Children’s Evaluations of Leadership Candidates Based on Candidate Gender and Self-Presentation

• In Event: Gender Stereotypes about Leadership: Development and Consequences

Abstract

When electing leaders, voters often rely on candidates’ self-presentation (Slatcher, 2007). For instance, people elect leaders based on their presented competence (e.g., intelligence), warmth (e.g., kindness), agency (e.g., dominance; Bor, 2020), and communication style (e.g., self-promotion vs. modesty; Budworth & Mann, 2010). However, gender norms about traits and communication styles may influence the effectiveness of a candidate’s self-presentation. For instance, female candidates receive less support and more backlash when presenting themselves in a self-assertive (vs. modest) manner that emphasizes competence (vs. warmth; Cuddy et al., 2011; Hippel et al., 2011; Rudman & Glick, 2001). The present study focused on the developmental roots of this phenomenon, exploring whether young children rely on gender norms about self-presentation when evaluating female versus male leadership candidates.

Participants were 125 children aged 4-10 years (49% girls, Mage = 7.36 years SDage = 2.01). They were told a story about a school where elections for class presidency were being held. The class president was described as being the leader of the class who makes decisions for other students. Children saw a series of pictures of gender-matched and mixed-gender candidate pairs, and were told about how each candidate presented themselves to the class. Candidates’ self-presentation varied in two ways: (1) Presentation Content: what they were saying about themselves (whether they presented themselves as competent, warm or agentic), and (2) Communication Style: how they presented themselves (in a modest or boastful manner). Children were asked, regarding each of the pairs, which of the two candidates they think would be chosen as class president, and which of the two candidates they liked more.

With respect to Presentation Content, children (across ages) were less likely to predict girl (vs. boy) candidates would be elected as class presidents if they presented themselves as competent, than if they presented themselves as warm. Agentic self-presentation did not differ from either warm or competent self-presentation (Figure 1). Furthermore, children liked girl (vs. boy) candidates less when they presented themselves as competent (vs. warm, χ²(1) = 9.09, p = .011), and were overall less likely to choose girls as the successful leadership candidate than the candidate they liked more [χ²(1) =3.87, p = .049]. With respect to Communication Style, results showed that 6-10-year-old (but not younger) children were more likely to think that the candidates who presented themselves modestly (vs. boastfully) would be chosen as class president (regardless of target gender and Presentation Content; χ²(1) =47.98, p < .001).

Our findings suggest that early in life, children develop gendered notions of leadership, differentially evaluating female and male candidates based on their self-presentation. This study sheds light on early-life biases and barriers in the pursuit of leadership roles.

Authors

• Gillian Grose, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Reut Shachnai, Yale University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lindsay Tuttle, Cornell University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine D. Kinzler, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lin Bian, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author