Faculty Publications

Balancing Ambition And Gender Among Decision Makers

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Ambition, Big man, Gender, Representation

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Volume

614

Issue

1

First Page

56

Last Page

73

Abstract

In this article, we use an original laboratory experiment to test how people react to ambitious decision makers, allowing for interactions with gender. In the experiment, participants are told two decision makers will be dividing some valuable resource on their behalf. One decision maker (either high or low in ambition) is "appointed." Participants vote from a slate of candidates, about whom they have information on gender and ambition, for the second decision maker. We find that people tend to associate high ambition with male and self-interested behavior and that the selection of the second decision maker depends on the level of ambition of the first decision maker as well as perceptions of gender of that decision maker. We conclude by suggesting important implications for research on vote choice and representation.

Department

Department of Political Science

Original Publication Date

11-1-2007

DOI of published version

10.1177/0002716207305272

Link to Full Text

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