Flipping the way the gender gap in political leadership is described in news coverage – from women are underrepresented to men are overrepresented – can help narrow the gulf, according to researchers led by Usman Liaquat, an ILR School postdoctoral associate.
“Women underrepresented or men overrepresented? Framing influences women’s affective and behavioral responses to gender gap in political leadership” will be published by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in its March print edition.
Co-authors are Madeline E. Heilman, a New York University professor; Rachel D. Godsil, a Rutgers Law School professor; and Emily Balcetis, Ph.D. ’06, a New York University professor.
How gender disparities in political leadership are described in the media influenced women’s anger. It also impacted their psychological engagement with the gap, including motivations to take actions such as writing to policymakers to support gender bias reduction initiatives. Researchers reached these conclusions after three experiments with over 10,000 participants.
“My takeaway is that we often don’t realize that how we describe social issues can profoundly impact how readers psychologically experience those social issues. This work suggests that we need to be mindful of how we describe social disparities,” said Liaquat, an ILR Future of Work research fellow.
Read the full story on the ILR website.
Mary Catt is director of communications for the ILR School.
