An integrative conceptual review of gender bias in leader evaluations: An observer-focused motive-driven process model.
整合了多学科关于领导者评价中性别偏见的研究，提出观察者动机（身份保护、价值对齐、资源依赖）驱动选择性评价过程，解释了偏见表现差异，并针对观察者动机而非女性行为提出干预措施。
Over the past decades, research on gender bias in leader evaluations has proliferated across multiple disciplines, significantly expanding contexts, outcomes, and theoretical perspectives examined. Despite these valuable contributions, the literature remains fragmented in explaining the persistent variability in how and why gender bias manifests, from severe penalties against women leaders in certain contexts to evaluative advantages in others. To resolve these discrepancies, we shift the focus from leaders to the motivated processes driving observer evaluations. We begin with an integrative review of research, revealing that observers, ranging from supervisors and subordinates to clients and investors, are not conduits of stereotypes but active evaluators whose motives shape how they selectively appraise women leaders. Drawing on motivated cognition theory, we develop a novel motive-driven process model that identifies three core directional motives: identity protection, value alignment, and resource dependence. Using this model, we integrate the literature by highlighting individual-level and contextual antecedents of each motive and explicating how motives drive distinct selective appraisal processes. By unpacking "why" and "how" observers evaluate women leaders through motivated processes, our model also offers targeted interventions that address observer motives rather than changing women's behaviors, underscoring a pressing need to engage various stakeholders in addressing gender bias in leader evaluations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).