We exploit random assignment of gender quotas for leadership positions on Indian village councils to show that prior exposure to a female leader is associated with electoral gains for women. After ten years of quotas, women are more likely to stand for, and win, elected positions in councils required to have a female chief councilor in the previous two elections. We provide experimental and survey evidence on one channel of influence—changes in voter attitudes. Prior exposure to a female chief councilor improves perceptions of female leader effectiveness and weakens stereotypes about gender roles in the public and domestic spheres.

/pdf/powerful-women-does-exposure-reduce-bias-16mrwv21s7.pdf

Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?

second body of research argues that voters employ gender stereotypes when they evaluate candidates. These studies are usually based on experiments which manipulate candi? date gender. This study seeks to unite these literatures by incorporating gender stereotypes and hypothetical vote questions involving two candidates in one model. I argue that many voters have a baseline gender preference to vote for male over female candidates, or female over male candidates.

Gender stereotypes and vote choice

Previous research has demonstrated that in low-information elections voters compensate for a lack of information by taking informational short-cuts, based on candidate cues, to make voting decisions. To date, this research has focused on candidate party identification and incumbency cues. This article argues that candidate demographic cues, specifically race and gender, also play an influential role. Unlike past psychological research that focuses on potential voter bias against women or black candidates, this article examines the informational content of voters' stereotypes about women and black candidates, and how these stereotypes affect voting behavior. I use quasi-experimental data from the Los Angeles Times Poll to demonstrate that candidate gender and candidate race signal voters in two different ways. Voters stereotype candidates ideologically: women and black candidates are stereotyped as more liberal than the average white male. Voters also stereotype candidates on issues: black candidates are s...

Race and Gender Cues in Low-Information Elections

Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science

We exploit random assignment of gender quotas across Indian village councils to investigate whether having a female chief councillor affects public opinion towards female leaders. Villagers who have never been required to have a female leader prefer male leaders and perceive hypothetical female leaders as less effective than their male counterparts, when stated performance is identical. Exposure to a female leader does not alter villagers' taste preference for male leaders. However, it weakens stereotypes about gender roles in the public and domestic spheres and eliminates the negative bias in how female leaders' effectiveness is perceived among male villagers. Female villagers exhibit less prior bias, but are also less likely to know about or participate in local politics; as a result, their attitudes are largely unaffected. Consistent with our experimental findings, villagers rate their women leaders as less effective when exposed to them for the first, but not second, time. These changes in attitude are electorally meaningful: after 10 years of the quota policy, women are more likely to stand for and win free seats in villages that have been continuously required to have a female chief councillor.

Theory: Social psychological theories of in-group responses to members of outgroups are used to generate hypotheses about the willingness of white voters to vote for minority candidates. Hypotheses: Eight different hypotheses about the impact on voting decisions of the candidate's race or ethnicity and the candidate's and voter's issue positions. Methods: Analysis of variance of data from an experiment with 656 Anglo adults in which the candidate's race-ethnicity and issue positions were manipulated. Results: Minority status enhanced the perception that moderate and conservative candidates would be compassionate toward disadvantaged groups but created doubts about a candidate's competence. Voters were no more or less likely to vote for black or Hispanic candidates than for Anglo candidates, possibly because the advantages of being perceived as compassionate were offset by the disadvantages of being stereotyped as unable to manage major policy issues. These findings supported no single theoretical perspective unequivocally, but suggested, in line with an "assumed characteristics" perspective that evaluations ultimately depend on what traits specific racial or ethnic stereotypes suggest minority groups members should have, what traits they do have, and what evaluative significance is attached to these assumed and individuated traits, as influenced by their desirability and correspondence with expectancy.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2111765.pdf

Black Candidates, White Voters: Understanding Racial Bias in Political Perceptions

This study probes one particular component of the well documented linkage between personal appearance and impression formation by investigating the extent to which and the mechanisms through which bald and balding men are underrepresented in high elective office. Study 1 compares the prevalence of hair loss among governors and members of Congress, on the one hand, and the general public, on the other, and concludes that officeholders are much more likely to have a full head of hair than would be expected of men of their age. Study 2 poses an experimental test of voter bias against bald and balding candidates by presenting voters in a simulated congressional race with materials depicting otherwise identical candidates in either their natural bald or balding condition or wearing a professionally fitted hairpiece. No voter bias against bald or balding candidates is apparent, a finding that suggests that the causal mechanism underlying underrepresentation of bald and balding men is not voter bias.

Hair loss and electability: the bald truth

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Black Candidates, White Voters: Understanding Racial Bias in Political Perceptions

Hair loss and electability: the bald truth