Gender Stereotyping Questions Accurately Measure Beliefs About the Traits and Issue Strengths of Women and Men in Politics

ABSTRACT The public often believes that men in political office are better at handling some issues or possess specific traits, compared to women. Do individuals reveal their true preferences on surveys that inquire about these political gender stereotypes? This article employs methods that allow researchers to examine true attitudes without pressuring individuals to explicitly reveal sensitive preferences. I use three experiments: a list experiment, a new group-count sensitive measure, and a question-wording experiment employed on the 2016 CES. I find little evidence of reluctance to share true attitudes about gender stereotypes across any of the measures. The results presented help confirm the importance of gender stereotypes in shaping political preferences in American politics today and undergird evidence in prior scholarship on stereotypes.