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Iron ladies, men of steel: The effects of gender stereotyping on the perception of male and female candidates are moderated by prototypicality
Author(s) -
Lammers Joris,
Gordijn Ernestine H.,
Otten Sabine
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.505
Subject(s) - psychology , parliament , perception , social psychology , politics , phenomenon , developmental psychology , political science , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , law
Women remain a minority in politics. In nearly all countries, including parliamentary democracies, women are still underrepresented in national parliament and other representative institutions. Research has argued that there is a bias against women in elections. Here we study the process behind this phenomenon by investigating the effect of a candidate's gender and gender prototypicality on judgment of the suitability of this candidate in elections. The first experiment shows that when voters think topics that stereotypically demand male characteristics (e.g., competitiveness) are important, they prefer male candidates, while they prefer female candidates when topics that stereotypically demand female characteristics (e.g., pro‐sociability) are important. Experiment 2 replicates this and shows that this effect is fully reversed for counterprototypical (i.e., in physical appearance) candidates. This supports a stereotyping as prediction account, and has important theoretical and practical implications. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.