Think Leader-Think (Immoral, Power-Hungry) Man: An Expanded Framework for Understanding Stereotype Content and Leader Gender Bias

Resumen

Men’s association with leadership is assumed to rest on stereotypes of men as more Agentic (strong, decisive, competent) and less Communal (helpful, kind, friendly) than women. Yet shortcomings in theory, measurement and analyses have obscured the nature of this bias. We use an expanded Power-Benevolence theoretical framework of stereotype content and a breakthrough analytical approach—three-mode principal component analysis, to map the basis for convergence and divergence in stereotypes of leaders with men, women and other groups. In two studies in the United States (Study 1: employed sample, N=365; Study 2: community sample, N=289), participants rated six groups on 64 traits. Across studies, there was a high overlap between men and leaders being stereotyped as more power-hungry, controlling, and domineering (“malevolent Power”) than women. Women were stereotyped as more competent than men and more compassionate and moral than both men and leaders. Thus, women’s poorer leadership fit appears to rest on stereotypes that women lack malevolent Power rather than competence. These stereotypes were unrelated to participant gender or political orientation, but were stronger for people in lower management levels and in industries with more men in leadership. In addition to providing an innovative theoretical and analytical approach to examining stereotype content in general, our findings have important implications for understanding (gendered) lay beliefs about the nature of leadership and leaders.

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Cómo citar (APA 7)

Bongiorno, R., Bain, P., Ryan, M., Kroonenberg, P. M., & Leach, C. W. (2021). Think Leader-Think (Immoral, Power-Hungry) Man: An Expanded Framework for Understanding Stereotype Content and Leader Gender Bias. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/p5uya