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Studying gender stereotypes of political candidates over four decades

2025/04/28 by Susan Banducci, Joanna Everitt, Elisabeth Gidengil · 1 voice · 5 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Gender Politics and Representation #Gender studies #Law #Political science #Politics #Psychology #Sociology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1332/25151088y2025d000000086

published in European Journal of Politics and Gender, 1-27

openalex publication_date 2025/04/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We present a meta-analysis of 63 studies of candidate gender stereotyping over 40 years to assess both overall effect sizes and variations in effects across studies. Our analysis shows that there is a slight but consistent tendency to ascribe stereotypically feminine personality traits and issue competencies to women candidates and stereotypically masculine personality traits and policy competencies to their male counterparts. Thus, voters seem only weakly to ascribe gender stereotypes to candidates. We find no evidence of any consistent diminishing of the gender stereotyping of candidates over time. Study design does matter. Lab experiments are more likely to indicate gender stereotyping of both male and female candidates. This applies to personality traits and policy competencies alike.

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