Is it in your face?: Exploring the effects of sexual dimorphism on perception of leadership potential

Korenman, Lisa M.; Wetzler, Elizabeth; Carroll, Marjorie H.; Velilla, Elizabeth

doi:10.1080/08995605.2018.1556555

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Being represented as having feminine facial characteristics associated with communal traits (Walker & Wanke, 2017) may thus advantage agentic women seeking male‐dominated positions. Indeed, people prefer feminine versus masculine female faces for military leadership roles (Korenman et al., 2019). In complement, we expected more feminine representations of Harris's face to more strongly relate to positive evaluations of her when emphasizing her agentic versus communal traits.…”

Section: When Will Representations Of Kamala Harris's Face Relate To Evaluations Of Her?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminine perceptions of Kamala Harris positively relate to evaluations of her candidacy

Cassidy

Liebenow

2021

Anal Soc Iss & Public Policy

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When selecting a face best resembling a male political candidate, the extent to which selected faces look consistent with positive category stereotypes relates to more favorable candidate evaluations. Because people more positively evaluate feminine versus masculine female faces and also evaluate them as having more stereotypically feminine traits, representing female candidate faces as more feminine may produce a similar relationship. This possibility is examined in the context of the 2020 election in which Kamala Harris became the first woman elected to the Vice Presidency. People evaluated feminine versus masculine representations of Harris's face as reflecting more stereotypically feminine, but fewer stereotypically masculine, traits. People selecting a more feminine representation of Harris's face as best resembling her more favorably evaluated her candidacy even when controlling for explicit evaluations of her gender stereotypicality. This relationship was stronger when Harris's agentic versus communal traits were emphasized. Further, people selecting feminine representations were more ideologically liberal. These findings replicate and extend past work using a real example of a woman on the national political stage. People may have favorably evaluated Kamala Harris in part due to having more feminine representations of her face, thus identifying a novel potential pathway to her historic accomplishment.

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Section: When Will Representations Of Kamala Harris's Face Relate To Evaluations Of Her?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminine perceptions of Kamala Harris positively relate to evaluations of her candidacy

Cassidy

Liebenow

2021

Anal Soc Iss & Public Policy

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“…Similarly, there was no significant difference in femininity preference ratings for female faces between those in the supported or unsupported condition. Under conflictprimed situations, people have been found to prefer masculinity to femininity as well (Korenman et al, 2019). Further research investigating low and high social support conditions with more vivid and wellsupervised priming phases will shed light onto whether this discrepancy resulted in the present differing results.…”

Section: No Effect Of Level Of Social Supportmentioning

confidence: 77%

Social Support Influences Preference for Feminine Facial Cues in Potential Social Partners : A Replication

Sterling¹,

Kavia²,

Cook³

et al. 2022

JIRIRI

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Attractive facial cues are preferred by most but, interestingly, people tend to find certain facial features more attractive depending on the context. This replication of Watkins and colleagues (2012) investigates how priming different social support conditions influences preferences for feminized or masculinized faces. In this study, 124 participants were recruited to complete an online survey where they were asked to imagine a time they felt socially isolated (low support condition) or a time they felt emotionally supported (high support condition). Participants were then shown 20 pairs of masculinized and feminized versions of the same face and were asked to rate attractiveness. Overall, feminine female faces and masculine male faces were significantly preferred. We did not replicate the finding that femininity is preferred under conditions of low social support. Future research is needed to make conclusions about how perceived social support influences our perception of faces.

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“…For determining leadership ability, we employed the 14-item leadership questionnaire used by Korenman et al (2019) (See Appendix B for questionnaire). This questionnaire bases the definition of a competent leader on qualities identified in the Army's Leader Development Manual (Department of the Army, 2012).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When determining the quality of leaders, perceivers rely on several sources of information, which include visible characteristics, such as body and face (Antonakis & Eubanks, 2017;Korenman et al, 2019;Nana et al, 2010;Re et al, 2013), as well as less visible characteristics, such as voice. There are significant, distinguishable differences in every person's voice depending on their age (Klofstad et al, 2015), ethnicity (Podesva & Callier, 2015;Thomas & Reaser, 2004), and sex (Aung & Puts, 2020;Mendoza et al, 1996;O'Connor & Barclay, 2017;Zhang et al, 2016), and these specific characteristics serve as the basis for judgments of the target's leadership efficacy.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This less than favorable perception of women in the military is echoed across the branches to include the Army, where it was discovered that United States Military Academy cadets were the least approving of women serving when compared to rankings made by civilians and ROTC cadets (Matthews et al, 2009). Furthermore, findings have indicated that students at the United States Military Academy prefer individuals with gender congruent faces, which may reflect a preference for physical prowess and abilities (Korenman et al, 2019). Gender biases and gender-role stereotypes appear to influence the perception of men and women comparatively as leaders.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Voices of Leadership

Korenman,

Wetzler,

Leahy

et al. 2023

AWLJ

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Previous research shows that voice pitch plays a significant role in leadership selection (Mayew et al., 2013) and that moremasculine traits, including voice pitch, are typically associated with successful individuals in leadership roles. The present studyextended prior research by examining how sex and gender characteristics of voices influence the perception of leadershipqualities within a military environment. Specifically, the design of the study was a 2 (sex of voice: male, female) × 2 (gender ofvoice: masculinized, feminized) × 2 (sex of participant; man, woman) mixed model design, with the sex and gender of voiceserving as the within subjects factors, sex of participant as a between subjects factor, and ratings of military leadership potentialserving as the dependent variable. Results from an analysis of variance showed that participants rated men’s voices significantlyhigher than women’s voices for leadership potential. However, feminine voices were rated significantly higher than masculinevoices. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between sex of voice and gender of voice that showed that the masculinefemale voice received the lowest ratings of leadership potential. Male participants also provided lower ratings on average to allvoices when compared to female participants. We discuss these findings in terms of gender role congruity and the influence ofandrogyny and gender norms on perceptions of women’s leadership potential in a male-dominated, hierarchical environment.

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Is it in your face?: Exploring the effects of sexual dimorphism on perception of leadership potential

Cited by 7 publications

References 56 publications

Feminine perceptions of Kamala Harris positively relate to evaluations of her candidacy

Feminine perceptions of Kamala Harris positively relate to evaluations of her candidacy

Social Support Influences Preference for Feminine Facial Cues in Potential Social Partners : A Replication

Voices of Leadership

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