Graduate School of Communication
Master’s programme Communication Science
Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Journalism, Media and Globalisation
(EMMA)
Supervisor: dhr. dr. Alessandro Nai
Master’s Thesis
“Think of me, think of me fondly:
Gendered Nonverbal Communication
and its influence on
Perception of Political Candidates”
by Anna Maria Artioli
(12367591)
03/06/2019 Words: 7291/7500
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Abstract:
This thesis investigates whether candidates that display gendered behaviours (i.e., act “manly” or “womanly”) are punished or rewarded by the audience exposed to these communication acts. More specifically, the study will focus on displays that contrast with expectations (e.g., a woman acting manly). Candidate perception is evaluated for both male and female candidates on the four traits of Competitivity, Warmth, Competence, and Composure, and these results compared via t-test. Afterwards, via regression, it is also considered the extent to which receivers’ traits either influence directly or moderate these evaluations. Particular attention is given to respondents’ Political sophistication, Internalization of (Western) gender stereotypes, and their own gender. Data was gathered via a self-administered questionnaire, where the opt-in sample was evenly and randomly assigned to one of four stimuli (gender of candidate * gender of behaviour). Contrary to expectations, male candidates proved most competitive when displaying feminine behaviours, which also raised their Warmth perception. Overall, femininity also led women to be perceived as more competent, although this significance disappeared in regressions. Once audience traits were included, female receivers assigned higher scores, an effect present both direct and moderated. High political sophistication returned higher scores for non-aligned stimuli, while high stereotype internalization unexpectedly led receivers to assign lower Competence scores to both male and female candidates. Lastly, the more a receiver bent towards authoritarianism, the more they deemed male candidates composed and the less they saw female candidates as competitive. These results will be of interest to politicians and their staff as well as to the media reporting on these public figures, as both these groups are mindful of their audience and aware of their power to sway its perception, for better or for worse.
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Introduction
A politician’s message-based stances are not the only aspects that matter when they run for election: candidate characteristics -those non-substantive individual traits that do not concern party affiliation, relevant ideology, or capabilities and expertise- also play a
significant part in politics (Cichocka, Bilewicz, Jost, Marrouch, & Witkowska, 2016;
Klofstad, 2016; Laustsen & Petersen, 2016; Miller & Lundgren, 2010; Schoonvelde, Brosius, Schumacher, & Bakker, 2019; Stulp, Buunk, Verhulst, & Pollet, 2013).
This is especially true in low-information elections (Bailenson, Garland, Iyengar, & Yee, 2006; Lev-On & Waismel-Manor, 2016; Sanbonmatsu, 2002), since these traits provide voters with heuristical shortcuts, allowing them to form opinions without investing significant cognitive resources – even though, as with all heuristics, the perceptions’ reliability is not guaranteed (Klofstad & Anderson, 2018; Sanbonmatsu, 2003).
One of the ways in which candidate perception can be swayed is via nonverbal communication (NVC), those nonverbal behaviours “that are typically sent with intent, are used with regularity among members of a social community, are typically interpreted as intentional, and have consensually recognizable interpretations” (Ebesu Hubbard & Burgoon, 2009, p. 336). Some of these behaviours convey an explicit, direct message -for example, a clean, sharp appearance as marker of professionality-, but even behaviours not strictly intentional (e.g., weight, or voice pitch) still count as NVC, as they convey additional meanings to the receiver by playing on subtler, subconscious implications. These secondary connotations are naturally associated with them because their coexistence through time in the trait’s non-intentional displays has linked together a nonverbal input with specific behaviours (Anderson et al., 2017; Atkinson, 2009; Bresnahan, Zhuang, Zhu, Anderson, & Nelson, 2016; Gregory & Gallagher, 2002; Heuer, McClure, & Puhl, 2011; Klofstad, Anderson, & Peters, 2012; Little, Burriss, Jones, & Roberts, 2007; Olivola & Todorov, 2010), even though -as
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referenced above- the old adage that correlation does not mean causation still holds, with such matches potentially leading receivers astray.
Nonetheless, once the associations exist, these connotative additional meanings can be consciously triggered by political candidates with intentional displays of the matching NVC trait, in order to, for example, strengthen the bond with the audience reinforcing fictive interaction (Cienki, Giansante, 2014), convey personality traits (Koppensteiner, 2013), or increase persuasiveness of content (Maricchiolo, Gnisci, Bonaiuto, & Ficca, 2009; Poggi & Vincze, 2009; Vincze, 2009).
One of the implicit connotations that can be activated by NVC displays is that of gender, conveying femininity or masculinity. As much as there have been extensive studies both on the conscious application of NVC subtexts in politics and on genderization of NVC displays, we find that the link between the two is still woefully under-researched. Therefore this paper aims to fill a gap in the literature regarding what we will call “gendered NVC” in its political application; this research will strive to explore to what extent displaying gendered nonverbal behaviours influences candidate perception when the gender connected with the NVC is not aligned with that presented by the politician’s biological sex.
This research will open further avenues of interest to both journalism and politics, as media will appreciate being made aware of these patterns, whether they strive for objectivity and neutralising as much as possible their “depictions of ‘reality’ [when these] have an impact on how people perceive ‘reality’” (Strömbäck, 2008, p. 230), or whether they play by the commercialization rules and need captivating content so that its dramatic qualities cut through the noise of the competition in public arenas (Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988).
On the other hand, the need to draw the spotlight over oneself in this highly competitive context is true for political actors as well – so that, because of the limited resources available, media exposure becomes a zero-sum game for politicians, compelling them to rely on the
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expertise and advice of such figures as spin doctors and public relations strategists to overtake their opponents, and earn the largest slice of coverage for themselves. Moreover, politicians must not only draw the spotlight towards themselves as much as possible, but they also need to make sure that it illuminates them in a favourable manner, since unflattering attention can fester and generate “unfair implications for a candidate’s ability to lead” (Anderson et al., 2017, p. 1373; see also Funk & Coker, 2016). Adding cutting-edge knowledge -such as the one this research strives to provide- to their resources will be a welcome addition in the ongoing fight for appealing coverage.
