When a Politician Disappoints: The Role of Gender Stereotypical Expectations in Post-Scandal Judgment

ABSTRACT

This study examines how evaluations of male and female politicians are worsened by corruption scandals that disappoint expectations of honesty. Participants evaluated a fictitious politician before and after watching a video about a corruption scandal involving that politician. The manipulated variables were the politician’s sex and whether they shared participants’ political affiliations. Results showed that a female politician affiliated with the participants’ preferred party was the most damaged by the scandal because she had the highest expectations of honesty placed upon her.

KEYWORDS:

• Political scandals
• gender stereotypes
• (dis)honesty expectations
• political affiliation
• attitudes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In Schwindt-Bayer et al. (2018) study, the politician was from the participants’ own party throughout; however, there was no check that the participants actually remembered and considered this information.

2. https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/italy.

3. https://documenti.camera.it/Leg18/Dossier/Pdf/AC0340.Pdf.

4. The experimental material and dataset are available at https://osf.io/9pmb6/?view_only=bd2d9c722d9f4d9c99c949f631023b05.

5. The pattern of results remains the same without the covariate.

6. The reported simple effects were all adjusted applying the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons.

7. The United States was 57th, Brazil 91st, and Mexico 115th.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Margherita Guidetti

Margherita Guidetti is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. She teaches Social Psychology and Psychology of decision making. She received the National Academic Qualification as Associate Professor in social psychology in 2017. Her main research interests concern the social psychology of health behavior, political psychology, social judgment, gender stereotypes, social influence, and intergenerational transmission of attitudes. She has co-authored scientific papers published in peer-reviewed indexed journals.

Anna Rita Graziani

Anna Rita Graziani is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Communication and Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. She teaches Psychology of persuasion and Social Psychology. Her current research interests focus on social identification processes, persuasive communication, political psychology, social aspects of eating, gender stereotypes, and moral development. She has co-authored scientific papers published in peer-reviewed indexed journals.

Giulia Scaglioni

Giulia Scaglioni is a PhD candidate in Psychology at the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Cultural Industries of the University of Parma, Italy. Her research interests cover social psychology, health psychology, and persuasive communication. She has co-authored scientific papers published in peer-reviewed indexed journals.

Silvia Cucchi

Silvia Cucchi holds a PhD in Psychology from the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Cultural Industries of the University of Parma, Italy. Her research interests cover social psychology of gender differences, in particular in the political domain.

Nicoletta Cavazza

Nicoletta Cavazza is Full professor in Social Psychology at the Department of Communication and Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. She teaches Psychology of persuasion; Social Psychology; Data collection and analysis techniques. Her main research interests are in the areas of political attitudes, food preferences, attitude change, and persuasive communication. She is member of ITANES (Italian National Election Studies). She has co-authored numerous articles in peer-reviewed indexed journals.