Off-campus University of Richmond users: To download campus access theses, please use the following link to log in to our proxy server with your university username and password.
Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Restricted Thesis: Campus only access
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Leadership Studies
First Advisor
Dr. Crystal Hoyt
Second Advisor
Dr. Chris von Rueden
Third Advisor
Dr. Kristjen Lundberg
Abstract
Robust research has revealed the bias women leaders experience when they display agency. In a more nuanced approach to agency, recent research showed that it is the demonstration of the dominance component of agency that disadvantages women in leadership (Ma et al., 2022). When women exhibit the competence component of agency, they can experience a leadership advantage. In Study 1, we take a closer look at these divergent effects of dominance and competence for women leaders by exploring boundary conditions on the responses to women who display dominant or competent agency. Building from system justification and social dominance theories, we test the prediction that the extent to which women incur penalties or accolades for engaging in different types of agency depends on perceivers’ egalitarian-related motives and beliefs. Over the course of two studies, we found and replicated that women experience a leadership advantage relative to men, regardless of the type of agency they display, and that this effect is driven by people with strong egalitarian beliefs devaluing the male leader: motivated egalitarianism. In Study 2 we also found that leaders who gave an egalitarian speech experienced a leadership advantage relative to leaders who gave an anti-egalitarian speech, and that these results were driven by participants who valued egalitarianism devaluing the anti-egalitarian leader. Motivated egalitarianism is the idea that an egalitarian society can be achieved through bias directed at the advantaged group. In two studies, we find evidence of motivated egalitarianism.
Recommended Citation
Ridenhour, Eve, "A Closer Look at the Female Disadvantage and Advantage in Leadership" (2024). Honors Theses. 1738.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1738