This issue is especially true -and thornier- for women politicians, given that news coverage still employs widespread sexist language and perspectives (Harp, Loke, &
Bachmann, 2016; Miller, Peake, & Boulton, 2010; Pedersen, 2018; Perks & Johnson, 2014; Sensales, Areni, & Dal Secco, 2016). This sexism can be traditional (Astell, 17171), modern
(Knuckey, 2019), even a benevolent one (Garcia-Blanco & Wahl-Jorgensen, 2012), or it can positively highlight feminine endeavours by exceptionalizing them, conversely putting down the rest of the gender, as “news media continue to cast women as novelties and norm
breakers” (Meeks, 2012, p. 188): even though the historical evidence of strong, politically involved women has by long reached critical mass, their representation still falls short as “extraordinary cases that cannot change the common prejudice that politics is no place for women because they are too virtuous for it” (Campus, 2013, p. 56).
Theory and Hypotheses
As presented, candidate characteristics are a relevant piece of the puzzle in electoral dynamics, and psychological studies can help us disentangle the reasons why receivers
1 “Since the men being the historians, they seldom condescend to record the great and good actions of women;
and when they take notice of them, 'tis with this wise remark, that such women acted above their sex. By which one must suppose they would have their readers understand, that they were not women who did those great actions, but that they were Men in Petticoats!” (p. 207)
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evaluate political candidates in specific ways depending on their behaviour, and how these actors can subsequently make conscious NVC choices and steer audiences towards favourable perceptions.
These subconscious pairings are not exclusive to the political world, but a reality in everyday life, for example explaining what emotional displays make a person most attractive (Tracy & Beall, 2011). Still, their importance grows exponentially in the world of politics, as “In the public arena, [nonverbal and appearance cues] can affect politicians' perceived competence and personality, help to build social bonds to an audience, and guide people's voting decisions” (Koppensteiner, 2013, p. 1137).
Simply displaying certain NVC acts is not a failsafe choice, though: even under comparable premises, the gender of a producer can be enough to result in starkly different outcomes (Anderson, Klofstad, Mayew, & Venkatachalam, 2014; Carpinella, Hehman, Freeman, & Johnson, 2016; Elmore, Vonnahame, Thompson, Filion, & Lundgren, 2015; Hehman, Carpinella, Johnson, Leitner, & Freeman, 2014; Miller & Lundgren, 2010; Roehling et al., 2014; Tracy & Beall, 2011).
Politics is still very much a men’s club, as it has remained through the ages, ever since its Classical inception (Campus, 2013; Martin, 2014) – so much so that for a majority of
contemporary countries the active voting right of women’s suffrage is less than a century old: “Viewed from the long perspective of history, women’s engagement in the public life of the nation has been unnatural” indeed (Burrell, 2006, p. 354).
Since masculinity being the standard (having consolidated through the ages until the advent of first-wave feminism and the slow steps towards full equality that are still taking place), being a man is an advantageous passe-partout to enter -let alone succeed in- politics, as masculinity itself has come to embody the traits necessary for an agentic role (active, leading), whilst
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stereotypical femininity is relegated to communal responsibilities, such as nurture and care (Bauer, 2015; Ha, 2017; Meeks, 2012).
This fossilization is also bolstered externally by the media’s sexism, as that becomes at once product of and reinforcement to a mentality already so entrenched that journalists followed it reverting to stereotyping even in the face of a non-congruent reality during the 2003 Louisiana governorship race, when they focused on addressing the stances of “Blanco [a woman] on feminine issues and Jindal [a man] on masculine issues, with little regard for [both politicians’ real-life ‘stereotype-crossed’] expertise” (Major & Coleman, 2008, p. 327).
However naïve the lurking sexism may (or may not) be, the fact that it still underlies most of the coverage of female politicians brings back the focus toward “gender differences, and perpetuate[s] gendered discourses which ascribe certain (stereotypical) values to women and women’s behaviour” (Garcia-Blanco & Wahl-Jorgensen, 2012, p. 425; see also Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993).
Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that gravitating towards the masculine end of the gender spectrum would provide an advantage, both within the political world and in its interaction with the electorate, via media.
But – how does one convey masculinity? Biological sex is an obvious first step in the right direction (McGinley, 2009), but female politicians exist as well – that’s where gender and gender performativity come into play.
That is to say, the prevailing stance nowadays sees gendered behaviours not “as a naturally occurring biological state, but rather as a social construct resulting from various historical, social, geographic and political contexts” (Ha, 2017, p. 836), so that even a biological woman can present herself as highly masculine.
Representative examples of such strategic decisions are Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, or Indira Gandhi, so much so that there are apocryphal stories on David Ben-Gurion talking of
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Meir as “the best man in government”, and of Gandhi’s Cabinet colleagues calling her “Sir” (Cornelius, 2001; Grebelsky-Lichtman, 2017; Grebelsky-Lichtman & Bdolach, 2017). Part of what such women did was to take advantage of NVC’s subconscious matches (such as
Thatcher’s slower speech and lower pitch patterns, Grebelsky-Lichtman & Bdolach, 2017) as another way to subtly transmit secondary meanings to the voters, with gendered NVC
conveying masculinity.
In general, therefore, even though there is no gesture that is intrinsically masculine or feminine per se under a gender essentialist perspective, through the ages by nature or nurture some coagulated around one of the two binary genders, in “patterns that have been indirectly indexed with gendered meaning, and can therefore be utilised as a guide to gendered styles” (Grebelsky-Lichtman & Bdolach, 2017, p. 280), which is why now the two binary genders “present themselves differently” and “display different behaviors on the level of body motion” (Koppensteiner & Grammer, 2011, pp. 743–744).
Therefore, employing gestures usually associated with and displayed by the other gender can be a nonverbal strategy for politicians to subtly convey additional meaning, taking advantage of the connotative cues a specific nonverbal trait brings with itself2.
The first hypothesis of this paper addresses the efficacy of such strategy, inquiring to what extent performing nonverbal communication not aligned with a political actor’s gender influences their perception on traits such as Competitivity. This specific trait is the most pragmatic shorthand for a comprehensive evaluation of a candidate, considering their chance to succeed in a competitive environment whilst retaining the low-information context. As outlined, in the highly combative world of politics the masculine option usually provides an advantage, both in physiological traits, such as pitch (Borkowska & Pawlowski, 2011; Gregory & Gallagher, 2002; Klofstad et al., 2012), and in stereotypical expectations, such as
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those related to policy issues and capabilities (Banwart, 2010; Fox & Oxley, 2003; Hayes, 2011; Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993); sometimes the advantage is such that “To counteract the unfavorable gender bias, female politicians tend to actively describe their favorable
personality traits and particularly emphasize their masculine traits while downplaying their feminine qualities” (Lee & Lim, 2016, p. 850; see also Campus, 2013; Lee, 2013).
