Experiences Within Gender: An Analysis of Political Efficacy

The goal of this paper is to add to our knowledge on women’s political efficacy and learn new ways to motivate and encourage women to be more active in politics. This study will answer the question: What types of encouragement cause women to have a higher level of political efficacy? This study uses a 2x2 between-subjects survey experiment to address this question. The forms of encouragement (treatments) include two images and two statements making up our four treatment groups. It is expected for women to have a greater sense of political efficacy when
presented with a statement about how women have been very active in politics compared to a statement describing that many women do not run or are uninterested in politics, regardless of the image shown. The findings suggest that the pairs in which information is presented to men and women affects them differently, in which women were more influenced by a completely different pair of stimulus and encouragement than men.