Men, particularly those who declare being interested in politics, take longer than women to admit that they do not know the answer to political knowledge items

How long does it take to admit that you do not know? Gender differences in response time to political knowledge questions. Mónica Ferrín, Gema García-Albacete, Irene Sánchez-Vítores. Research & Politics, August 5, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680221117454

Abstract: The implications of the persistent gender gap in political knowledge are a puzzle that the literature is still disentangling; and research has evidenced important differences in the way women and men respond to survey questions. We argue in this article that political knowledge survey items not only inform about differences in cognition but also about other latent traits related to gender stereotyping. Gender stereotypes around political knowledge push men to be knowledgeable but not so much women, which we expect to affect men and women’s survey responses differently. To test this expectation, we explore response times of do not know answers to political knowledge items. Our results show that men, particularly those who declare being interested in politics, take longer than women to admit that they do not know the answer to political knowledge items.

Keywords: political knowledge, do not know, gender gap, response time, stereotypes

Final remarks

This article contributes to the literature on gender and politics by showing that gender-conformity affects both men and women. Our interpretation of the longer time men take to respond DK is that men are gender stereotyped to be politically knowledgeable. As a consequence, they are reluctant to verbalize their lack of knowledge, which implies that they take as much time as possible before yielding and admitting they do not know the answer.

While some authors have argued that do not know answers simply reflect ignorance on behalf of respondents, regardless of the question format or their personality traits (Jessee, 2017; Luskin and Bullock, 2011), this article shows that DK responses do not distribute randomly. Gender differences in DK response latencies provide an additional piece of evidence regarding the effects of stereotype threat on respondents (Davis and Silver, 2003; Pereira, 2019) and how it results in a further overestimation of men’s actual levels of political knowledge, compared to women’s. Further research should explore the extent to which priming other social identities (McGlone et al., 2006; Shih et al., 1999), amongst other strategies, could enhance respondent’s confidence and provide more accurate depiction of what they know about politics.

This article also opens an avenue for further research on survey methodology. We have shown that response latencies of do not know answers hide differentiated traits for women and men, based on gender stereotypes. To date, little research has explored the potential interpretation of groups’ differences in response times in relation to data quality and comparability. We offer here evidence that response times differ significantly between women and men, which implies different reactions to survey items. This finding should encourage the use of response latencies as a tool to explore heterogeneity in responses to survey items.