Women performing masculinity are nonetheless compelled to walk a fine line under the constriction of the expectations double-binding them to be at once sympathetic and ladylike as women yet assertive and job-oriented as politicians (Bauer, 2015; McGinley, 2009; Miller et al., 2010; Pedersen, 2018) and the unrealistic standards of this double bind still carry a risk of backlash (Campus, 2013; McGinley, 2009; Sanbonmatsu, 2008).
Overall, though, the political playing field remains strongly tilted in favour of the “stronger sex”: it was found that members of the electorate evaluate a female dummy candidate as significantly more approachable and less experienced than its male counterpart baseline, even though “all that had been changed [between the two] was the name serving as a cue for candidate gender” (Campbell & Cowley, 2014, p. 750), with similar results in Smith, Paul and Paul (2007), where “the gender neutral candidate […] ranked higher [in electability] than the [female one], but equal to the [male,] likely due to participants’ assumptions that ‘Terry’ was a man” (p. 230).
It is reasonable then to expect that women may have more to gain by erring further on the masculine side than on the feminine one, to overcome what Meeks (2012) calls “gender incongruencies”, the “stiff professional hurdles” (pp.176-177) in the way of professionals whose gender does not match the expected one in their chosen career. Therefore:
H1a: Female candidates will receive more favorable evaluations on Competitivity when adopting masculine NVC
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Conversely, according to the theoretical review in Ha (2017), men acting as women would not only be relinquishing their natural advantage for the masculinized expectations of politics, but would also have to grapple with the retributions of undermining hegemonic masculinity -a circular legitimization of patriarchy “which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women”-, so culturally deeply-rooted that it gives way to outright femiphobia, “the fear of being perceived as feminine” (pp. 836-837). Thus, men not only have nothing to earn by acting as women, but even have something to lose. Therefore:
H1b: Male candidates will receive less favourable evaluations on Competitivity when adopting feminine NVC
If Competitivity steers towards the masculine, Warmth is a trait historically attributed to women (Banwart, 2010; Bauer, 2015; Hayes, 2011), and therefore it is expected to receive lower appraisals as displayed masculinity increases. Along with Warmth, Competence is the other half of the “Big Two” in social cognition (Abele & Wojciszke, 2013; Fiske, 2018), and it is more closely related to agentic concepts and behaviours, thus more masculine (Bauer, 2015; Hayes, 2011). Composure is a somewhat novel concept, but there are precedents that identify it as a factor of candidate perception fully distinct from the Big Two (see discussion in Maricchiolo et al., 2009), but no stereotypically gendered expectations are readily available for it, so that its inclusion is mostly exploratory.
Considered that trade-offs between these characteristics have been recorded before (Campbell & Cowley, 2014; Grebelsky-Lichtman & Bdolach, 2017), it is a fit sub-research question to inquire whether:
SubRQ: NVC not aligned with a producer’s gender may influence not only their Competitivity, but also the perception of Warmth, Competence, or Composure
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To what extent a specific communicative strategy succeeds is determined by an external factor as well: the audience. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, perception requires both a producer and a receiver for an evaluation to take place, and -as distinct human beings- audience members will have different expectations, mentalities, and priorities.
Literature indeed shows that receivers have preferences dictated by their personal qualities, although -as the longitudinal study “The Ideal Candidate” (Trent, Short-Thompson, Mongeau, & Metzler, 2013) points out- what exactly these relevant personal traits are, and how reliably or tenuously a demographic factor can sustainedly represent a specific perception filter is up for discussion. Still, examples of psychological and attitudinal traits can be a voter’s scores on the OCEAN personality traits (Bakker, Rooduijn, & Schumacher, 2016; Barbaranelli,
Caprara, Vecchione, & Fraley, 2007; Matz, Kosinski, Nave, & Stillwell, 2017), their regional subculture (Carman & Barker, 2010), their ideology (Carpinella et al., 2016; Hehman et al., 2014; Laustsen & Petersen, 2016), and innate bent towards aggressivity (Kalmoe, Gubler, & Wood, 2018) or risk-taking (Kam & Simas, 2012).
Therefore the following hypotheses will investigate the role of the receiver as moderator. As it is impossible to fully deconstruct individuals in their every single constitutive trait, three specific features were selected.
The first is Political sophistication: higher scores are correlated both with a more demanding approach to information processing, by “routinely updating [their stance] whenever new information is encountered” (Kim & Garrett, 2012, p. 346), and to smaller impacts from gender stereotypes on candidate evaluation (Coronel & Federmeier, 2016), which makes it a fascinating moderator to include in the analyses. Therefore:
H2a: As their focus is on content, Politically sophisticated respondents will give higher scores to non-aligned behaviour than Politically non-sophisticated respondents
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Since receivers’ perception is influenced by gender stereotypes (Koppensteiner & Grammer, 2011), as sexism can be a significant predictor of vote choice (Knuckey, 2019), considering that “voters are more likely to apply gender stereotypes in situations where they distinguish candidates primarily by their sex rather than by other characteristics” (Fox & Oxley, 2003, p. 846), it seems a promising avenue of research to take a step back, and consider how much gender stereotypes are actually present in their minds – if they are weak, their activation would not lead to reject non-alignments as harshly as if their internalization was of paramount importance to the specific receiver. Therefore:
H2b: Respondents with high Stereotype internalization will punish gender-alignment infractions, preferring alignment to stereotypes
The third trait considered is the receiver’s gender. This last point is mostly exploratory, but -even though McGinley states that “people generally view gender as naturally derived from biological sex, and expect others to behave in a manner that conforms to their biological sex” (2009, p. 713)- it is a reasonable assumption that most female receivers3 will have had some
first-hand experience with negotiating gender performativity, and will thus be more open to it. Male receivers viewing male producers would conversely be influenced by their own
relationship with hegemonic masculinity and femiphobia, and may very well perceive any infraction to the male bond in a harsher way. Therefore:
H2c: Female receivers will be more lenient towards gender-alignment infractions than male receivers for male producers, and possibly for female producers as well
Design
An experimental design was chosen as the best approach to answer the outlined hypotheses. The experiment consists of an online survey -hosted on Qualtrics-, distributed to
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a convenience opt-in sample for participants to self-administer.
