| Summary: | Females continue to be underrepresented in leadership despite research demonstrating that leadership effectiveness does not vary by leader gender (Paustian-Underdahl et al., 2014). The current study examines the gender bias in leadership through the lens of leadership perceptions and evaluations; in particular, how perceivers' ratings of a leader would change as a function of the leader's gender. Leadership judgments are based on the leader prototype activated in the perceiver and how consistent/inconsistent the leader is perceived to be with the activated prototype (Lord et al., 2001). Due to the mismatch between the communal-oriented female gender stereotype and agentic-oriented expectations of a successful leader (Eagly and Karau, 2002), it was expected that the female leader would be rated more negatively than the male leader. Furthermore, the perceiver's gender and prior engagement in emotion suppression are investigated as two additional factors that could bias information processing when evaluating leaders. Male perceivers, who tend to hold a stronger masculine understanding of leadership (Koenig et al., 2011), were expected to evaluate the female leader more harshly than the male leader. Additionally, those depleted of their finite self-regulatory resources due to prior emotion suppression (i.e. being in a state of ego depletion; Baumeister et al., 1998) were predicted to rely more heavily on their stereotypes when making subsequent judgments; hence, ego-depleted individuals would demonstrate more bias in their ratings of the female leader relative to the male leader.
In the current study, participants were randomly assigned to an emotion suppression or no suppression condition as they watched funny clips from the comedy series "The Office''. Then, they watched four business videos featuring a leader and three business managers. Participants were also randomly assigned to one of the two versions of the business videos portraying either a male or female leader. Leadership perception and leader effectiveness ratings were collected after each of the four business videos, and leader competence and leader warmth ratings were measured once after all four videos. Additionally, behavior recognition accuracy of agentic and communal leadership behaviors that were displayed in the four business videos was assessed.
Contrary to expectations, the study findings demonstrate a dominant female leader effect; the female leader was evaluated more favorably than the male leader on all four leader judgments. This was observed both within the repeated measures and overall leadership ratings. An ego depletion effect was also observed; ego-depleted individuals showed lower accuracy in behavior recognition ratings and more leniency in leader warmth ratings. Furthermore, ego-depleted individuals showed less discernment by giving higher leader effectiveness ratings over time compared to non-ego-depleted individuals. Perceiver gender did not meaningfully affect leadership judgments. The unexpected pattern of bias in favor of the female leader instead of against her suggests that the nature of gender and leader stereotypes may be changing; the incongruence between the female stereotype and leader expectations may be decreasing, leading to more favorable evaluations of the female leader by both male and female perceivers. Moreover, the ability to provide fair and accurate judgments of leader effectiveness is reduced when depleted. Limitations and future research directions are discussed. === Doctor of Philosophy === The gender gap persists in leadership; although leader effectiveness has not been found to vary by the leader's gender, female leaders tend to be perceived and evaluated more negatively than male leaders. One reason for this is the mismatch between societal expectations for how women are ideally expected to behave and the expectations associated with a successful leader. In this study, gender bias in leader judgments and behavior recognition accuracy is examined by a leader's gender. Additionally, the perceiver's gender and prior engagement in emotion suppression are studied as two additional factors that can influence bias in leader ratings. Study findings demonstrate an unexpected but dominant female leader effect, where the female leader was perceived as more leader-like and rated more effective, more competent, and warmer than the male leader by both male and female perceivers. The amount of self-regulatory resources available also affected subsequent processing capabilities; those who suppressed their emotions and were depleted of their self-regulatory resources were less accurate in their behavior recognition ratings and were more lenient in their leader warmth ratings. Future research should explore if and how the nature of gender and leader stereotypes are changing, as evaluations of female leaders may not be as negatively-biased as it was previously.
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