Bachelor's thesis: How Gender Shapes the Perception of Provocative Communicators in Debates

This preregistration is not intended for publication in a journal. The study aims to examine whether, in persuasive contexts, a female provocateur experiences backlash effects by being perceived as less credible and likeable than a male provocateur who uses the same verbal provocation. The credibility of debate participants is composed of their perceived competence, bias, and trustworthiness (McGinnies & Ward, 1980; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Wallace et al., 2020). Furthermore, likability plays an important role in the effectiveness of persuasion (Reinhard et al., 2006; Reinhard & Messner, 2009). Thus, we are more easily persuaded when we perceive our counterpart as likeable and credible. Provocation constitutes an intentional and agentic act that violates conversational or relational norms (Jasim, 2013) and aims to elicit emotional or defensive reactions that individuals normally do not display (Karwat, 2021; Lesiński, 2021). It often involves argumentative fallacies such as straw man arguments (Aikin & Casey, 2011). Straw man arguments simplify, distort, or directly attack the conversation partner’s position (Aikin & Casey, 2011). Such fallacies can be correctly detected and are judged negatively by observers (Schumann, 2025). Provocation can be understood as a form of verbal aggressiveness, as it deliberately aims to elicit negative emotions such as anger. Observers who witness such verbal aggression are likely to evaluate the provocateur as less likeable (Prinstein & Cillessen, 2003) and less trustworthy, since intentionally ridiculing others can be perceived as dishonest and manipulative. Since straw-man arguments simplify and distort arguments (Aikin & Casey, 2011), the provocateur might be perceived as less nuanced, therefore as more biased. However, Lux (2024) found that likeability and trustworthiness did not decrease after successful provocation. Instead, provocateurs were even perceived as less biased, more competent and gained perceived control, possibly due to contrast effects, contrasting the respondent reacting angrily and out of control (de Saussure, 2018; Lux, 2024; Schumann, 2022), whereas the provocateur presents themselves as having superior rhetorical competences (Schumann, 2022). Gender stereotypes complicate these dynamics. Women are expected to be warm, friendly, and caring, whereas men are associated with competence, confidence, and assertiveness (Cuddy et al., 2008; Fiske, 2018). These expectations persist because people infer gender roles from observable behavior and social-role distributions (A. Eagly, 2016; Wood & Eagly, 2012). These stereotypes inferred from observed behavior continue to be accurate today (A. H. Eagly & Hall, 2025). Accordingly, women are expected to display powerless emotions, be more emotionally expressive, smile more, and behave less dominantly (Hess et al., 2004; Timmers et al., 2003). For women, unlike men, agentic behavior creates a role incongruity – particularly when perceived as emotionally cold or non-relational (Kirtley & Weaver III, 1999). Dominant or agentic communication tends to disadvantage women: women are less influential when using dominant speech compared to men (Carli, 2001) and often encounter backlash in the form of reduced warmth and likability when using a more masculine communication style (von Hippel et al., 2011; Williams & Tiedens, 2016). Findings regarding competence are mixed: some studies report no difference between dominant women and dominant men (Rudman, 1998; Williams & Tiedens, 2016), whereas others find lower competence ratings for dominant women (Okimoto & Brescoll, 2010). Trustworthiness, linked primarily to honesty (Hovland et al., 1953), and bias, which refers to a skewed perspective (Wallace et al., 2020), are both correlated with the warmth dimension. Additionally, bias is also correlated negatively with the competence dimension (Krishna & Meyer, 2023). Thus, since trustworthiness and bias might be linked to lower warmth ratings, women who behave counter-stereotypically may also be rated as more biased and less trustworthy. Another study by Meyer found that women who display gender-incongruent emotions face significantly more backlash regarding likability and competence, while effects on trustworthiness and bias were only observed descriptively (Meyer, 2023). However, this study may not have sufficiently activated gender stereotypes, as participants had to distinguish between genders solely by hearing different voices and observing simple emotional expressions displayed by avatars. (Meyer, 2023). Overall, male provocateurs’ agentic behavior aligns with gender-role expectations (Cuddy et al., 2008; Fiske, 2018) and could therefore even enhance their perceived competence, persuasiveness, and trustworthiness (Aalberg & Jenssen, 2017; Heyder & Kortzak, 2024). Thus, the same act of verbal provocation could elicit opposite evaluations depending on whether the provocateur is male or female. Therefore, we expect that provocative women are rated as less warm, less trustworthy, more biased and slightly less competent compared to male provocateurs. In the present study, we investigate how female provocateurs are perceived, in comparison to male provocateurs. Prior research, such as Lux (2024), found that provocation was not necessarily evaluated negatively, likely due to contrast effects arising from the escalation of the angry responder. To account for this, we manipulate whether the responder’s anger is triggered by a provocation or arises arbitrarily (non-provocation condition). Possible contrast effects will therefore emerge in both conditions, increasing comparability across conditions, and focusing on the actual impact of the provocative act.