The survey presents a between-subjects design, with every respondent randomly assigned to one of the four stimuli resulting when crossing “Gender of producer” with “Gendered NVC” (Table 1).
Aligned dyads (Male-Masculine and Female-Feminine) were included, providing a baseline to assess their non-aligned counterparts’ results (e.g., Male-Masculine against which to compare Male-Feminine).
Table 1
Overview of stimuli possibilities and their (non-)alignment Gendered NVC
Gender producer Masculine Feminine
Male Male displaying masculine NVC (aligned)
Male displaying feminine NVC (non-aligned)
Female Female displaying masculine NVC (non-aligned)
Female displaying feminine NVC (aligned)
Sample
The questionnaire was administered over the course of three weeks (3-24 April 2018). The population of interest was English-speaking individuals of age 18 and older, with no other qualification required.
Given the four stimuli, to reach strong statistical power at least 200 respondents were needed; no sample upper limit was placed, and the finished surveys were 336. 294 more were not fully completed, but those with all relevant questions answered were considered for reintegration.
The sample was contacted via a tripartite approach. First, the survey was distributed directly to circa 100 people, providing a convenience-sample component. Then, a call for volunteers was shared on social media (Facebook, Reddit, Twitter), both via a convenience approach with no guiding parameters and through expressly contacting profiles and groups
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connected with at least one theme among politics, psychology, surveys, or journalism (e.g., r/SampleSize on Reddit, or “Dissertation Survey Exchange” and “Irish Journalists” on
Facebook). Lastly, in all requests for participation and on the last page of the questionnaire an invitation to forward the survey was included, thus providing a snowballed component. None of these approaches is probability-based, but the random stimulus assignment helps strengthen the results’ validity: even though convenience samples “do not replace the need for studies on population samples”, they still “can play a fruitful role[, as] useful testing grounds for experimental social science[,] as a place to begin to test hypotheses” (Mullinix, Leeper, Druckman, & Freese, 2015, pp. 124–125).
Of the 329 final respondents 129 were male, 192 were female, and 8 nonbinary or not willing to disclose. Age-wise, 130 were between 18 and 24 years old, 128 between 25 and 34, 42 between 35 and 44, and 29 between 45 and 74 years old. Regarding nationality, 93 were Italian, 38 American, 23 British, 22 Dutch, 19 Danish, 18 German, whilst the other
nationalities spanned all continents4. Lastly, as far as education is concerned, 8 respondents
had not finished High School, while 82 did, 106 had achieved a Bachelor’s degree, and 115 a Master’s, with a final 18 in possession of a PhD.
This composition should be kept in mind whenever considering issues of generalizability, although the volunteer-sample is expected to increase variety and offset the homogeneity that the convenience sample could provide in certain categories, according to the research of Rosnow, Rosenthal, McConochie and Arms (1969).
Procedure and Variables
The first section of the survey welcomed respondents and briefed them on disclaimers;
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those underage participants who did not self-select out of the questionnaire were screened by the first question, which also provides the age-group variable used as regression control.
Then, internalization of gender stereotypes was assessed pre-test, avoiding the risk of priming. Respondents were presented with 12 prompts describing actions concerning socially-constructed gender stereotypes5. Participants were asked to pick whether, in their opinion, the
prompt was most true for “Exclusively Men”, “Exclusively Women”, or a mix of the two (7-point scale, only extremes labelled).
The prompts were phrased both in positive (10: “[Subject] should”) and negative (2: “[Subject] shouldn’t”) form, to help screen out distracted respondents. Prescriptive
stereotypes for women (7) and men (5) both were used, and only one prompt was an already existing example6, with all the others constructed ex novo.
The respondents’ results -depending on their intensity and polarization- identify their position on the continuum from Sexist (full internalization of gender stereotypes) to Subversive (full internalization of gender stereotypes, but assigned to the “wrong” gender), with Feminist in the exact middle (the point of null influence from gender stereotypes).
It was considered that scoring exactly in the middle of the scale could also mean a participant was streamlining the questionnaire, with their responses not adequately representing their real stances; a timer was included to measure response time and screen such participants out, but no cut-off threshold proved convincing, as respondents at both extremes of the timing results wrote thoughtful non-compulsory inputs in the open-ended boxes, and were therefore
considered sufficiently invested not to be rushing through responses.
Afterwards, a (fictitious) political candidate running for a nondescript political faction
5 That is to say, based solely on cultural norms: statements grounded in objective reality (e.g., “[Subject] should
be the one carrying heavy groceries from the car”) were avoided, in this example since on average men are usually stronger than women.
6 The prompt “[Subject] should be the first choice to drive a car over long distances, if both genders are
available” was inspired by the original “When a couple is going somewhere by car, it’s better for the man to do most of the driving”, in Peplau, Hill and Rubin (1993), as seen in Perloff (2014).
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(“Expat Party”) in Luxembourg’s 2018 general election was introduced, Riley Beddingfield. After reading the contextualizing paragraph, respondents were randomly assigned to one of the four possible treatments: male acting masculine, male acting feminine, female acting masculine, female acting feminine.
The procedure was the same for all: to provide a baseline, respondents were first shown a picture of their candidate, and asked to evaluate the perceived Competitivity on a 0-100 scale slider, with the possibility of also writing comments in an open-ended box.
Respondents were then shown a video of the same confederate actor in a neutral office setting, stating in English a brief, scripted statement7 of non-ideological political content.
Afterwards, participants were prompted to assess again the perceived Competitivity of Beddingfield, its difference from the baseline providing the real assessment used in analyses.
The confederates chosen to represent this fictitious politician in its two gendered incarnations were of the same age, good speakers of English (albeit it was neither’s first language), and of the same ethnicity, in order to control as much as possible for the influence of these variables over perception.
Each actor recorded a video for both gendered NVCs: the one of gestures typically coded as masculine presented less eye contact than the feminine version (Hall & Gunnery, 2013), a display of restlessness -fidgeting, operationalized as drumming on the table- (Hall, 1983; Hall & Gunnery, 2013), and a display of aggressiveness -a rousing punch on the table- (Brooks, 2011), whilst the one of acts typically perceived as feminine showed continuous eye-contact (Hall & Gunnery, 2013), a display of self-consciousness -self-adaptor on a lock of hair- (Hall, 1983; Hall & Gunnery, 2013), and frequent smiling (Hall, 1983; Hall & Gunnery, 2013). The traits chosen emerged from a trade-off between theoretical literature and the character’s role as an engaging, self-promoting politician; gestures had then to be more subtle and soft,
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consistent with the advertising message: aggressivity became a forceful yet encouraging table punch, and eye contact could not be too strikingly absent. Recording limitations also
influenced choices, as the filming frame was based on a medium shot, thus voiding the use of legs for restlessness – more common than fidgeting (Hall, 1983).
