The Center for Social Data Analytics Speaker Series Presents: Chenyang (Sara) He (Psychology)

Title: CEO Sex Reframes Organizational Evaluation: Female Leaders Prompt Communal Focus, Male Leaders Prompt Agentic Focus

Abstract: Leaders serve as the “face of the firm,” yet we know little about how CEO identity shapes the evaluative criteria stakeholders use to judge organizations. Drawing on social role theory, this research investigates whether CEO sex functions as a cognitive heuristic that reframes organizational evaluation. We analyzed 200k+ Glassdoor reviews from Fortune 500 companies to test this. Using topic modeling and propensity-score matched mixed-effects models, we found that companies with female CEOs were evaluated significantly more on communal criteria (e.g., culture, work-life balance), while those with male CEOs were evaluated more on agentic criteria (e.g., compensation, competitiveness), regardless of whether comments were positive or negative. Moving beyond valence, we show that leader identity acts as a powerful heuristic that determines the content of stakeholder sensemaking. These findings extend social role theory by showing how individual-level stereotypes cascade upward to impact macro-level organizational judgment, with practical implications for executive selection and organizational reputation management.

Bio: Chenyang (Sara) He is a doctoral candidate in Social Psychology and Social Data Analytics at the Pennsylvania State University, working with Dr. Karen Gasper and with the Center for Social Data Analytics (Dr. Bruce Desmarais). Her research examines how feelings influence decision-making across contexts, combining experimental methods with computational approaches including machine learning, natural language processing, and sentiment analysis. She has presented her research at leading conferences including the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), Society for Affective Science (SAS), and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). Sara holds a Master's degree from the University of Chicago and expects to complete her Ph.D. in May 2026

Zoom Link: https://psu.zoom.us/j/99245001961?pwd=endWOTc3Wm5PYTJQRXJWWlpIQkdJUT09