The effect of sexist attitudes and identity of the speaker on the credibility of politically contested statements

Abstract

Does the credibility of a message on gender (in)equality depend on characteristics of the speaker and the receiver? Recent studies have found that: a) some sociodemographic profiles (specifically white men) tend to perceive the messages of feminist women as more biased than those of feminist men (Roden, 2022); b) that the same message is more credible if it is said by a scientist than if it is said by a political person (Besalú et al., 2021); c) and that the credibility of male scientists is higher than that of female scientists (Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2013). However, it is unclear how the characteristics of the speaker might moderate the effect of prior sexist attitudes on the credibility of a statement on gender (in)equality. To address the problem, we present results from an innovative online survey experiment with data gathered in Spain in 2023.