Although considered, a manipulation check was not included after the video stimuli; the possibility of influencing the dependent variables was deemed too high, and the same fear is shared by Hauser, Ellsworth and Gonzalez (2018), who indeed conclude that manipulation checks “may amplify, undo, or interact with the effects of a manipulation” (p. 1).
After the second assessment of Competitivity (0-100 slider), the other traits’ implicit evaluation was measured as well, through a semantic differential composed of two dyads per feature considered (7-points scale); Kervyn, Fiske and Yzerbyt (2013) provided all Warmth examples, while Maricchiolo et al. (2009) provided one extreme per each of the remaining four couples, with the other either from Kervyn et al. (2013) or selected ex novo.
Lastly, respondents were required to share their demographics (gender, nationality, education), and the remaining background variables to use as controls (political ideology and political sophistication), as these were not expected to be influenced by the stimuli.
Political ideology addressed economic ideology and social liberties ideology (10-points scales), with their extremes inspired by multi-axis political models such as the Nolan chart and the Political compass, incorporating also the criticism moved to them.
Political sophistication was measured as multiple-indicator; partially based on Luskin (1990), it included as indicators education (already collected), political interest and political efficacy (both 7-point Likert scale), and four questions of factual political knowledge8.
Debriefing and explanations on the fictitious frame, followed by the request to forward the link and a thank you note came last, closing the survey.
8 Political Knowledge (and Political Sophistication, by extension) could return negative results, as respondents
were prompted to only select what they were sure of, and every wrong input resulted in 1 point taken away from the 10 maximum that could be achieved answering everything correctly.
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Table 2a
Descriptives for Interval Variables
Table 2b
Descriptives for Nominal and Ordinal Variable
Variable Measurements N Mean SD Min Max
Competitivity From -100 (very low) to +100 (very high) 329 -6.32 21.47 -80.00 80.00
Warmth From 1 (very low) to 7 (very high) 329 5.18 1.10 1.00 7.00
Competence From 1 (very low) to 7 (very high) 329 3.42 1.10 1.00 7.00
Composure From 1 (very low) to 7 (very high) 329 3.97 1.22 1.00 7.00
Political Sophistication From -1 (extremely low) to +1 (very high) 329 .65 .17 -.04 1.00
Stereotype Internalization From 0 (stereotype rejection) to +3 (full stereotype internalization) 329 .25 .36 .00 2.33
Variable Measurements N Mode Min Max
Aligned NVC dummy (Males) 0 (aligned) and 1 (conflicting) 166 0, 1 0 1
Aligned NVC dummy (Females) 0 (aligned) and 1 (conflicting) 163 1 0 1
Receiver’s Gender dummy 0 (male) and 1 (female) 321 1 0 1
Political Stance (Economy) From 1 (extreme left) to 10 (extreme right) 328 3 1 10
Political Stance (Personal Freedoms) From 1 (pure Libertarian) to 10 (pure Authoritarian) 329 3 1 10
Age Group From 1 (18-24) to 6 (65-74 y.o.), with 0 (less than 18) expunged 329 1 1 6
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An overview of all the variables used in the analysis, their extremes, and other relevant traits can be found in Tables 2a and 2b.
Pilot
A pilot test was conducted before distributing the questionnaire to the general public. The main goal was to test the Stereotype internalization measurements’ validity, as those were created specifically for the survey, to be used instead of an Implicit Association Test.
The pilot took place over three days (21-24 March 2018), and was administered to 71 male and female international Universiteit van Amsterdam students who shared classes with the confederate actors, being thus independently aware of the fictitious frame deception.
14 reached the end of the survey before closing time, and their feedback and inputs on formal aspects such as clarifications and adjustments of instructions, labels, and overall phrasing were incorporated, thus creating an updated survey, the one officially distributed.
Data Cleaning and Preliminary Results
Although not every participant reaching debriefing could prove an ethical concern, all sufficiently completed surveys (at or above 94% in Qualtrics) were reintegrated. Then, all unreliable ones (mockeries, or rejection of people younger than 18) were excluded, although the survey host counted them as completed, giving a final sample of 329 respondents.
Political sophistication was normalized between -1 and +1, and Stereotype
internalization was re-coded between -3 and +3; since only 8 respondents resulted between Subversive and Feminist (scores ranging from -.33 to -.08), they were re-coded as 0
(Feminists), and the -3 to 0 section of the continuum dropped.
Randomization checks were then operated on the distribution of receivers’ gender (F(3, 317)=.55, p=.65), age groups (F(3, 325)=1.52, p=.21), political sophistication (F(3,
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325)=1.34, p=.26), and internalization of Western gender stereotypes (F(3, 325)=.47, p=.70), and all returned satisfactorily nonsignificant results, confirming that the subjects’ distribution in the stimulus subgroups was sufficiently randomized.
Before proceeding to hypothesis-testing, the reliability of the questionnaire scales used to measure the three Sub-Research question dependent variables was tested, as they consisted of multiple indicators; the resulting Cronbach’s alphas were .77 for Warmth, .58 for
Competence, and .66 for Composure. While these results could be stronger, and Competence’s is clearly rather poor, the reliability of all these scales is still deemed
acceptable, clearing the 0.5 threshold. Therefore it appears the semantic differential couplets did measure to a sufficient extent the perception of a candidate’s Warmth, Competence, and Composure.
These were not the only variables resulting from aggregating multiple measurements: Cronbach’s alphas were also calculated for the battery measuring Stereotype internalization (.81) and for the Political sophistication result (.47). Whilst the former can stand on its own, based on its high alpha result, the latter is nonetheless still employed in the tests to follow. This decision was based on the following rationale: removing Education from the
measurements factored in it would have raised the alpha to .53, clearing the 0.5 threshold. This choice was rejected for a simple reason: even though Luskin himself (1990) raises doubts on the overrating of this variable in his model, speculating that its effects “may really be intelligence's, occupation's, and interest's” (p. 349), he also recognizes intelligence as “the most elusive variable” (p. 341); to provide a reliable meter for a remote, worldwide gauging of it would have not been practical, given the resources constraints, and a pragmatical decision was deemed more desirable.
