How stressful are economic competitions in the lab? An investigation with physiological measures

Buckert, Magdalena; Schwieren, Christiane; Kudielka, Brigitte M.; Fiebach, Christian J.

doi:10.1016/j.joep.2017.07.004

Cited by 40 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…They also observe that the physical stress exogenously induced by a cold pressor task affects competitiveness for women but not for men. In contrast, Buckert et al (2017) find neither a higher cortisol response to computation task T nor a significant correlation between competitiveness and cortisol response.…”

Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 76%

“…In contrast, Buckert et al. () find neither a higher cortisol response to computation task T nor a significant correlation between competitiveness and cortisol response.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…In contrast, Buckert et al. () do not include breaks between adjacent tasks, whereas Buser et al. () include a 10‐minute break between adjacent tasks, which seems inadequate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Competitiveness and Stress

Zhong

Shalev

Koh

et al. 2018

Int Economic Review

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This study explores the relationship between competitiveness and stress. In Experiment 1, we observe a higher response of cortisol—the primary stress hormone—to the computation task coupled with tournament than to the computation task with piece rate. Moreover, more competitive subjects exhibit higher stress responses than their less competitive counterparts in the computation tasks under both tournament and piece rate. In Experiment 2, we find that exogenously induced stress does not significantly affect competitiveness. Overall, our findings reveal an important trade‐off between tournament and piece rate in terms of stress response with implications on the design of incentive contracts.

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Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 76%

“…In contrast, Buckert et al. () find neither a higher cortisol response to computation task T nor a significant correlation between competitiveness and cortisol response.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

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Competitiveness and Stress

Zhong

Shalev

Koh

et al. 2018

Int Economic Review

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“…But the sub-sample of players who are more emotionally aroused when playing against a robot may see the competitive situation as more threatening than when opposed to a human, which affects their performance negatively. Blascovich et al (2004) and Moore et al (2012) for example have found a correlation between perception of threat, physiological reaction and performance in sport competitions; Buckert et al (2015) have shown that perceiving competition as a threat tends to decrease a player's performance in the lab. A possible interpretation cation variable.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Doing Your Best When Stakes are High? Theory and Experimental Evidence

2016

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I EIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Achieving an ambitious goal frequently requires succeeding in a sequence of intermediary tasks, some being critical for the final outcome, and others not. Individuals are not always able to provide a level of effort sufficient to guarantee success in all the intermediary tasks. The ability to manage effort throughout the sequence of tasks is therefore critical. In this paper we propose a criterion that defines the importance of a task and that identifies how an individual should optimally allocate a limited stock of exhaustible efforts over tasks. We test this importance criterion in a laboratory experiment that reproduces the main features of a tennis match. We show that our importance criterion is able to predict the individuals' performance and it outperforms the Morris importance criterion that defines the importance of a point in terms of its impact on the probability to achieve the final outcome. We also find no evidence of choking under pressure and stress, as proxied by electrophysiological measures.JEL Classification: C72, C92, D81

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“…Angelucci and Cordova (2014) investigate the impact of acute stress on cognitive performance and find that exposure to acute emotional stress may reduce women's performance and earnings compared to men's performance and earnings in a task where participants have to answer multiple-choice questions taken from the SAT. Buckert et al (2015) investigate whether having to perform in a competitive environment causes acute stress reactions. They find that participants' heart rate and arterial blood pressure are higher when performing under competitive incentives than when performing under non-competitive incentives.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competitive behavior, stress, and gender

Halko

Sääksvuori

2017

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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This paper investigates whether chronic stress and acute physiological responses to competitive stress can explain individual and gender differences in competitiveness. We measure individuals' autonomic nervous system activity in a resting state as well as under non-competitive and competitive incentives in a real task using heart rate variability measurement. We find that basal heart rate variability, a proxy for chronic stress, and acute competition-induced changes in heart rate variability predict self-selection into competition. Moreover, we observe that basal heart rate variability predicts self-selection into competition for women, but not for men. Overall, we find tentative evidence for gender differences in the relationship between physiological stress and a decision to enter competitive environments. Our results suggest that individual variation in autonomic nervous system activity and physiological responses to competitive stress predict selfselection into competitive environments, but do not explain gender differences in willingness to compete. JEL Classification: C91, D01, D03, J16, J24

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How stressful are economic competitions in the lab? An investigation with physiological measures

Cited by 40 publications

References 77 publications

Competitiveness and Stress

Competitiveness and Stress

Doing Your Best When Stakes are High? Theory and Experimental Evidence

Competitive behavior, stress, and gender

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