Think political leader — think he or she? A multi-country test of a gender-fair language intervention to reduce gendered leadership stereotypes

Citation

Peters K, Jeftić A, Ballard T, Zhou S, Steffens NK, Inceoglu I, Ryan MK, Bongiorno R, Eagly A, Arriaga P, Espinosa A, Aczel B, Adetula A, Aglioti SM, Akca E, Direkçi EA, Alizadeh Z, Alonso-Arbiol I, Amru MF, Andre J, António R, Arcagök U, Arinze NC, Asadollahpour R, Asatryan GA, Aydin MS, Aykutoğlu B, Azimisefat P, Azouaghe S, Balım S, Baník G, Barzykowski K, Becker M, Benningstad NC, Berenguer J, Bidzan-Wiącek M, Błaszczak B, Rodrigues RB, Borinca I, Boucher L, Boukarras S, Boulahya M, Bozkuş-Demir O, Brandt MJ, Brodard F, Brohmer H, Buchanan EM, Buczny J, Bükün MF, Bursell M, Buscemi A, Butt MM, Caicedo-Moreno A, Calluso C, Camgöz SM, Candel OS, Castelain T, Castro-Abril P, Cavdan M, Chaleeraktrakoon T, Charyate A, Chavanovanich J, Cherradi M, Chi P, Chobthamkit P, Choudhary S, Çınar Ç, Claypool HM, Coen S, Collins WM, Corral-Frías NS, Couto C, Cristea M, Cyrus-Lai W, Rosa AD, Dang TV, Devetag MG, Dinić BM, Dores Cruz TD, Dumbravă A, Dykla-Bień J, Edge CE, Eftekhari S, El Mottaleb Y, Elbæk CT, Emery C, Epure S, Evans TR, Farny Z, Fatima S, Fauzan MMN, Fellnhofer K, Feraco T, Fernández-Canseco Á, Ferrand L, dos Santos Ferreira PR, Filippi S, Fluit S, Freitag RMK, Frias-Armenta M, Frisanco A, Füzér K, Garcia-Estrada LI, Garduño-Realivazquez KA, Gasiorowska A, Geipel J, Gerdel S, Giammusso I, Giannouli V, Giannoulis K, Gijzen FJ, Ginet M, Girerd L, Gleibs IH, Godbersen H, Gogan T, Gonçalves LH, Gourdon-Kanhukamwe A, Grafe F, Greijdanus H, Gupta R, Guzel H, Gygax P, Hadjichristidis C, Haffou S, Hafstad MD, Hagen M, Halama P, Halfmann E, Hanel PH, Hansen EM, Hanulíková A, Harris SM, Hart CM, Henningsen L, Henttonen P, Hofer G, Hollenbach C, Huang X, Hudiyana J, Ideishi K, Ilea I, Imada H, Ingendahl M, Irrazabal NC, Isloi C, Ndukaihe ILG, Jakob L, Janeth K, Jang H, Jantus CI, Juarez JR, Junker NM, Kačmár P, Kanisawa A, Karababa A, Karacoşkun ME, Karadeniz G, Massar K, Khaoudi A, Kim JH, Kim M, Kim S, Kloeden A, Knab N, Kohút M, Kök B, Kowal M, Kratochvil T, Kulich C, Klocová EK, Kütük B, Kuzminska AO, La DA, Lam KKL, Lamm C, León-Pérez JM, Léopold BB, Lewis SC, Linares C, Lisica D, Liu Z, Lizzio-Wilson M, López-López W, Louis WR, Lu JG, Mesmer-Magnus J, Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari B, Malapally A, Malinakova K, Malingumu WS, Mamatoğlu N, Manh ND, Manríquez-Robles D, Manunta E, Mariano J, Marie C, Marozzi M, Marszałek MA, Martinez-Moreno E, Martinot D, Martončik M, Maruo Y, Đonlić KM, McCue-Quinn B, Mehdinejad A, Comert EM, Meier Z, Meijer EH, Meimoun E, Melkumyan YG, Mellul J, Metin-Orta I, Mikalonis L, Mirisola A, Mišetić K, Misiak M, Montefinese M, Moore N, Moradi M, Moreno-Bella E, Mouhssine L, Mundorf A, Nadif H, Navajas J, Navarrete E, Neely BH, Nguyen THT, Nguyen TL, Balint E, Ninković M, Thürmer JL, Novak L, Nübold A, Nugier A, Nyhus EK, Nyul B, O'Shea BA, Obenauer WG, Ogbonnaya CE, Ojedokun O, Pedersen JØR, Otken B, Otterbring T, Ouoba NM, Özdemir F, Özdoğru AA, Özkılıçcı G, Paruzel-Czachura M, Pedersen FL, Pedović I, Pejičić M, Peker M, Pelica S, Petchthip N, Petterson A, Pfattheicher S, Piterová I, Pronizius E, Prundeanu O, Pypno-Blajda K, Quiamzade A, Rebel JL, Redersdorff S, Redlingshöfer S, Retowski S, Reyes AF, Reyes-Aguilar A, Ribeiro G, Řičařová G, Robert C, Roberts SC, Roczniewska MA, Röer JP, Rohmann A, Rosenberger EJ, Ross RM, Roth LHO, Ruiz-Fernandez S, Russell SM, Sabbar S, Sahli FZ, Sanden GR, Abbate CS, Schäfer SJ, Schmidt K, Schnepf J, Schorch SL, Schwartz-Salazar S, Scigala KA, Seljeseth IM, Şen-Gümüştaş EC, Sepehri A, Serobyan A, Shalvi S, Siegler A, Silberg M, Silberg S, Sinanović E, Liljaharju S, Skewes L, Smith AR, Solak Ç, Sonmez F, Sorokowska A, Sorokowski P, Šrol J, Stanke FA, Stenling A, Stephen ID, Stern J, Storage D, Studzińska AM, Suh J, Suitner C, Szaszi B, Szmidka AJ, Szumowska E, Szwinge OB, Tafvelin S, Takizawa R, Tasa H, Tasios T, Tavel P, Tejada J, Temel A, Tevichapong P, Tham YJ, Todosijević M, Tome NL, Tonini F, Tønnesen MH, Torres SC, Tragantzopoulou P, Trémolière B, Tuominen J, Ullenboom J, Uluğ ÖM, Ursu A, Veer AEv’, Vaidis DC, van Gils S, Vaughn LA, Vercillo M, Vianello M, Gonzalez MEV, Vincze O, dos Santos Miranda V, Vogel S, Vojtisek T, von Thiele Schwarz U, Vranka M, Vu B, B.Walczak R, Wendt GW, Wibowo RS, Williams JS, Wojciechowska M, Wood PN, Wu DJ, Wu Q, Wuolio MP, Xia Z, Yang T, Yang C, Yang JJ, Ye J, Yousefi-Gerakouhi N, Yüce-Selvi Ü, Yustisia W, Zaharia DV, Zayets I, Zdun-Ryżewska A, Zdybek P, Zhao X, Zheng W, Zickfeld JH, Zidkova R & Ziółkowski A (2026) Think political leader — think he or she? A multi-country test of a gender-fair language intervention to reduce gendered leadership stereotypes. The Leadership Quarterly, 37 (6), p. 101991. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2026.101991

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.

Journal
The Leadership Quarterly: Volume 37, Issue 6