A High Bar or a Double Standard? Gender, Competence, and Information in Political Campaigns

This study seeks to determine whether subjects in two dynamic process tracing experiments react differently to information related to a candidate’s competence when that candidate is a woman, vs. when he is a man. I find that subjects evaluate a candidate whose competence is in doubt less favorably,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolitical behavior Vol. 39; no. 2; pp. 301 - 325
Main Author Ditonto, Tessa
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer Science + Business Media 01.06.2017
Springer US
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Experiments
Gender
Gender differences
Information
Men
ORIGINAL PAPER
Political campaigns
Political Science
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Sociology
Stereotypes
Voter behavior
Voting
Impression formation
Voting behavior
Gender
Stereotypes
Information processing
Candidate evaluation
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Summary:This study seeks to determine whether subjects in two dynamic process tracing experiments react differently to information related to a candidate’s competence when that candidate is a woman, vs. when he is a man. I find that subjects evaluate a candidate whose competence is in doubt less favorably, and are less likely to vote for the candidate, when she is a woman. In general, evaluations of women seem to be influenced much more by information related to their competence than are evaluations of men. I also find that competence as portrayed by the composition of a candidate’s facial features does not alter this relationship. My findings suggest that gender-based stereotypes may have an indirect effect on candidate evaluations and vote choice by influencing how voters react to information about them.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0190-9320
1573-6687
DOI:10.1007/s11109-016-9357-5