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Hypotheses Testing
All tests are, as anticipated, conducted separating data based on the actors’ gender (male-female), since hypotheses were also differentiated on the grounds of producer’s gender.
The first step is to compare candidate evaluation between aligned and non-aligned NVC for all dependent variables
Comparing nonverbal communication while controlling for gender of producer, t-test analyses reveal that a man displaying female NVC scored significantly higher (M1=2.30, SD1=22.97)
in Competitivity (Figure 1) than what he would have otherwise achieved by behaving in a masculine way (M0=-9.11, SD0=21.26), with t(164)=-3.32, p≤0.001, d=0.52.
Figure 1. SPSS bar graph reporting means and intervals of confidence for all four stimuli in Competitivity
The male candidate showing feminine NVC (M1=5.33, SD1=1.17) obtained higher
scores also in regards to Warmth (Figure 2), while the one showing masculine NVC receiving a worse evaluation (M0=4.58, SD0=.92), with t(164)=-4.66, p≤0.001, d=0.72.
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Figure 2. SPSS bar graph reporting means and intervals of confidence for all four stimuli in Warmth
The only significant difference for women was found under Competence (Figure 3), with the female candidate receiving higher scores when she displayed feminine NVC (M0=4.12, SD0=1.12) rather than masculine behaviour (M1=3.71, SD1=1.25), with
t(161)=2.20, p≤0.05, d=0.35.
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T-tests on Composure (Figure 4) did not return any significant result.
Figure 4. SPSS bar graph reporting means and intervals of confidence for all four stimuli in Composure
Before running regressions, the underlying assumptions for successful analyses (normal distribution, absence of multicollinearity, homoskedasticity) had to be accounted for. Regressions do clear all other expectations, but residuals of Competitivity and Warmth in Male producers had a slightly bipolar distribution, while those of Competence in Males, and of Competitivity, Competence, and Composure in Females had a slightly heteroskedastic one. The analyses can then still be completed (Table 3, Table 4), but such results should be taken with caution.
Two different models were ran: the regression for the first (Model A) assessed only direct effects, while the regression for the second (Model B) tested the moderating potential of Political sophistication, Stereotype internalization, and Receiver’s gender by including their interaction term with the independent variable, NVC (non-)alignment.
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Table 3.
Regression Models for Male Producer
Note: OLS regression.
a: -100 to +100, very low to very high b, c, d: 1 to 7, very low to very high
† p ≤ 0.1, * p ≤ 0.05, ** p ≤ 0.01, *** p ≤ 0.001
Competitivitya Warmthb
Model A Model B Model A Model B
b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE)
Constant -13.21 10.26 6.56 14.00 4.38 .49 4.76 .68
Aligned NVC 11.73 *** 3.56 -23.08 17.21 .77 *** .17 .10 .83
Political Sophistication 8.04 11.27 -14.60 16.03 .23 .54 -.12 .78
Stereotype Internalization 2.56 5.07 -2.18 8.14 .13 .24 -.11 .39
Receiver’s Gender -.09 3.81 -5.02 5.56 .07 .18 -.07 .27
Political Stance (Economy) .30 .94 .22 .95 .01 .05 .02 .05
Political Stance (Personal Freedoms) -.31 .84 -.33 .84 .02 .04 .01 .04
Age Group -.77 1.61 -1.34 1.63 -.08 .08 -.09 .08
Aligned NVC*Political Sophistication 43.20 † 22.14 .63 1.07
Aligned NVC*Stereotype Internalization 7.92 10.39 .41 .50
Aligned NVC*Receiver’s Gender 8.76 7.70 .28 .37
N 166 166 166 166
R2 .07 .10 .13 .13
Competencec Composured
Model A Model B Model A Model B
b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE)
Constant 3.51 .51 4.58 .70 3.94 .58 3.80 .80
Aligned NVC .11 .18 -1.78 .86 .27 .20 .51 .98
Political Sophistication -.29 .56 -1.40 .80 -.60 .63 -.32 .91
Stereotype Internalization -.71** .25 -.83 .41 -.12 .29 -.12 .46
Receiver’s Gender -.20 .19 -.63 .28 -.05 .21 -.14 .32
Political Stance (Economy) .05 .05 .05 .05 .05 .05 .05 .05
Political Stance (Personal Freedoms) .04 .04 .04 .04 .08 † .05 .08 † .05
Age Group -.08 .08 -.11 .08 -.06 .09 -.06 .09
Aligned NVC*Political Sophistication 2.11 † 1.10 -.57 1.26
Aligned NVC*Stereotype Internalization
.25 .52 .03 .59
Aligned NVC*Receiver’s Gender .79 * .38 .18 .44
N 166 166 166 166
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Table 4.
Regression Models for Female Producer
Competitivitya Warmthb
Model A Model B Model A Model B
b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE)
Constant -.21 9.50 4.27 11.99 5.57 .52 6.31 .64
Aligned NVC -.65 3.11 -10.34 15.34 -.09 .17 -1.75 .82
Political Sophistication -16.16 10.10 -21.02 13.56 -.01 .55 -1.08 .73
Stereotype Internalization 5.55 4.65 4.77 7.56 -.09 .25 -.08 .40
Receiver’s Gender 4.40 3.28 2.27 4.75 .39 * .18 .34 .25
Political Stance (Economy) 1.43 .87 1.45 .88 -.01 .05 -.01 .05
Political Stance (Personal Freedoms) -1.99 * .78 -2.03 * .80 -.04 .04 -.05 .04
Age Group -.27 1.51 -.12 1.54 -.06 .08 -.05 .08
Aligned NVC*Political Sophistication 10.44 19.22 2.39 * 1.03
Aligned NVC*Stereotype Internalization 1.15 9.29 -.09 .50
Aligned NVC*Receiver’s Gender 4.28 6.64 .14 .36
N 163 163 163 163
R2 .10 .11 .05 .09
Note: OLS regression.
