Effects of sex and seating arrangement on selection of leader

Effects of a person's sex and seating arrangement were tested with 310 participants (151 men and 159 women; M age = 20.0, SD = 3.3) from a large south-western U.S. university who were asked to select a leader from among five persons depicted around a rectangular table. Participants chose a person shown seated at the head of the table as the leader of a group, regardless of that person's sex. This conflicts with prior research indicating gender bias against women as leaders.