Rebecca J. Hannagan

Balancing Ambition and Gender Among Decision Makers

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.

The Threat of Genes: A Comment on Evan Charney's "Genes and Ideologies"

In his essay, “Genes and Ideologies,” Evan Charney wrangles with the question of the role of genes in the formation of political attitudes via a critique of Alford, Funk, and Hibbings 2005 American Political Science Review article. Although critical evaluations are necessary, his essay falls short of what is required of a scientific critique on both empirical and theoretical grounds. We offer a comment on his essay and further contend that it is naive to proceed on the assumption that a barrier exists between the biological and social sciences, such that the biological sciences have nothing to offer the social sciences. If we look beyond our disciplines current theoretical models we may find a more thorough, and not just competing, explanation of political behavior.

Theorizing Sex Differences in Political Knowledge: Insights from a Twin Study

It is well established that women and men differ in their psychological orientation to politics (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Dolan 2011; Fox and Lawless 2004; Thomas 2012). In addition to willingness to run for office, expressing interest in politics, and political efficacy, men and women tend to differ in reporting their factual knowledge of politics, but how do we explain the gap? This question is not merely important from a measurement standpoint (e.g., Mondak and Anderson 2004) but also has implications for our understanding of gendered political attitudes and behaviors. The gap can be reduced when controlling for a number of factors, but there remains a residual when measuring knowledge with the scale most widely used. This paper aims at providing insight on how we think not only about measuring something like “political knowledge” but also how we theorize gendered political behavior. We present a behavioral genetic analysis of sex differences in political knowledge using a genetically informative twin design to parse out the source of variation in knowledge. We do so predicated on a framework for thinking about gendered patterns in political behavior as well as findings from the existing literature on gender differences in the psychological orientation to politics. We believe our findings give us insight on what is wrong with current and seemingly gender-neutral measures of political knowledge.

Reengineering Gender Relations in Modern Militaries: An Evolutionary Perspective

This article presents an evolutionary framework for understanding the sexual assault of women in the military. We specify the evolutionary underpinnings of tensions among heterosexual males, among heterosexual females, and between males and females and discuss how these tensions have played out in the strongly gendered context of warrior culture. In the absence of cultural interventions that take into account deep-seated conceptions of women in the military as unwelcome intruders, sexual resources for military men, or both, military women operate in an environment in which sexual assault may be deployed to enact and defend traditional military structures. We discuss how unit norms are likely to affect the choice of strategies by men and by women and how the resulting behaviors—including celibacy, consensual sex, and sexual assault—should affect horizontal and vertical unit cohesion. The framework is intended to guide future data collection in theoretically coherent ways and to inform the framing and enforcement of policies regarding both consensual and non-consensual sex among military personnel.

Biopolitics via political psychology. Comment in response to Liesen and Walsh.

I n ‘‘The competing meanings of ‘biopolitics’ in political science: Biological and postmodern approaches to politics,’’ Laurette Liesen and Mary Walsh argue that two very distinct groups of political scientists have organized their work around the term ‘‘biopolitics.’’ The authors suggest that these areas of research are not only qualitatively different, but also potentially contradictory. I agree that the distinction between the camps is a meaningful one. But since the current more ‘‘scientific’’ scholars focusing on biological approaches to politics are not identifying with the term ‘‘biopolitics,’’ it may neither be possible nor necessary to rebrand by attempting to reclaim the term ‘‘biopolitics’’ from the postmodern camp or utilize a label such as ‘‘neuropolitics.’’ Rather, those pursuing this work tend to already identify with the subfield of political psychology—a field that has been expanding to encompass an even more multidisciplinary approach to the study of political attitudes and behavior.

