Gender Stereotypes and Political Candidates: A Meta-Analysis

• In Event: Gender Stereotypes in Context: When is there a Masculine Advantage?

Abstract

The literature examining gender and stereotyping of political candidates has exploded in recent decades. However, it continues to present conflicting results. Some studies, with data derived from laboratory-based experiments find that male candidates are typically characterized as agentic (aggressive, confident, tough, and decisive) whereas stereotypes of female candidates focus on communal qualities such as compassion and warmth, and being people-oriented, gentle, kind, passive, caring, and sensitive (Alexander & Anderson, 1993; Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993a, 1993b; McDermott, 1997; Rosenwasser & Dean, 1989). Furthermore, candidates’ perceived issue competencies are also stereotyped along gendered lines with men being deemed more capable in dealing with issues related financial or economic issues and women being deemed stronger on social, health and education issues. More recent research suggests that these stereotypes are reduced in real world environments (Banducci et al., 2002; Dolan & Lynch, 2014; Gidengil et al., 2009) where more information is known about a candidate. Furthermore, public responses appear to be conditioned by factors such as a candidate’s party (Alexander & Anderson 1993; Hayes, 2011), sexual orientation (Doan & Haider-Markel, 2010), or race (McDermott, 1998). Authors as Schneider and Bos (2013) have argued that women in politics form a special subset of women and as a result generate unique stereotypes that distinguish them from other more “typical” women. These stereotypes include lower levels of empathy (traditionally a quality that women are deemed to possess), as well as lower levels of integrity. At the same time, they argue that like other women, women in politics continue to be perceived as having lower levels of leadership ability and competence than their male counterparts (Schneider and Bos 2013). Interestingly, others have found that this is less the case as more women enter the political arena (Bongiorno, Bain, and David 2014; Brooks 2013; Everitt et al 2016, 2019) or if campaign communications do not activate traditional gender based stereotypes (Bauer 2015).

In contrast to previous explorations of candidate stereotypes, in this paper we use meta-analytic techniques to systematically examine the general prevalence and effects of gender stereotypes on candidate evaluations. This methodology enables us to assess overall effect sizes and variations in effects across almost 50 years of research found in all available published and unpublished manuscripts focusing on gender stereotypes in evaluations of political candidates. While there have been past meta-analytic studies on gender stereotypes (Eagly, Makhinjani and Klonsky 1992), to date the only systematic review of the political candidate literature is one conducted by the current authors almost 20 years ago (Banducci et al, 2002). This meta-analysis will provide this comprehensive review and answer questions about who uses gender stereotypes, when stereotypes are likely to be applied and the consequences of gender stereotypes for women candidates. These question serve as the basis for confirming the importance of moderating variables such as the design of the study (experimental or non-experimental), the level of office being sought by candidates, the impact of various intersectional identities (partisanship, race, sexual orientation, parental status) and the personality traits measured in the study.

Authors

• Susan A. Banducci, University of Exeter

• Joanna Everitt, University of New Brunswick Saint John

• Elisabeth L. Gidengil