Competitiveness across the life span: The feisty fifties.

Mayr, Ulrich; Wozniak, David; Davidson, Casey; Kuhns, David; Harbaugh, William T.

doi:10.1037/a0025655

Cited by 72 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(36 reference statements)

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“…Even with sophisticated models for understanding the effects of socialization, biology and their potential interaction, there is little consensus on how sex differences in competitiveness change with age. While Mayr et al (2012) find that among adults men are more competitive than women in all age groups, Flory et al (2012) find that the sex difference is most pronounced among young adults. Boschini et al (2014) find the opposite.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex Differences in Competitiveness: Hunter-Gatherer Women and Girls Compete Less in Gender-Neutral and Male-Centric Tasks

Apicella

Dreber

2014

Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology

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Despite numerous attempts to increase workplace equality, the near universal gender wage gap and underrepresentation of women in high status jobs persists in societies around the world. This persistence has led some researchers to speculate that psychological sex differences may be partly to blame. In particular, economists have begun to focus on sex differences in competitiveness as a possible cause. Here we test whether sex differences in competitiveness exist in a relatively isolated and evolutionarily relevant population of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. In study 1 we examine sex differences in willingness to compete in a gender-neutral task in Hadza adults and children (N=191). We find that when choosing between an individualistic payment scheme and a competitive payment scheme, boys and men are significantly more likely to compete than girls and women. We find no evidence that this sex difference varies with age. In study 2 (N=88 and N=70) we use both a female-centric and a male-centric task to explore sex differences in competitiveness in adults. While we find no sex difference in willingness to compete in the female-centric task, we find that men are more likely to compete in the male-centric task. While further work is needed, this study lends some support to the idea of a sex difference in willingness to compete among hunter-gatherers, but it also highlights the importance of the task type. The observation that a sizable proportion of male Hadza choose to compete in each of the tasks is discussed in light of the fact that hunter-gatherers are largely egalitarian and non-hierarchical.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex Differences in Competitiveness: Hunter-Gatherer Women and Girls Compete Less in Gender-Neutral and Male-Centric Tasks

Apicella

Dreber

2014

Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology

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“…Furthermore, despite the use of very different designs, a series of other papers, some of which are discussed in more detail below, also identifies circumstances in which women, conditional on performance, enter tournaments less than men, e.g., Gneezy et al (2009), Kamas and Preston (2009), Vandegrift and Yavas (2009), Ertac and Szentes (2010, ), Booth & Nolen (2012), Cardenas et al (2012, , Mayr et al (2012), Shurchkov (2012, Gupta et al (2013) and Andersen et al (2013).…”

Section: Iib Replication and Robustness Of Women Shying Away From Comentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mayr et al (2012) recruit around 500 people in an indoor shopping mall who perform in an NV-style design with pairwise competition. They find that 56% of men but only 36% of women choose to compete, a difference that remains relatively stable across age (see Figure 2 below).…”

Section: Agementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender

Niederle¹

2014

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“…Natural and social scientists argue that competitions and the right dose of competitiveness significantly determine not only the future of the individual but even the evolution of the whole species (1,2). However, behavioral experiments with humans show that there are large differences in competitiveness between individuals that cannot be readily explained by genetic endowments, abilities, or risk attitudes (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9).…”

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confidence: 99%

Rise and fall of competitiveness in individualistic and collectivistic societies

Leibbrandt

Gneezy

List

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Competitiveness pervades life: plants compete for sunlight and water, animals for territory and food, and humans for mates and income. Herein we investigate human competitiveness with a natural experiment and a set of behavioral experiments. We compare competitiveness in traditional fishing societies where local natural forces determine whether fishermen work in isolation or in collectives. We find sharp evidence that fishermen from individualistic societies are far more competitive than fishermen from collectivistic societies, and that this difference emerges with work experience. These findings suggest that humans can evolve traits to specific needs, support the idea that socio-ecological factors play a decisive role for individual competitiveness, and provide evidence how individualistic and collectivistic societies shape economic behavior.endogeneous preferences | social learning | field experiment I ndividuals frequently face a decision that can affect their wellbeing and even survival: to compete or not to compete. Natural and social scientists argue that competitions and the right dose of competitiveness significantly determine not only the future of the individual but even the evolution of the whole species (1, 2). However, behavioral experiments with humans show that there are large differences in competitiveness between individuals that cannot be readily explained by genetic endowments, abilities, or risk attitudes (3-9).A possible explanation of the large variations in human competitiveness is based on learning theories. Observational learning describes individuals' tendency to adapt by imitating successful behavior. Social or cultural learning models attribute an important role to individual experiences in the social and physical environments for the formation of traits and norms (10-13). Thus, individual variations in competitiveness may be the result of exposure to different environments and pressures.In this study we investigate how local natural forces cause human competitiveness to change. We compare competitiveness in geographically proximate individualistic and collectivistic fishing societies with experiments. Our key exogenous variation is whether fishermen spend their lives at a lake or at the sea. The main difference between these societies is that the sea ecology favors fishermen to work in collectives, whereas the lake ecology guides them to fish in isolation. As a result, the output of the fishermen in the individualistic lake societies should depend on their willingness to compete with other fishermen for the best fishing spots, the best sales, and the most beneficial trade relations, whereas such individual competitiveness is unnecessary in the collectivistic sea societies. We hypothesize that these differences result in changes in individual competitiveness and that lake fishermen become more competitive than sea fishermen with exposure to these local pressures.The experiments we used in the field facilitated comparisons and control of causal factors (14). Fishermen at the sea and at...

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Competitiveness across the life span: The feisty fifties.

Cited by 72 publications

References 34 publications

Sex Differences in Competitiveness: Hunter-Gatherer Women and Girls Compete Less in Gender-Neutral and Male-Centric Tasks

Sex Differences in Competitiveness: Hunter-Gatherer Women and Girls Compete Less in Gender-Neutral and Male-Centric Tasks

Gender

Rise and fall of competitiveness in individualistic and collectivistic societies

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