Challenging the Gender Status Quo: How Low Gender System Justification Predicts Pro‐Women Leadership Bias

ABSTRACT We offer a new perspective on gender‐based biases in leadership evaluations by examining individual differences in beliefs about the gender status quo. Specifically, across three studies ( N = 756), we tested how gender system‐justifying beliefs interact with leader gender to impact leadership evaluations. In Study 1, participants evaluated a CEO's leadership based on their decision to appoint either a female or a male leader. In Studies 2 and 3, participants evaluated the leadership of female and male candidates and made a hiring decision. Individuals with weaker system‐justifying beliefs evaluated female leaders and CEOs who appointed female leaders more positively than their male counterparts. Additionally, in making hiring decisions, they were more likely to select the female over the male candidate. In contrast, participants with stronger system‐justifying beliefs did not display gender‐based bias. To assess whether these effects reflect a system‐challenging motive, in Studies 2 and 3, we tested three beliefs central to gender system‐challenging motivation—supporting greater gender equity in leadership, recognizing an unjust gender status quo, and believing the system should be changed. These system‐challenging motivations predicted the same pro‐female pattern as low gender system justification and, in Study 3, remained predictive when modeled simultaneously with system justification. In summary, across all three studies, participants with weaker system justifying beliefs consistently displayed bias in favor of women leaders—an effect partially explained by system challenging motivations.