of this research have been fascinating for a couple of reasons.

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Firstly, there was a real gap between what women told us they believed in the survey stage

and their behaviour in the interviews.

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And we ask money specific questions like this in our survey.

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So I felt ashamed of wanting more money, even if I've deserved it.

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And we asked women to agree or disagree.

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I've judged other women for charging high prices and then felt unsure about my own.

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And mostly, and as expected, with our targeted group, women strongly disagreed with these

statements.

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Women weren't saying that they felt ashamed of making more money.

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And they said that they weren't going to judge other women for charging high prices.

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But in psychological research, there are reasons why participants might answer in a

socially desirable way in a survey.

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And we phrased our questions really carefully, but we could not remove the chance of bias

completely.

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And this is where it's really interesting that our interviews revealed something

different.

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Our interviews told a different story because here it wasn't what women told us, it was

what they didn't say that surfaced a belief and a behaviour gap.

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So from a feminist and critical psychology perspective, the unsaid is shaped by who's

allowed to speak and at what cost.

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And we find this is particularly relevant for gendered context.

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So if we think about things like money and ambition and anger,

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There's a piece by Lisa Mazzei and Poetic Understanding of Silence in Qualitative

Research.

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It's a wonderful article and she says that we should pay

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increased attention to silent subtexts.

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So what she's saying there is her work saying that we should describe this phenomenon of

what is a veiled silence.

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So where the participant is not literally silent, but like our participants, their answers

are shaped by their own interpretation of the question being asked.

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So from over 900 minutes of interviews on money.

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the word profit was completely absent.

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And on first listening to the transcripts, I noted, you know, the ease at which the

participants settled into the question set and the openness that the existing relationship

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with Nikki provided.

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So these were lots of conversational markers that the interviews were flowing.

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There were, you know, the usual hesitations, but no long or protracted silences between

the interviewer or interviewee that would

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lead me to think that there was a lack of trust in that interview space.

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Women had volunteered to talk and they gave their views so generously.

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But on the second and third listening, as is the practice for reflexive thematic analysis,

I was intrigued and fascinated by the deflection and soft answers.

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And I'll describe this as a gendered performance of acceptability.

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So this is what Matze describes as purposeful, meaningful presence.

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When we asked how they decided on pricing the answers could have just as easily been for

questions such as, How do you show generosity?

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And this is that veiled silence because women didn't answer the specific question asked,

they answered their interpretation of that question.

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So when we're asking about how do you price and how do you value your business, they

started talking to us about generosity and kindness and not necessarily money.

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And it's curious, isn't it?

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Because for the women we spoke to, the absence of profit sits at this intersection of

psychological concepts around impression management.

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I want to be seen as generous, ethical, relatable, collaborative, and internalised

misogyny and all the norms that go along with it.

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Women are rewarded for warmth and they're punished for assertiveness.

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It also speaks silently to this avoidance of stereotype backlash because we know that

women who talk about money or power do face negative judgment.

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And we have to address the context in our own research.

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That is a sense of kind of belonging protection.

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So from a reflexive standpoint, these women were in conversation with the community

leader, Nikki.

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And especially when we feel safe in our communities, we might not risk that safety by

stepping outside of the norms, even when that community and that community leader stands

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for feminist principles.

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So what these rich conversations showed us is just how deeply internalized messages around

ambition, money and success are for women.

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These conversations don't exist in a vacuum.

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The pattern we heard was this one, belonging comes before profit.

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And it plays out in a wider creative and entrepreneurial space too.

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You do see it in the way online audiences respond when a woman has built trust and

connection and begins to monetize their work.

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The message underneath is very familiar because community is noble, but profit is suspect.

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We've watched it on Substack in the backlash directed at writers who bring in a publishing

history with them.

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The implication was definitely how dare she earn here as well.

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And there's some tension echoed with our survey because the strongest disagreement that

I've judged other women for charging high prices and the opposite behavior, which looks

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like avoidance of talking about profit at all.

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If we really weren't judging other women for charging high prices, we wouldn't be silent

about talking about money and profit, would we?

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Many women don't mention profit, not because they don't want it, but because they fear

being seen the way we talk about women.

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That is to say, ambitious, strategic, financially successful, and therefore somehow

suspect.

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You can read the white paper looking at our findings and money at www.leilaange.co.uk

forward slash research.

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We have further analysis on the childhood scripts women have absorbed and taken on as

their own narrative coming in the new year.

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And it starts to explain some of the findings that we are seeing here.

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I'm back next week with interviews from Jen and Rebecca, who are setting very different

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And on theme, here's Jen talking about making money.

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I'm going to say that that's where the resolution comes in because it is quite, I find it

quite a conflict in terms of the fact that I just want people to be nurtured.

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one side feels very easy and the other side feels like yuck.

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So tell me about the yuck bits, be very specific here,

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Oh okay so the yuck being put on being put on the spot

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Oh, it's quite deep, isn't it?

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I guess it's that maternal giving versus the the yuck is the expectation of remuneration

back and yeah, it's that self-worth, I'm guessing, isn't it?

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I'm quite happy to give, but actually it's the receiving side.

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that people pleasing versus you know actually come along this is going to be great and

selling yourself

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and Rebecca talking about the access to resources that she has.

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I feel like I would start and totally lose my momentum that I'd be like, oh, this is

exciting because this is how my brain works.

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I was thinking ages ago, a couple of times I went to a thing in Birmingham called writers

HQ and that that would be a good way of maybe getting

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into writing

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I guess, on days where...

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I lose momentum at work or I'm having a quiet today, I guess, to do the downtime.

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Google publishers or email one of my contacts saying, what is the process?

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I love that you're identifying the types of resources and support that can scaffold your

goal now.

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That's all for today.

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Thanks for listening to Psychologically Speaking with me, Leila Ainge.

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And a reminder, please subscribe to the podcast so you are the first to hear those

wonderful interviews next week.