Turning lead into gold: Evaluations of men and women leaders and the alchemy of social consensus.

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Abstract
Examined whether consensual affect cues of fellow group participants would alter the perceived quality of identical leadership performances. 160 undergraduates viewed a color videotape of a scripted group discussion by a leader and 4 group members. Leader's suggestions, members' compliance, and the focal action of discussion content were the same in all conditions. Two nonfocal consensus variables, authority legitimation of the leader and group members' nonverbal "leakage" cues of affective reaction to the leader, were manipulated by tape editing in factorial design and replicated on 2 leaders, a male and a female. Both leaders' performances with authority legitimation or nonverbal peer approval were evaluated higher than the identical performances without legitimation or disapproved by peers. Results show that a difference in the affective consensus surrounding a performance could produce discriminatory evaluations of equally discriminatory bias. Consensus cues were not manipulated for the other stimulus group members, and men were rated higher than equally competent women. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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