Alice Eagly
American social psychologist of gender, attitudes and leadership
American social psychologist, emerita at Northwestern University. She developed social role theory to account for differences and similarities between women and men, and used meta-analysis to study gender, attitudes and leadership.
Why this person matters
Eagly proposed that many gender differences in behaviour arise from the social roles people occupy and the norms attached to them. She developed a biosocial extension with Wendy Wood, and her work on attitudes and leadership involved collaborators such as Shelly Chaiken and Linda Carli. Her research relies heavily on meta-analysis to summarise findings.
Main contributions
Social role theory
She proposed that gender is enacted through the roles people play, and that social norms often dictate those roles rather than intrinsic psychological qualities. With Wendy Wood she developed a biosocial extension, and the National Academy of Sciences says she later developed the perspective into a broader evolutionary model of gender differences.
Meta-analysis in the psychology of gender and attitudes
Her work relies heavily on meta-analytic tools; an early example is a 1991 meta-analysis with Wood on sex differences in social behaviour. With Shelly Chaiken she co-wrote The Psychology of Attitudes (1993).
Women and leadership
With Linda Carli she wrote Through the Labyrinth (2007), which argues that the glass ceiling image no longer fits and that women's routes to leadership are winding and uneven. Her role congruity theory holds that prejudice arises when a group's stereotype mismatches the qualities valued in a social role.
Context and limits
Social role theory sits in a long dispute with evolutionary accounts of sex differences. Feminist Voices says she thought evolutionary psychologists asked important questions but disagreed with their answers, and the National Academy of Sciences says she later extended the theory into a broader evolutionary model. The sources read for this profile do not summarise specific methodological critiques of her meta-analyses, so none are asserted.
In your introductory course
Social psychology.Appears where textbooks discuss gender roles, stereotypes and prejudice, and sometimes in coverage of women in leadership. Her work also shows how meta-analysis is used to compare studies.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 13.3. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1965
Received her PhD from the University of Michigan and began at Michigan State University.
- 1993
Published The Psychology of Attitudes with Shelly Chaiken.
- 1995
Moved to Northwestern University after 15 years at Purdue University.
- 2007
Published Through the Labyrinth with Linda Carli.
- 2022
Elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
Sources
- Feminist Voices, Alice EaglyArchive or museum. Institutional biography inspected.
- National Academy of Sciences, Alice H. Eagly directory entrySociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Heritage Wall, Alice EaglySociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- News-Medical, Through the labyrinth: the truth about how women become leaders (press summary, 2007)Reference work. Abstract inspected.
- Wikipedia, Alice EaglyReference work. Reference article inspected.