Hiring discrimination and stereotyping of political opponents: The intersection of political affiliation and gender

Previous research suggests that gender shapes how liberals and conservatives are perceived in terms of stereotype content. However, whether these tendencies extend to discrimination against job applicants who express a dissimilar political affiliation is yet to be examined. We conducted a preregistered online experiment with Democrats and Republicans (N= 1684) to examine whether applicant affiliation interacts with gender to produce discrimination and stereotyping of political opponents, focusing on hiring judgments, willingness to cooperate and socialize with the applicant, and perceptions of warmth and competence. Besides replicating previous findings of substantial discrimination against political opponents, the results revealed that for hiring judgments and willingness to cooperate and socialize, political affiliation interacted with gender. Specifically, the tendency to discriminate against applicants with an opposing political affiliation was stronger when the applicants were men rather than women. These findings have implications for understanding discrimination and stereotyping in personnel selection.