categorization on the basis of gender to occur among the most and least politically sophisticated. Finally, citi? zens draw on stereotypes of women to assign attributes to female candi? dates, not on stereotypes of men to infer attributes of male candidates. A growing body of research demonstrates the importance of candi? date gender for citizen assignment of attributes to candidates. This research is part of a trend in scholarship on public opinion and voting behavior that emphasizes citizens' strategies for forming impres? sions of candidates' attributes with minimal cognitive effort and time (Popkin 1996; Rahn 1993; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). Here I ex? amine the characteristics of candidates and citizens that moderate use of candidate gender as a tool used by citizens to infer the ideological orienta? tions of 1994, 1996, and 1998 candidates for the United States House of Representatives. Though still a minority of candidates, in the 1990s the number of women seeking election to the House of Representatives and the Senate increased considerably, presenting an excellent opportunity for scholars to examine the relevance of candidate gender for citizen assign? ment of pertinent attributes.
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Jeffrey W. Koch (2002) studied this question.