Bias in Emotion Perception of Female Politicians is a General Gender Bias

Female politicians often face harsh criticism when displaying emotions, especially when expressing anger. In this project, I study whether gender biases affect the way we perceive anger expressed by female politicians. Using pictures of real politicians with manipulated anger and neutral expressions, I test whether people perceive anger differently in female versus male politicians. Across two well-powered preregistered survey experiments in the US, I find no difference (Study 1) and a small difference in female politicians being perceived as more angry than men (Study 2). Stronger differences are found in the perception of non-target emotions. Overall more non-target emotions are recognized in female politicians with a neutral expression. Furthermore, angry female politicians are perceived as expressing more disgust than male politicians, whereas angry male politicians are seen as displaying more sadness than their female counterparts. Similar differences are found between male and female non-politicians, indicating that the bias in emotion perception does not change in the political context, but rather reflects a general gender bias in emotion perception.