Empowering Mimicry: Female Leader Role Models Empower Women in Leadership Tasks Through Body Posture Mimicry.

In two studies we investigated the behavioral process through which visible female leader role models empower women in leadership tasks. We proposed that women tend to mimic the powerful (open) body postures of successful female role models, thus leading to more empowered behavior and better performance on a challenging leadership task, a process we called empowering mimicry. In Study 1, we experimentally manipulated the body posture of the male and female role models and showed that 86 Swiss college women mimicked the body posture of the female (ingroup) but not the male (outgroup) role model, thus leading to more empowered behavior and better performance on a public speaking task. In Study 2, we investigated the boundary conditions of this process and showed that empowering mimicry does not extend to exposures to non-famous female models among 50 Swiss college women. These findings suggest that nonverbal mimicry is one important mechanism through which female leader role models inspire women performing a challenging leadership task. From a practice perspective, our research underscores the importance of female leaders' visibility because visibility can drive other women's advancement in leadership by affording women the opportunity to mimic and be empowered by successful female role models.

Yes we can!: prejudice reduction through seeing (inequality) and believing (in social change).

We investigated the effect of differential perceived efficacy to reduce racial inequality (in the context of increased awareness of illegitimate in-group advantages) on White Americans' intergroup attitudes and antidiscrimination behavior. White American university students read a passage describing the underrepresentation of African Americans in their university's faculty and then wrote letters to the university administration in support of appointing more African Americans to the faculty. We experimentally varied feedback concerning efficacy to change institutional racism. Before writing their letters, participants were told that there was a low, moderate, or high chance that their efforts would be effective. Later in the experiment, participants' perceived efficacy to influence their university system was measured. Intergroup attitudes improved and antidiscrimination actions increased among participants with higher perceived efficacy in comparison with participants with low perceived efficacy. Collective guilt partially mediated the effects of efficacy beliefs on antidiscrimination actions and fully mediated the effects of efficacy beliefs on intergroup attitudes.