Gender Biases in Elections: Identify Voters' Perception of Female Candidates

Although explicit gender discrimination in elections is less common than in the past, a more subtle type of stereotyping may still occur. Individuals might not openly admit that they judge candidates based on gender, but they... [ view full abstract ]

Although explicit gender discrimination in elections is less common than in the past, a more subtle type of stereotyping may still occur. Individuals might not openly admit that they judge candidates based on gender, but they may still unconsciously associate candidates with gender-biased traits. Based on the gender stereotypes Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin encountered in presidential campaigns and relevant scholarly literature, we hypothesized that people are more likely to use negative words to describe female candidates than male candidates. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 437 respondents through the Amazon mechanical TURK platform. Respondents were randomly assigned to read a paragraph describing a controversial reelection tactic of either Senator Claire Healy or Senator Colin Healy. The two narratives were completely identical, with only the candidate’s gender changed. Respondents were then asked to choose either a positive word or negative word (presented in multiple pairs) to describe the candidate, e.g. strategic---manipulative. The results contradicted our original hypothesis. Participants more often associate negative words with male candidates than female candidates. We explained this result through an “underdog effect”—realizing the difficulties females encounter in politics, voters seek to compensate female and give more tolerance to female candidates’ election tactics.