Examining facial masculinity as a cause of backlash against aspiring female leaders
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Hayley A. Liebenow (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Brittany Cassidy
Abstract: Agency and communality are stereotypically linked with, respectively, masculinity and femininity. These gendered trait associations elicit stereotypic prescriptions for how people should behave. Whether they extend to elicit gendered stereotypic expectations for how people look and specifically how this affects women aspiring to leadership positions is understudied. In the present experiment, I analyzed backlash discrimination through job candidate evaluations. Participants evaluated one of four candidates for the leadership position of Student Policies Manager. I manipulated applicant gender (man or woman) and facial masculinity (lower or higher) between-participants by pairing a picture of the applicant’s face with the leadership role description. People looked at one of four possible faces, either higher or lower in facial masculinity, and evaluated them on list of agentic and communal traits and selected their level of job endorsement for the candidate. Counter to my hypothesis, I found that people endorsed the more masculine female face more for the leadership position than any other face. People evaluated the male and female faces as similarly agentic, but evaluated the female faces as more communal than the male faces overall. These findings show that there may be a shift in gendered expectations for leadership roles, though women are still regarded as more communal despite their agentic leadership aspirations.
Examining facial masculinity as a cause of backlash against aspiring female leaders
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Created on 12/1/2022
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- Language: English
- Date: 2022
- Keywords
- Face perception, Gender, Stereotypes
- Subjects
- Face perception
- Leadership in women
- Stereotypes (Social psychology)