a: -100 to +100, very low to very high b, c, d: 1 to 7, very low to very high
† p ≤ 0.1, * p ≤ 0.05, ** p ≤ 0.01, *** p ≤ 0.001
Competencec Composured
Model A Model B Model A Model B
b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE)
Constant 3.58 .53 3.79 .66 3.34 .59 3.81 .73
Aligned NVC -.08 .17 -.78 .84 -.31 .19 -1.47 .94
Political Sophistication -.20 .56 -.64 .74 .42 .63 -.28 .83
Stereotype Internalization -.49 † .26 -.11 .41 -.32 .29 .06 .46
Receiver’s Gender .30 .18 .33 .26 .35 † .20 .24 .29
Political Stance (Economy) .02 .05 .02 .05 .06 .05 .06 .05
Political Stance (Personal Freedoms) .02 .04 .01 .04 .01 .05 -.01 .05
Age Group -.02 .08 -.02 .08 .02 .09 .03 .09
Aligned NVC*Political Sophistication 1.17 1.05 1.75 1.17
Aligned NVC*Stereotype Internalization -.63 .51 -.64 .57
Aligned NVC*Receiver’s Gender -.03 .36 .26 .41
N 163 163 163 163
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Regarding Male producers, not aligning with gendered expectations once more produced significant positive results under both Competitivity (b=11.73, SE=3.56, p≤0.001) and Warmth (b=.77, SE=.17, p≤0.001). A high Stereotype internalization had a direct negative impact over male candidates’ Competence (b=-.71, SE=.25, p≤0.01), but did not act as
significant moderator in any of the cases.
When interaction terms were taken into account, a moderated Competitivity effect (by Political sophistication) was also present (b=43.20, SE=22.14, p≤0.1), with men displaying masculine NVC being rewarded by receivers not politically sophisticated and men acting feminine being sanctioned by the same, vice versa for the evaluations made by those scoring high on the Political sophistication spectrum (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Plotted interaction effect on Competitivity between male candidates’ (non-)alignment and receivers’ Political sophistication
Political sophistication (b=2.11, SE=1.10, p≤0.1) acted as moderator for the treatment also on Competence. As above, a male candidate acting masculine was rewarded by less politically
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sophisticated respondents, while those more politically sophisticated evaluated him as more competent when he was displaying feminine NVC (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Plotted interaction effect on Competence between male candidates’ (non-)alignment and receivers’ Political sophistication
The effect of aligned NVC on Competence was moderated also by Receivers’ Gender (b=.79, SE=.38, p≤0.05), with female receivers (dummy coded “1”) evaluating better a male
candidate displaying feminine NVC (also dummy coded “1”) than a masculine-behaving one, while male receivers’ preferences rewarded aligned NVC, punishing instead male candidates displaying feminine behaviour.
Political Stance on Personal Freedoms -included as control- proved significant for Composure evaluations, its positive direct influence remaining unchanged when the model also included interaction terms (in both cases, b=.08, SE=.05, p≤0.1).
Turning to Female producers, the treatment showed no direct effect on its own for any dependent variable, but receiver’s gender had a direct positive influence on both Warmth
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(b=.39, SE=.18, p≤0.05) and Composure (b=.35, SE=.20, p≤0.1), while Stereotype internalization had a negative one on Competence (b=-.49, SE=.26, p≤0.1).
Women producers presented only one moderation effect across all four dependent variables, with Political sophistication positively influencing non-aligned behaviour in Warmth (b=2.39, SE=1.03, p≤0.05): whereas respondents at the high end of the spectrum once more prove more supporting of non-aligned NVC, those scoring lower results in Political sophistication again reward displays of NVC aligned with those expected from the candidate’s gender (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Plotted interaction effect on Warmth between female candidates’ (non-)alignment and receivers’ political Sophistication
Once again, the Political Stance on Personal Freedoms control variable proved directly significant, even though in this case it delivered a negative impact on perceived Competitivity (b=-1.99, SE=.78, p≤0.05) even when including moderators (b=-2.03, SE=.80, p≤0.05).
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Regressions were also run a third time, adding to Model Bs another variable, a control for Italian-nationality, as respondents from that country made up almost a third of the whole sample. All significant variables of the B Models remained significant under this robustness check, which lends credibility to the strength of the results (Appendix B).
Discussion and Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to assess to what extent gendered NVC can influence candidate perception, when nonverbal behaviours contrast with the candidate’s perceived gender, and whether different subsections of receivers react differently to a same stimulus. Quite surprisingly, the significant results indicate that, overall, displaying feminine behaviour is the most advantageous choice for all producers, consistently returning higher scores than masculine displays across all four dependent variables, though not always significantly. Regressions also show that specific audiences react differently to the same stimulus, and thus must not be overlooked; while some moderation effects were indeed present, of the three expected moderators only Political sophistication was recurring, with Stereotype
internalization presenting only direct effects, and Receiver’s gender presenting both direct and (one) moderated effects; therefore further investigation and a reassessment of the exact roles they play over receivers’ candidate perception is in order.
Going in-depth through the formulated hypotheses, we first see that H1a is not
confirmed, since no significant difference was found between aligned and non-aligned NVCs in women candidates on Competitivity. Thus, it cannot be proven that female politicians displaying masculine NVC are perceived as stronger candidates.
On the other hand, H1b is not only not confirmed, but fully and significantly subverted: male politicians displaying feminine NVC are overall perceived as significantly more competitive than their masculine counterparts.
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This result may seem strange at face value, but a potential explanation can be found in Smith et al. (2007): their research is based on the gender-incongruency hypothesis, “men running for high-level, powerful, authoritative positions are favored because these roles [are already] male-dominated” (p. 226), a possibility strengthened by Knuckey (2019)’s results confirming “that women who run for the presidency will likely continue to face singular obstacles
because of their sex” (p. 354). Overall, the higher the political role, the lower the diffusion of trailblazing women precedents, the more effortful the subverting of masculine standards and expectations, a reality also extrapolated from Banwart (2010)’s discussion: “Stereotypical masculine traits are associated most frequently with male candidates […] and are considered more important as the level of office increases” (p. 267).
Consistently with this train of thought, Smith et al. (2007) conversely found that -at least in the US context- there was “no statistical evidence for gender-bias among evaluations for Senate candidates” (p. 230); a similar level of stakes can then be expected for the fictitious candidate in the stimuli, also given that they were presented as running for Luxembourg’s (unicameral) Chamber of deputies. This expectation is further strengthened by the fact that Luxembourg reported a higher percentage of women in its Chamber of Deputies than the US in the Senate both in the year of the Smith et al. (2007) study and at the moment the real-life 2018 election took place, as seen on the statistical archive of Women in Parliaments: World Classification (2019), factually confirming that femininity is not as much a deterrent in that specific context anymore.
