Footsteps I would like to follow? How gender quotas affect the acceptance of women leaders as role models and inspirations for leadership

Nater, Christa; Heilman, Madeline E.; Sczesny, Sabine (2023). Footsteps I would like to follow? How gender quotas affect the acceptance of women leaders as role models and inspirations for leadership. European journal of social psychology, 53(1), pp. 129-146. Wiley-Blackwell 10.1002/ejsp.2892

Preview

Text Nater_Heilman_Sczesny__2022__Footsteps_I_would_like_to_follow.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works (CC-BY-NC-ND). Download (824kB) | Preview

This research examines how the method of selecting women leaders affects other women’s leadership interest. The results of three experiments (N = 1,015) indicated that only when women leaders were selected due to merit, not quota-based policies, did they boost female participants’ interest in a leadership position. These reactions were mediated by perceptions of the woman leader’s deservingness of her position (Studies 1–3) and consequent acceptance as a role model (Studies 2 and 3). Accordingly, success information validating quota-based selected leaders’ competence provided a boost in leadership interest equal to that of merit-based selected leaders (Study 2). For male participants, quota but not merit-based selected women leaders lowered interest in leadership due to their pessimistic assessment of the probability of being selected (Study 1). These results suggest that a wise implementation of quota regulations includes validating women’s competence so they are perceived as deserving of their leader roles and can thus serve as inspiring role models.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

77 since deposited on 02 Nov 2022
26 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item