Gender differences in follower behavior An experimental study of reactions to ambitious decision makers

Abstract This study investigates whether observers react negatively to overly ambitious leaders, focusing on whether women are more sensitive than men in their perceptions of the traits of decision makers and whether men and women behave differently as a result of such perceptions. Results from two laboratory experiments show how participants react to ambitious decision makers in simple bargaining scenarios. The results indicate that observers tend to equate ambition for decision-making authority with self-interested, unfair, male behavior. Moreover, observers tend to be less satisfied with a decision made by an ambitious decision maker compared to the same decision made by an unambitious decision maker. That is, people generally dislike ambitious decision makers independent of the actual decision that is made. Further, there are important differences in male and female expectations of what decision makers will do that, when combined with perceptions of decision-maker gender, have more nuanced implications for outcome satisfaction and our understanding of “follower behavior.”

“I Believe We Are the Fewer, the Prouder” Women’s Agency in Meaning-Making after Military Sexual Assault

This article draws on ethnographic evidence and argues for the theoretical significance of that evidence regarding concepts of personal agency vis-à-vis rhetorics of victimhood. The problem discussed in this article is that a dominant discourse that positions women primarily or exclusively as victims in response to their experience of sexual assault not only works to re-victimize women but imposes unnecessary boundaries on the meaning of these experiences for the women involved. Instead of privileging the dominant discourse, this article seeks to privilege the voices of women who have experienced sexual assault. How women make sense of their experiences and themselves is constituted by their discourses. Among the many ways women choose to make sense of their experience and (re)construct the self is by drawing on the alternative available discourses including their military values and identity.

Does an EMILY's List Endorsement Predict Electoral Success, or Does EMILY Pick the Winners?

Womens political action committees (PACs)—those committees founded by women to raise money for women candidates—have been and will likely continue to be an important part of American electoral politics. In this article, we investigate the impact of EMILYs List, because it is the standard bearer of womens PACs and is commonly cited as crucial to womens electoral success. Empirical studies of EMILYs List impact to date have largely assumed causal inference by using traditional linear models. We use a propensity score–matching model to leverage on causality and find that an EMILY endorsement helps some candidates and hurts others. Our findings set the stage for further and more nuanced investigations of when, where, and how EMILYs List can enhance the likelihood of electoral success for women.

Sex differences, personality, and ideology: a deeper investigation via contexts in a study of local politics

There is a puzzle in existing research literatures. Some studies suggest that sex differences impact political attitudes and behaviors, others contend there are sex differences in personality, and still other research implies that personality underpins political attitudes and behaviors. Despite empirical trends and studies suggesting tendencies that underpin behavior, there is no theory to suggest how sex, personality, and ideology are related to political behavior. We attempt to wrestle with this puzzle utilizing data from a study of men and women serving on local boards and commissions. Our findings suggest that, indeed, there appear to be types of people in terms of sex, personality, and ideology who gravitate to service on certain types of boards and commissions, but many of the relationships we identify require an understanding of local context and culture that the existing literatures on sex difference and personality do not speak to. This sets the stage for more nuanced studies of why sex, personality, and ideology may matter for political behavior (and why they may not), as well as the trouble with taking a particular approach to studying political behavior – namely one that focuses on correlations between traits in lieu of a focus on persons and their choices in local contexts.

From Embodiment to Public Policy: The Intersection of Individual Physiology, Psychology, and Institutional Policy Behaviors

Purpose – Starting from the premise that human behavior is the result of a complex interaction between physiological processes, psychological values systems, and socio-institutional contexts, this chapter examines how political behavior can be better understood through a multilevel approach. Design/methodology/approach – Employing social functionalism and Jonathan Haidts Moral Foundations Theory, the conceptual model presented is predicated on the premise that human phenotypes are the product of evolutionary processes which have resulted in an intensely social animal. This chapter examines how physiological processes operating at the individual level, as demonstrated by recent neuroscience scholarship, are intricately involved in attitude formation as well as the presence of and variation in moral values. These individual-level traits are both responsible for socio-institutional processes as well as shaped by this larger social context. Findings – The chapter cites that there are specific neural substrates that correlate with moral values responsible for the formation of preferences for particular policies. Originality/value – In order to better understand political behavior and policy formation, it is incumbent upon political scientists to include individual-level analyses in theoretical models.