Moving on to explore the potential trade-offs for candidates theorized in the Sub-Research Question, we find that, as expected, feminine displays increase the perception of Warmth in male politicians, a result which remains significant in the regression.
That feminine behaviour also rewards women on their perceived Competence -a particularly striking outcome, given the literature, even though it disappeared in the regression- may again
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depend on Smith et al. (2007)’s lowered masculinity threshold for that election tier, but the fact that, contrary to the expectations brought about by the historically male political world, masculine NVC consistently -though not always significantly- resulted in lower means than its feminine equivalent is definitely worthy of attention and further exploration.
As for the moderation hypotheses, H2a is confirmed, whenever significant, as the more Politically sophisticated respondents consistently evaluated non-aligned behaviours better than less sophisticated respondents did, thus agreeing with the literature finding high sophistication more resistant to stereotypical displays (Coronel & Federmeier, 2016) and low sophistication more inclined to assess candidates at face value and not as comfortable with mixed gendered signals (Lenz & Lawson, 2011).
The other significant moderator was the Receivers’ gender: its effect appeared only for male politicians’ Competence, with women rating feminine NVC higher than men did. H2c is thus confirmed in its only significant instance.
Receivers’ gender returned moreover two interesting direct effects: female receivers evaluated female candidates as warmer and more composed than how male participants rated them. The idea that women receivers may be practicing Warmth themselves giving higher scores would not explain why results are significant in only two models; thus, it is possible to speculate that either women are more primed to expect Warmth from their own gender, and unconsciously booster their evaluation, or, if women are unbiased, men may instead be subconsciously lowering female producers’ Warmth score in a similar pattern of triggered expectations, assuming women in politics to be “tougher” than average.
Concluding with the moderators, H2b cannot be proven, since Stereotype internalization does not act as significant moderator in any instance. This is a surprising finding, worthy of further attention, and a future avenue of research may be suggested by the fact that this variable does come into play in regressions, as a direct effect, so that its role may
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need to be radically reassessed towards the foreground. This promises to be a captivating matter, since the increase of this variable surprisingly returns a direct negative effect on the Competence of both genders. The consistency of a negative perception in both producer’s cases is worthy of further inquiry, but Smith et al. (2007) may again help explain the disparity between the two results’ values and levels of significance.
Smith et al. (2007) may also clarify the treatment’s direct effect in the regression presenting non-aligned men as more competitive: with a larger number of positions open, and the potential of many different types of candidates against which to compete, steadfast
masculinity may prove a far too aggressive campaign choice, similarly to what happens with voice pitches in Klofstad (2016), with “higher voices [a feminine trait] perform[ing] better against female opponents, [especially] in the case of male candidates” (p. 734).
An interesting non-finding is that concerning Composure: only three significant direct effects affect it, but each probability is only between 0.05 and 0.1, agreeing with the
expectation that this third evaluation aspect is not strongly attuned to gender-stereotyping. Two of these three Composure effects (present in both models) come from a variable originally introduced as control, respondents’ stance on Personal Freedoms: the more authoritarian one is, the more they see male producers as composed and the less they see female producers as competitive. While the former may be due to a similar thought process as those described for stereotypical gendered expectations just above, a speculative explanation for the latter may be as follows: conservatives have proven to show a preference for
authoritarianism over liberals (Kugler, Jost, & Noorbaloochi, 2014), and people with this psychological profile tend to view the world as a highly conflictive due to a feeling of
uncertainty, thus favouring dominant faces as “warrior” leaders (Laustsen & Petersen, 2016). Since feminine features are perceived as less dominant in this case they can also imply less competitiveness.
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As much as these results can be of interest to politicians and their entourages, shedding further light on advantageous psychological leverages, and clarifying possible backfires of the same, media -and the electorate too!- will also be interested in becoming aware of these patterns and behaviours, to be more mindful of the undue influences that may be used to steer their coverage and voting choices respectively. Re-evaluating the overall context with fresh eyes may also help news providers to reassess their own part in the perpetuation of sexist and stereotypical expectations.
Nonetheless, generalizing these results -even in a strictly Western context- is a process that should be entertained carefully and that is not encouraged until further replication studies have been made, as the opt-in sample does not represent a subset of any specific concrete reality.
Since the current results must be considered within the limitations of this paper’s design, any future replication or study building on this paper could first address the premises shortcomings (e.g., the education variable, the thespian skills of the confederates, the minor lacks of requirements for regressions) by either testing different operationalization, or selecting a different population and sample. It will also be advisable to follow the advice of Hauser et al. (2018) and insert a manipulation check in the pilot, to test the stimuli without cluttering the actual questionnaire “with an intrusive measure that may [unduly influence] the dependent variable measures that the researcher cares about” (pp. 8-9).
It is worth to remember that this study provides only a piece of the puzzle: there are many other factors to consider for a comprehensive model concerning candidate perception, and what consequences it does bear on electability. Therefore, other than the implementation of adjustments and improvements, future research avenues may want to explore different stakes of role (chambers versus presidency), as that presents the most convincing explanation for the unexpected results of this paper, or the inclusion of party affiliations, as different
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electorates present different genderization requirements (Carpinella & Johnson, 2013; Hehman et al., 2014), different parties are themselves perceived as differently gendered, interacting with individual candidates’ gender cues (Winter, 2010), and counterstereotypical strategies may return different results depending on the audience being in- or out-party (Bauer, 2017). This last point may also lead to integrating other fictitious opponents in the narrative frame, as there’s literature that proves that a significant piece of the puzzle too (Klofstad, 2016).
Other aspects of wider scope to toggle with in future studies may be the overall level of information for receivers (Bailenson et al., 2006; Lev-On & Waismel-Manor, 2016;
Sanbonmatsu, 2002), the gendered expectation of specific political roles, particular issues, or ministries (Banwart, 2010; Burrell, 2006; Dolan & Sanbonmatsu, 2009; Sanbonmatsu, 2003; Sanbonmatsu, 2008; Sanbonmatsu & Dolan, 2009), the employment of mixed-gender models including verbal behaviours (Bauer, 2017; Banwart & McKinney, 2005; Grebelsky-Lichtman, 2017; Grebelsky-Lichtman & Bdolach, 2017; Ha, 2017; Jones, 2016), and, of course,
investigating such patterns in a non-Western context, with all the rest of the world to explore and discover.
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