Is there a gender gap in preschoolers’ competitiveness? An experiment in the U.S

Gender and preferences at a young age: Evidence from Armenia

“…When it comes to willingness to compete in mathematical tasks, most previous studies find that boys are more competitive than girls (Almas et al, 2012;Booth and Nolen, 2012a;Cardenas et al, 2012;Dreber et al, 2014;Sutter and Glatzle-Rutzler, 2015). For competitiveness in other types of tasks, there are many null results (Cardenas et al, 2012;Dreber et al, 2011;Samak, 2013), and also some evidence of boys being more competitive (Gneezy and Rustichini, 2004;Cardenas et al, 2012;Sutter and Glatzle-Rutzler, 2015). 4 Our results lend further support to the view that context or culture may be an important determinant of gender differences in competitiveness.…”

Children Do Not Behave Like Adults: Gender Gaps In Performance and Risk Taking In A Random Social Context In the High‐Stakes Game Shows Jeopardy and Junior Jeopardy

“…5 Consistent with experimental findings for adults (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007;Dohmen et al, 2012;Datta Gupta et al, 2013), the evidence suggests that girls are less willing to compete (Sutter and Gl€ atzle-R€ utzler, 2015). 6 However, unlike findings for adults, the gender gap is not robust to gender-neutral (Samak, 2013) or 'girly' tasks (Dreber et al, 2011;C ardenas et al, 2012;Khachatryan et al, 2015) or to cultural contexts (Booth and Nolen, 2012b;Andersen et al, 2013). 7 Of particular interest for our study is the literature that suggests that the performance of boys and girls changes when they compete against the opposite gender.…”

“…7 Andersen et al (2013) also show that the gender gap in competitiveness depends on the age studied: the gender gap in competitiveness is first observed at the age of puberty in patriarchal societies, whereas no gender gap is observed at any age in matrilineal societies. Conversely, Dreber et al (2011), Samak (2013 and Khachatryan et al (2015) find no performance change based on the opponent's gender in boys and girls using either gender-neutral tasks or running. 8 Although no effect on boys' behaviour is found, Gneezy and Rustichini (2004) find that girls run more slowly when they compete against other girls compared to when they compete against boys.…”

“…To our knowledge, the effect of social context on risk taking has not previously been studied, except for Booth and Nolen (2012b), who study adolescent girls and report that adolescent girls take more risks in lottery tasks when they are randomly assigned to a group of girls or when they attend all-girl schools. 6 However, unlike findings for adults, the gender gap is not robust to gender-neutral (Samak, 2013) or 'girly' tasks (Dreber et al, 2011;C ardenas et al, 2012;Khachatryan et al, 2015) or to cultural contexts (Booth and Nolen, 2012b;Andersen et al, 2013). 6 However, unlike findings for adults, the gender gap is not robust to gender-neutral (Samak, 2013) or 'girly' tasks (Dreber et al, 2011;C ardenas et al, 2012;Khachatryan et al, 2015) or to cultural contexts (Booth and Nolen, 2012b;Andersen et al, 2013).…”

Overlapping Marathons: What Happens to Female Pace When Men Catch Up?

“…For example, in an experiment in which fourth graders are timed running short distances, Gneezy and Rustichini (2004) show that competition enhances the performance of males, but not females. This "competitiveness gap" has since been found to vary across age (Larson 2005;Samak 2013), ethnic groups (Gong and Yang 2012), urban and rural settings (Bjorvatn et al, 2016), geographic regions (Càrdenas et al 2012;De Paola et al 2015;Khachatryan et al 2015), and across societies considered to be matriarchal or patriarchal (Andersen et al 2013). 3 Absent from the literature are empirical settings in which there are records of female performance with and without the presence of men while holding constant the anticipated marginal return to female effort.…”