Abstract
We integrate the research on evolutionary leadership with the evolutionary psychology of mate choice to argue that a facially attractive partner signals unobservable leadership qualities of their mate, and thus, partner's attractiveness spills over to their mate's perceived leadership. Study 1 found that while partner's attractiveness enhanced the perceived leadership of male CEOs, female CEOs' leadership was downgraded in the presence of an attractive partner. Study 2 validated that the leadership penalty for female CEOs increased when they were seen with more attractive males than with less attractive males. Study 3 found that conservative candidates that were male benefitted more from an attractive partner than their liberal counterparts but female candidates were penalized regardless of political ideology. Our findings suggest that indirect cues that emanate from the partner are critical for leadership assessment. They invoke attributions that enhance the perceived leadership of males but disapprove of females as leaders.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 101339 |
| Journal | Leadership Quarterly |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business and International Management
- Applied Psychology
- Sociology and Political Science
- Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Keywords
- Evolutionary leadership
- Evolutionary psychology
- Facial attractiveness
- Mate-choice copying
- Spillover