Across multiple studies, Assistant Professor of Psychology Adi Wiezel and collaborators at Arizona State University found that people still stereotype leaders as dominant males but prefer female leaders and those who rise to power through expertise.
The stereotype of the “alpha male” leader — dominant and aggressive — is pervasive, but do people actually want that kind of leader? New research led by an Elon psychologist says no.
Across five studies, Assistant Professor of Psychology Adi Wiezel and collaborators at Arizona State University found that people prefer women and “prestigious” leaders — who rise through knowledge and expertise — while strongly opposing the stereotypical alpha male leader. The studies were conducted over several years, querying hundreds of university students and U.S. adults about their sex-based assumptions of leaders and preferences in leadership styles.
“Although we found evidence that participants still stereotype leaders as male and to some extent as dominant, those very same participants did not prefer those leaders,” Wiezel said. “Rather, if anything, they showed a slight preference for female leaders, and a strong preference for prestigious ones. Our results are inconsistent with the idea that women are less preferred as leaders relative to dominant men.”
An article based on their results, “Stereotypes versus preferences: Revisiting the Role of Alpha Males in Leadership,” was published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior’s May issue. It was co-authored by Wiezel with Arizona State University researchers including Assistant Research Professor Michael Barlev, Professor of Psychology Douglas Kenrick and honors student Christopher Martos.
Though their numbers are increasing, women remain underrepresented among leadership in the military, business, politics and science. The belief that people prefer dominant male leaders may contribute to that disparity, Wiezel said.
“If part of the reason that fewer women run or are nominated for leadership positions is the belief that people don’t want women as leaders, it is worth noting that this belief is inconsistent with our findings,” Wiezel said. “Overall, people slightly preferred female leaders over male leaders, and strongly preferred prestigious leaders over dominant leaders.”
Wiezel’s area of expertise is at the intersection of social and political psychology. Melding psychology and political science in her approach, she investigates intergroup relations, attitudes and preferences, often around politics and government. This fall, she will establish the Behavior and Opinions Research Group (BORG) to mentor undergraduate researchers in gleaning insights into areas of socio-political dynamics and preferences.
“Ultimately, my work aims to better understand, and improve, the relationships between different groups, political and otherwise,” she said.
Wiezel and researchers used various methods in reaching the conclusions published in Evolution and Human Behavior. Those included surveys of university students and U.S. adults and data collected from a nationally representative sample for the Pew American Trends Panel. Participants answered questions around perceptions of and preferences for leadership styles, and around sex-based assumptions about leadership. For example, in the first study, participants were asked to imagine both dominant and prestigious leaders, then asked to imagine each as the opposite sex to what they initially imagined. Following up, they were asked to rate each of the four imagined leaders according to whom they would rather work for. They strongly preferred prestigious leaders and slightly preferred female leaders.
“Social psychology can be a tricky science because we often investigate intangible constructs. For example, how do you measure liking? Dominance? Prestige?” Wiezel said. “Accordingly, one of the things we like to do is to triangulate our results across multiple studies, which make use of different samples and methods. That way, if we see similar results across different groups of participants, measurements, and designs, we tend to have greater confidence in our findings.”
Their article was selected to receive commentaries from seven prominent scholars of psychology, leadership, gender, power and evolutionary psychology. In their published response, Wiezel’s team suggested some ideas for future research and addressed questions about gender stereotypes among leaders, women’s motivations to be leaders, whether definitions of dominance ought to be updated. They closed with a discussion of what the ancestral functions leadership may teach us about the traits and capacities that are useful for different leadership roles, and how these may be similar to — and different from — what we see in the modern world.
“As modern corporations and governments continue to experiment with different organizational structures, an understanding of the evolutionary roots of leadership-followership psychology could be immensely useful, including for recruiting the most effective leaders (and followers) of both sexes,” they wrote.