Pragmatic Bias Impedes Women’s Access to Political Leadership

Abstract

Progress toward gender equality is thwarted by underrepresentation of women in political leadership, even as most Americans report they would vote for women candidates. Here we hypothesize that women candidates are often disadvantaged by pragmatic bias, a tendency to withhold support for desired outcomes perceived to be unattainable. Across six studies (total N=7,895), we test whether pragmatic bias impedes women’s access to a highly significant political leadership position – the U.S. presidency. In two studies, including one on a probability sample of registered voters, 2020 Democratic primary voters perceived women candidates as less electable and these beliefs were correlated with lower intentions to vote for women candidates (Studies 1-2). Voters identified many reasons women would be less electable than men, including others’ unwillingness to vote for women, biased media coverage, and higher requirements for proving themselves. We next tested interventions to reduce pragmatic bias. Merely correcting misperceptions of Americans’ reported willingness to vote for women did not increase intentions to vote for women (Study 3). However, across three experiments (including one preregistered on a nationally representative sample) presenting behavioral evidence that women earn as much electoral support as men in Congressional elections increased Democratic primary voters’ intentions to vote for women presidential candidates, an effect driven by heightened perceptions of these candidates’ electability (Studies 4-6). These findings highlight that social change efforts can be thwarted by people’s sense of what is possible, a bias that may be overcome by credibly signaling others’ willingness to act collectively.