More Women Candidates: The Effects of Increased Women’s Presence on Political Ambition, Efficacy, and Vote Choice

2021 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2110063
Author(s):  
Mia Costa ◽  
Isabel Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Women In Politics ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
The U.S

The effect of women in politics is vitally important for the study of representation, yet evidence is mixed on the extent to which women’s presence influences individuals’ symbolic attitudes and behaviors. We use a priming survey experiment to examine how information about increased women candidates in the U.S. affects political ambition, efficacy, and future support for women candidates. We present several different patterns across gender and partisanship. Republicans report higher political ambition after hearing about more women candidates, even when those women are running for the opposite party. Men had higher political efficacy in response to more same-party women running, but not opposite-party women. Importantly, our evidence does not support the widespread notion that women’s presence positively influences women’s political efficacy or likelihood to vote for female candidates. The findings highlight the importance of considering the effects of women’s presence not only for the group that is assumed to benefit.

How Messages About Gender Bias Can Both Help and Hurt Women’s Representation

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 601-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Jordan Brooks ◽  
Danny Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Gender Bias ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Political Campaign ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Public Campaign ◽  
The U.S

Gender bias in elections is both a source of debate in the political science literature and a prominent topic in U.S. political discourse. As a result, Americans are exposed to differing messages about the extent to which women face disadvantages in their campaigns for office. We argue that such messages can have differing effects—some of which benefit female candidates, but others that may perpetuate the gender gap in political ambition. Using a survey experiment administered on samples of the U.S. public, campaign donors, and college students, we show that messages portraying women as facing gender bias boosts female candidates’ support and young people’s willingness to engage in campaign activism on their behalf. Simultaneously, it does not affect female candidates’ fundraising ability. But paradoxically, such messages also reduce young women’s confidence in their own ability to run a political campaign. These results suggest important implications for women’s underrepresentation.

“We Don’t Really Do Anything Unless it’s Really Bad”: Understanding Adolescent Sun Protective Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors in the U.S.

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arissa R. Fitch-Martin ◽  
Lauren M. Menger ◽  
Amber D. Loomis ◽  
Lauren E. S. Hartsough ◽  
Kim L. Henry
Keyword(s):  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
The U.S

Smoking-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors in the lesbian, gay and bisexual community: A population-based study from the U.S. Pacific Northwest

2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 555-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Pizacani ◽  
Kristen Rohde ◽  
Chris Bushore ◽  
Michael J. Stark ◽  
Julie E. Maher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Population Based Study ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
And Bisexual ◽  
The U.S

The Impact of Gender Stereotypes on Voting for Women Candidates by Level and Type of Office

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (03) ◽  
pp. 573-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Dolan ◽  
Timothy Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Experimental Designs ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
The Public ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Male Stereotypes ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The U.S

Previous research has documented that the public often views women candidates through the lens of gender stereotypes. However, as much of this work draws on experimental designs and hypothetical candidates, we have less information about whether and how voters employ stereotypes in the face of real candidates for office. This project examines one important aspect of the impact of stereotypes on the fate of actual women candidates: whether gender stereotypes have a different influence on elections for different levels and types of offices. Previous research suggests that voters are more likely to apply male stereotypes and evaluate candidates differently as the level of office increases and as we consider executive versus legislative office. The research reported here draws on new data that capture voter attitudes and behaviors in real-world elections to test a series of hypotheses related to when and how gender stereotypes affect candidates for the U.S. Congress and governorships. In general, we find little evidence to support claims that voters stereotype women candidates differently when they seek different kinds of offices.

Are You My Candidate? Gender, Undervoting, and Vote Choice in Same-Party Matchups

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Katelyn E. Stauffer ◽  
Colin A. Fisk
Keyword(s):  
Congressional Elections ◽  
Electoral Behavior ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Mixed Gender

Abstract Partisanship is the dominant force that dictates American electoral behavior. Yet Americans often participate in elections in which either the partisanship of candidates is unknown or candidates from the same party compete, rendering the partisan cue meaningless. In this research, we examine how candidate demographics—specifically gender—relate to voter behavior and candidate selection in these contexts. Leveraging survey data from same-party matchups in congressional elections (resulting from “top-two primaries”), we examine the relationship between candidate gender and undervoting and vote choice. We find that in same-party matchups, women candidates are associated with lower levels of undervoting among women voters. Furthermore, we find that in mixed-gender contests, women voters from both parties and Democratic men are more likely to favor female candidates. The findings presented here have important implications for the literatures on gender and politics, electoral politics, partisanship, and the design of electoral institutions.

scholarly journals He Said, She Said: The Impact of Candidate Gender in Negative Campaigns

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 391-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Craig ◽  
Paulina S. Rippere
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Appropriate Behavior ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Campaign Messages ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Special Risk ◽  
The U.S

Although there is evidence that negative advertising “works” at least some of the time, it has been suggested that going negative poses a special risk for female candidates because it violates expectations about appropriate behavior that are rooted in the traditional gender stereotypes still held by many voters. In this paper, we employ data from a survey experiment to examine gender differences in the effectiveness of one particular attack made by a challenger against an incumbent of the opposite sex in a hypothetical race for the U.S. House of Representatives. Our interest is not limited to the attack itself, however, but extends to the question of how candidates should respond when they are attacked and whether certain types of responses/rebuttals (including counterattacks) work better for men than they do for women, and vice versa, in terms of mitigating the damage inflicted by an initially successful negative ad. Overall, we find little support for the idea that the effectiveness of either attack or response (denial, counterattack, counterimaging, justification, accusing one's opponent of mudslinging) varies significantly according to candidate gender. Further, shared partisanship matters more than shared gender in shaping how voters react to the campaign messages of male and female candidates.

scholarly journals Do Women Vote for Women Candidates? Attitudes toward Descriptive Representation and Voting Behavior in the 2010 British Election

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (02) ◽  
pp. 209-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosie Campbell ◽  
Oliver Heath
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Social Characteristic ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
The U.S

A growing body of work on candidate traits shows that people with a given social characteristic tend to prefer candidates or leaders who share that characteristic (Campbell and Cowley 2014; Cutler 2002). However, the existing evidence for whether women vote for women is mixed. For example, Kathleen Dolan found that candidate sex was a driver of voting behavior for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992, but not in 1994 or 1996 (Dolan 1998, 2001, 2004). Eric Smith and Richard Fox used pooled U.S. data from 1988 to 1992 and found that well-educated women were more inclined to support women candidates in House but not Senate races (Smith and Fox 2001), and others have found that women are more likely to vote for women candidates only when they are perceived as being pro-feminist (Plutzer and Zipp 1996). By contrast Fulton (2014) found that women are not more likely to vote for women candidates in the United States, but that male Independents are somewhat less likely to vote for them. Others have found little evidence whatsoever of an association between candidate gender and vote choice (McElroy and Marsh 2010).

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