Alice Eagly 

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 46 percent of all managers and administrators were women in 2003, but less than 2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were. It is necessary to focus on the possibility of prejudice when considering why so few women have elite leadership positions, Alice Eagly points out, because men and women now have similar levels of educational attainment and are equivalent in many other human capital factors.

Views of gender roles, she argues, produce prejudice toward female leaders, because women are perceived to have less leadership ability than men and their leadership is evaluated less favorably. Studies have recently shown that there is but one big sex difference in leadership style: Women tend to have a more democratic approach, with more collaboration and sharing of decision-making. Men tend to be more autocratic and directive.

Eagly is Professor and Department Chair of Psychology and James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. She is also a Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Policy Research. She has held faculty positions at Michigan State University, University of Massachusetts in Amherst and Purdue University; and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, University of Illinois, University of Tuebingen, the Murray Research Center of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and University of Amsterdam.

She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at Northwestern University, one of which is an undergraduate lecture course on the psychology of gender. Other courses include a graduate course on the psychology of attitudes, a graduate course on meta-analysis and various seminars.

She has published widely on the psychology of attitudes, especially attitude change and attitude structure. She is equally devoted to the study of gender. In both of these areas, she has carried out primary research and meta-analyses of research literature.

Some of her new research is on sex differences in attitudes on social and political issues, with special attention to understanding what variables may account for these differences. She also studies gender and leadership, with special interest in the leadership styles of women and men. Another project involves developing a critique of evolutionary psychology from the perspective of social role theory, which provides an alternative theory of sex differences.

She is the author of Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social Role Interpretation and The Psychology of Attitudes with co-author Shelly Chaiken. Eagly is also the author of over 130 journal articles and chapters in edited volumes and numerous notes, reviews and commentaries. Her books include The Psychology of Attitudes and Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social Role Interpretation. She has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition, Psychological Bulletin, and the European Review of Social Psychology. Eagly has also worked as consultant editor for Psychology of Women Quarterly.  

Service to her scholarly field includes: president of the Midwestern Psychological Association; president of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology; chair of the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association; chair of the Executive Committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.

Honors received include the Carolyn Wood Sherif Award for contributions to the psychology of women; the Donald Campbell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Social Psychology; Distinguished Scientist Award of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology; and a citation as Distinguished Leader for Women in Psychology. 

A frequent participant in colloquia and panel discussions, Eagly's recent presentations include a roundtable discussion of Changes in Stereotypes of Gender in America at the Interamerican Congress of Psychology, Caracas, a panel discussion on Sneaking into the Men's Room: Leadership, Evaluations, and Making it to the Top at the Academy of Management, Chicago, and a paper on The Origins of Sex Differences in Human Behavior at the American Psychological Society, Miami.

Professor Eagly received her A.B. summa cum laude in social relations from Harvard University (Radcliffe College) in 1960. She received her M.A. in psychology in 1963 and her Ph.D. in social psychology in 1965, both from the University of Michigan. 

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