In this article, we use an original laboratory experiment to test how people react to ambitious decision makers, allowing for interactions with gender. In the experiment, participants are told two decision makers will be dividing some valuable resource on their behalf. One decision maker (either high or low in ambition) is “appointed.” Participants vote from a slate of candidates, about whom they have information on gender and ambition, for the second decision maker. We find that people tend to associate high ambition with male and self-interested behavior and that the selection of the second decision maker depends on the level of ambition of the first decision maker as well as perceptions of gender of that decision maker. We conclude by suggesting important implications for research on vote choice and representation.
Alexander, Deborah, and Kristi Anderson .1993. Gender as a factor in the attribution of leadership traits. Political Research Quarterly46:527-45.
2.
Ammeter, Anthony P., Ceasar Douglas, William L. Gardner, Wayne A. Hochwarter, and Gerald R. Ferris .2002. Toward a political theory of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly13:751-96.
3.
Bartels, Larry M.2002. The impact of candidate traits in American presidential elections. In Leaders' personalities and the outcomes of democratic elections, ed. Anthony King.New York: Oxford University Press.
4.
Boehm, Christopher.1993. Egalitarian behavior and reverse dominance hierarchy. Current Anthropology34:227-54.
5.
———. 1997. Egalitarianism and political intelligence. In Machiavellian intelligence II: Extensions and evaluations, ed. Andrew Whiten and Richard W. Byrne.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
———. 1999. Hierarchy in the forest: The evolution of egalitarian behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
Buss, David M.1996. Sexual conflict: Evolutionary insights into feminism and the “battle of the sexes.” In Sex, power, conflict, ed. David M. Buss and Neil M. Malamuth. New York: Oxford University Press.
8.
Campbell, Anne.2002. A mind of her own: The evolutionary psychology of women . New York: Oxford University Press .
9.
Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes .1960. The American voter. New York: Wiley.
10.
Cornog, Evan.2004. The power and the story: How the crafted presidential narrative has determined political success from George Washington to George W. Bush. New York: Penguin.
11.
Eagly, Alice H.1995. The science and politics of comparing women and men. American Psychologist50:145-58.
12.
Ehrenhalt, Alan.1992. The United States of ambition: Politicians, power, and the pursuit of office. New York: Times Books.
13.
Erdal, David, and Andrew Whiten.1994. On human egalitarianism: An evolutionary product of Machiavellian status escalation?Current Anthropology35:175-83.
14.
———. 1996. Egalitarianism and Machiavellian intelligence in human evolution. In Modeling the early human mind, ed. Paul Mellars and Kathleen Gibson.McDonald Institute Monograph. Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
15.
Ferree, Myra, Judith Lorber, and Beth Hess.1999. Introduction. In Revisioning gender, ed. Myra Ferree, Judith Lorber, and Beth Hess.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
16.
Funk, Carolyn L.1996. Understanding trait inferences in candidate images. In Research in micropolitics, ed. Michael X. Delli Carpini, Leonie Huddy , and Robert Y. Shapiro.Greenwich, CT: JAI.
17.
———. 1999. Bringing the candidate into models of candidate evaluation . Journal of Politics61:700-720.
18.
Hibbing, John R., and John R. Alford.2004. Accepting authoritative decisions: Humans as wary cooperators. American Journal of Political Science48:62-76.
19.
Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse .1995. Congress as public enemy: Public attitudes toward American political institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20.
———. 2002. Stealth democracy: Americans' belief about how government should work. New York: Cambridge University Press.
21.
Huddy, Leonie, and Nayda Terkildsen.1993. Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates. American Journal of Political Science37:119-47.
22.
Kennedy, Carole.2003. Gender difference in committee decision-making: Process and outputs in an experimental setting. Women and Politics25: 27-45.
23.
Kinder, Donald R.1986. Presidential character revisited. In Political cognition: The 19th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition, ed. Richard R. Lau and David O. Sears. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
24.
Kinder, Donald R., Mark D. Peters, Robert P. Abelson, and Susan T. Fiske.1980. Presidential prototypes. Political Behavior2:315-37.
25.
King, Anthony.2002. Do leaders' personalities really matter? In Leaders' personalities and the outcomes of democratic elections, ed. Anthony King.New York: Oxford University Press.
26.
Knauft, Bruce.1994. Reply to Erdal and Whiten. Current Anthropology35:181-82.
27.
Lau, Richard R.1986. Political schemata, candidate evaluations, and voting behavior. In Political cognition: The 19th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition, ed. Richard R. Lau and David O. Sears. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
28.
Machiavelli, Niccolo.1515/2004. The prince. Edited by Quentin Skinner, and Russell Price.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
29.
Madison, James.1788/2003. Federalist no. 51: The structure of the government must furnish the proper checks and balances between the different departments. In The federalist papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter.New York: Signet Classics.
30.
Maestas, Cherie.2003. The incentive to listen: Progressive ambition, resources, and opinion monitoring among state legislators. Journal of Politics65:439-56.
31.
Miller, Arthur H., Martin P. Wattenberg, and Oksana Malanchuk.1986. Schematic assessments of presidential candidates. American Political Science Review80:521-40.
32.
Miller, Warren E., and J. Merrill Shanks .1996. The new American voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
33.
Pinker, Steven.1997. How the mind works. New York: Norton.
34.
Pratto, Felicia.1996. Sexual politics: The gender gap in the bedroom, the cupboard, and the cabinet. In Sex, power, and conflict: Evolutionary and feminist perspectives, ed. David M. Buss and Neil M. Malamuth.New York: Oxford University Press.
35.
Rahn, Wendy M., John H. Aldrich, Eugene Borgida , and John L. Sullivan.1990. A social-cognitive model of candidate appraisal. In Information and democratic processes, ed. John A. Ferejohn and James H. Kuklinski. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
36.
Ridgeway, Cecilia, and Lynn Smith-Lovin , 1999. The gender system and interaction . Annual Review of Sociology25:191-216.
37.
Ridley, Matt.2003. Nature via nurture: Genes, experience, and what makes us human. New York: HarperCollins .
38.
Rosenthal, Cindy Simon.1998. When women lead: Integrative leadership in state legislatures . New York: Oxford University Press .
39.
Sanbonmatsu, Kira.2002. Gender stereotypes and vote choice. American Journal of Political Science46:20-34.
40.
Schlesinger, Joseph A.1966. Ambition and politics: Political careers in theUnited States Senate. Chicago: Rand NcNally.
41.
Shapiro, Virginia.2003. Theorizing gender in political psychology research. In The Oxford handbook of political psychology, ed. David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy , and Robert Jervis.New York: Oxford University Press.
42.
Stokes, Donald E.1966. Some dynamic elements of contests for the presidency. American Political Science Review60:19-28.
43.
Tyler, Tom R.2000. Social justice: Outcome and procedure. International Journal of Psychology35:117-25.
44.
Tyler, Tom R., and E.A. Lind1992. A relational model of authority in groups. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology25:115-91.
45.
Van Vugt, Mark, Sarah F. Jepson, Claire M. Hart, and David De Cremer .2004. Autocratic leadership in social dilemmas: A threat to group stability. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology40:1-13.
46.
Witt, Linda, Karen Paget, and Glenna Matthews .1995. Running as a woman: Gender and power in American politics. New York: Free Press.
