Do women have more shame than men? An experiment on self-assessment and the shame of overestimating oneself

Ludwig, Sandra; Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde; Thoma, Carmen

doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.11.007

“…Moreover, even though women are much less likely than men to increase the stakes, there is no difference in their response upon observing that their opponents 'knock' (see column (4) in Table A2). We find this phenomenon to be in line with women's shame aversion (Ludwig and Thoma, 2012) or adherence to social norms ).…”

Section: Drivers Of the Gender Gap In Choicessupporting

confidence: 72%

Women Do Not Play Their Aces - The Consequences of Shying Away

Claussen

¹

,

Czibor

²

,

Praag³

2016

AMPROC

2

0

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The underrepresentation of women at the top of hierarchies is often explained by gender differences in preferences. We find support for this claim by analyzing a large dataset from an online card game community, a stylized yet natural setting characterized by self-selection into an uncertain, competitive and male-dominated environment. We observe gender differences in playing behavior consistent with women being more averse towards risk and competition. Moreover, we demonstrate how "shying away" makes female players less successful: despite no gender gap in playing skills, women accumulate lower scores than men due to their relative avoidance of risky and competitive situations. JEL-codes: D03, J24, M52

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“…4 Even the expressions of attitudes and beliefs that depart from gender-role expectations may come with a social image cost. Consistent with a penalty for gender incongruent behavior, Heatherington et al (1993), and Ludwig et al (2016) find that women are more modest than men when having to state their own abilities in public, but not in private. Research also demonstrates that a large gap in social confidence emerges during adolescence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Gender Differences in Willingness to Compete: The Role of Public Observability

Buser

¹

,

Ranehill

²

,

Veldhuizen

³

2017

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A recent literature emphasizes the importance of the gender gap in willingness to compete as a partial explanation for gender differences in labor market outcomes. However, whereas experiments investigating willingness to compete typically do so in anonymous environments, real world competitions often have a more public nature, which introduces potential social image concerns. If such image concerns are important, we should expect public observability to further exacerbate the gender gap. We test this prediction using a laboratory experiment that varies whether the decision to compete, and its outcome, is publicly observable. Across four different treatments, however, all treatment effects are close to zero. We conclude that the public observability of decisions and outcomes does not exert a significant impact on male or female willingness to compete, indicating that the role of social image concerns related to competitive decisions may be limited.

show abstract

“…4 Even the expressions of attitudes and beliefs that depart from gender-role expectations may come with a social image cost. Consistent with a penalty for gender incongruent behavior, Heatherington et al (1993), and Ludwig et al (2016) find that women are more modest than men when having to state their own abilities in public, but not in private. Research also demonstrates that a large gap in social confidence emerges during adolescence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Gender differences in willingness to compete: The role of public observability

Buser

¹

,

Ranehill

²

,

Veldhuizen

³

2021

Journal of Economic Psychology

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A recent literature emphasizes the importance of the gender gap in willingness to compete as a partial explanation for gender differences in labor market outcomes. However, whereas experiments investigating willingness to compete typically do so in anonymous environments, real world competitions often have a more public nature, which introduces potential social image concerns. If such image concerns are important, we should expect public observability to further exacerbate the gender gap. We test this prediction using a laboratory experiment that varies whether the decision to compete, and its outcome, is publicly observable. Across four different treatments, however, all treatment effects are close to zero. We conclude that the public observability of decisions and outcomes does not exert a significant impact on male or female willingness to compete, indicating that the role of social image concerns related to competitive decisions may be limited.

show abstract

Do women have more shame than men? An experiment on self-assessment and the shame of overestimating oneself

Cited by 27 publications

References 47 publications

Women Do Not Play Their Aces - The Consequences of Shying Away

Women Do Not Play Their Aces - The Consequences of Shying Away

Gender Differences in Willingness to Compete: The Role of Public Observability

Gender differences in willingness to compete: The role of public observability

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