Abstract
Women are greatly underrepresented in positions of political leadership around the world. In seeking to explain this underrepresentation, some researchers have pointed to people's tendencies to stereotype leaders as more similar to men than women as these tendencies can support the belief that women are unsuited to leadership. This project aimed to test whether a subtle linguistic intervention was able to ameliorate this gender bias in political leadership stereotypes across different languages and national contexts (country/region N = 42, language N = 30, sample N = 22,996). Specifically, this project examined whether gender-fair language (e.g., the use of paired pronouns ‘he or she’) can reduce the tendency for people to stereotype political leaders as more similar to men than women. To increase the rigor with which these stereotypes were measured, this project complemented the dominant ‘cheap talk’ measure of personal stereotype content with an incentivised community measure of this content. As expected, participants stereotyped political leaders as more similar to men than women; this pattern was stronger on the incentivised measure of community stereotypes. Unexpectedly, there was no evidence that paired pronouns reduced this bias (there was weak exploratory evidence that paired nouns increased participants' tendencies to stereotype political leaders as more similar to women). This project suggests that the ability of gender-fair language interventions to ameliorate gender bias in the political leadership domain may be limited.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 101991 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-29 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Leadership Quarterly |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2026 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright the Author(s) 2026. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Fingerprint
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In: Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 6, 101991, 12.2026, p. 1-29.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Think political leader — think he or she? A multi-country test of a gender-fair language intervention to reduce gendered leadership stereotypes
AU - Peters, Kim
AU - Jeftić, Alma
AU - Ballard, Timothy
AU - Zhou, Steven
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AU - Becker, Maja
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AU - Candel, Octav Sorin
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AU - Dores Cruz, Terence D.
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AU - Hadjichristidis, Constantinos
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AU - Henningsen, Levke
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AU - Ideishi, Kotomi
AU - Ilea, Izabella
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AU - Kütük, Bahtım
AU - Kuzminska, Anna O.
AU - La, Duc Anh
AU - Lam, Kelly Ka Lai
AU - Lamm, Claus
AU - León-Pérez, Jose M.
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AU - Lisica, Delila
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AU - Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari, Behrooz
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AU - Malinakova, Klara
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AU - Manunta, Efisio
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AU - Ojedokun, Oluyinka
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AU - Otken, Begum
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AU - Ouoba, Nestor Motemba
AU - Özdemir, Fatih
AU - Özdoğru, Asil Ali
AU - Özkılıçcı, Gökçe
AU - Paruzel-Czachura, Mariola
AU - Pedersen, Freya L.
AU - Pedović, Ivana
AU - Pejičić, Marija
AU - Peker, Mehmet
AU - Pelica, Sofia
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AU - Piterová, Ivana
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AU - Prundeanu, Oara
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AU - Quiamzade, Alain
AU - Rebel, Jannes Luka
AU - Redersdorff, Sandrine
AU - Redlingshöfer, Sara
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AU - Reyes, Andres Felipe
AU - Reyes-Aguilar, Azalea
AU - Ribeiro, Gianni
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AU - Roberts, S. Craig
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AU - Schorch, Sebastian L.
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AU - Vianello, Michelangelo
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AU - von Thiele Schwarz, Ulrica
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N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2026. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2026/12
Y1 - 2026/12
N2 - Women are greatly underrepresented in positions of political leadership around the world. In seeking to explain this underrepresentation, some researchers have pointed to people's tendencies to stereotype leaders as more similar to men than women as these tendencies can support the belief that women are unsuited to leadership. This project aimed to test whether a subtle linguistic intervention was able to ameliorate this gender bias in political leadership stereotypes across different languages and national contexts (country/region N = 42, language N = 30, sample N = 22,996). Specifically, this project examined whether gender-fair language (e.g., the use of paired pronouns ‘he or she’) can reduce the tendency for people to stereotype political leaders as more similar to men than women. To increase the rigor with which these stereotypes were measured, this project complemented the dominant ‘cheap talk’ measure of personal stereotype content with an incentivised community measure of this content. As expected, participants stereotyped political leaders as more similar to men than women; this pattern was stronger on the incentivised measure of community stereotypes. Unexpectedly, there was no evidence that paired pronouns reduced this bias (there was weak exploratory evidence that paired nouns increased participants' tendencies to stereotype political leaders as more similar to women). This project suggests that the ability of gender-fair language interventions to ameliorate gender bias in the political leadership domain may be limited.
AB - Women are greatly underrepresented in positions of political leadership around the world. In seeking to explain this underrepresentation, some researchers have pointed to people's tendencies to stereotype leaders as more similar to men than women as these tendencies can support the belief that women are unsuited to leadership. This project aimed to test whether a subtle linguistic intervention was able to ameliorate this gender bias in political leadership stereotypes across different languages and national contexts (country/region N = 42, language N = 30, sample N = 22,996). Specifically, this project examined whether gender-fair language (e.g., the use of paired pronouns ‘he or she’) can reduce the tendency for people to stereotype political leaders as more similar to men than women. To increase the rigor with which these stereotypes were measured, this project complemented the dominant ‘cheap talk’ measure of personal stereotype content with an incentivised community measure of this content. As expected, participants stereotyped political leaders as more similar to men than women; this pattern was stronger on the incentivised measure of community stereotypes. Unexpectedly, there was no evidence that paired pronouns reduced this bias (there was weak exploratory evidence that paired nouns increased participants' tendencies to stereotype political leaders as more similar to women). This project suggests that the ability of gender-fair language interventions to ameliorate gender bias in the political leadership domain may be limited.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105051165266
U2 - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2026.101991
DO - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2026.101991
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105051165266
SN - 1048-9843
VL - 37
SP - 1
EP - 29
JO - Leadership Quarterly
JF - Leadership Quarterly
IS - 6
M1 - 101991
ER -