# The Impact of the Need for Cognitive Closure on Attitudes toward Women as Managers and the Sequential Mediating Role of Belief in a Just World and Gender Essentialism

## TL;DR

People who seek certainty in knowledge tend to have more prejudice against women in leadership roles, influenced by beliefs in fairness and fixed gender roles.

## Contribution

This study identifies a sequential mediation mechanism linking cognitive closure to gender bias via belief in a just world and gender essentialism.

## Key findings

- Need for cognitive closure correlates with prejudice against women leaders, independent of gender.
- Belief in a just world and gender essentialism sequentially mediate the relationship between cognitive closure and negative attitudes toward women as managers.
- Reducing cognitive closure or challenging stereotypes may help reduce gender bias in leadership perceptions.

## Abstract

This research investigated the relation between the need for cognitive closure (i.e., a desire for epistemic certainty) and attitudes toward women as managers among men and women. In a cross-sectional study (total N = 241) collected in Italy, we found that need for cognitive closure, controlling for participants’ gender, was related to having more prejudice toward women leaders. Furthermore, the results revealed that the positive relation between the need for cognitive closure and negative attitudes toward women as managers was sequentially mediated by belief in a just world (i.e., the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get and other people do not) and gender essentialism (i.e., the belief that women and men are distinctly, immutably, and naturally different, and thus have complementary skills to bring to the workplace). We suggest that men and women who are characterized by a need for cognitive closure are more sensitive to stereotypes of women as being incompatible with leadership roles. Either priming a low need for cognitive closure or providing contrary stereotypes could obviate the effect on beliefs in a just world and in gender essentialism that impedes progress towards greater gender equality in the workplace.