The importance of being confident; gender, career choice, and willingness to compete

Kamas, Linda; Preston, Anne

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2011.06.013

Cited by 113 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…These differences owed to lower self-confidence among women in T2 (p = 0.077), despite the higher number of correct sums by women in Round 1. This result has been observed on numerous occasions in the primary and secondary experimental literature [18,20,37,38]. Despite their lower self-confidence, however, women did enter into competition against a set target.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 59%

“…However, most of these studies have focused on testing a particular competition type against others, the winner-takes-all (WTA) competition. Decisions in WTA competition relate to key variables such as culture [9,15,16], gender identity (cooperative or non-cooperative [17]), self-confidence [18][19][20][21], risk/ambiguity attitudes [15,21], or combinations of these variables [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Toward Value Co-Creation: Increasing Women’s Presence in Management Positions through Competition against a Set Target

2017

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Despite empirical evidence that women's presence in management positions is a source of value co-creation for firms, these positions are still male-dominated. Some evidence from experimental economics suggests that one reason for this imbalance is that women shy away from competition. However, most of these studies have focused on competition systems that pit individuals against each other. We present an economic laboratory experiment that compares competition against others with competition against a set target. The crucial difference is that whereas the former involves competing against opponents, the latter does not. Our results show that significantly more women are willing to compete against a set target than against others. Furthermore, there is no reduction in men's participation and no general efficiency reduction. Our findings suggest that firms that aim at value co-creation and sustainability through a gender-neutral promotion mechanism should introduce competition against a set target and reduce competition against others. This paper contributes to dispelling stereotypes about women's reluctance to compete.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Value Co-Creation: Increasing Women’s Presence in Management Positions through Competition against a Set Target

2017

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“…This is in line with Datta Gupta et al (2013), who demonstrate that the gap in competition willingness is reduced when women can choose the gender of their opponents. This seems to imply that the information about gender spurs subjective beliefs about the probability to win, which in turn might be based on stereotypes (Kamas & Preston, 2012). As Bordalo et al (2016) argue for their formalization of stereotypes' effects, women might underestimate their probabilities to win in the presence of men, so that it could be inferred that they correctly estimate them in a same-gender environment.…”

Section: Literature Review and Conjecturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Do Women Favor Same-Gender Competition? Evidence from a Choice Experiment

et al. 2017

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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. Terms of use: Documents in This version April 2017Abstract This paper addresses the behavioral puzzle of women's preference for competition when competitors are also women. Using a framed field experiment with 883 non-standard subjects, we show that none of the determinants of competitive behavior in general, including ability, self-confidence, and risk aversion, provide a satisfying explanation for women's substantive gender-related selection into competition. Nonetheless, women who are overconfident, i.e. over-estimate own abilities in performing a task, enter competition regardless of the gender-mix. Hence, the gender-pairing phenomenon is driven by women who correctly estimate or under-estimate own ability. We conclude that this is due to stereotypes about women's underperformance compared to men.

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“…First, men may fail to understand the extent to which women dislike competition and attribute too much of the difference in behavior across gender to ability differences 3 For further supporting evidence, see, for instance, Gupta, Poulsen, and Villeval (2005), Garratt, Weinberger, and Johnson (2013), Vandegrift andYavas (2009), Cason, Masters, andSheremeta (2010), and Fletschner, Anderson, and Cullen (2010). However, Gneezy, Leonard, and List (2009) found the same effect in a traditional patriarchal society, but not in a matrilineal one, Charness and Villeval (2009) found no effect, Kamas and Preston (2012) found differences only for business majors, Wozniak, Harbaugh, and Mayr (2010) found that feedback about relative performance in a piece-rate stage reduces the gender entry gap, and Charness, Rustichini, and van de Ven (2012) found no effect when controlling for confidence. and a lower preference for work relative to alternatives such as child-rearing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Differences and Dynamics in Competition: The Role of Luck

Gill¹,

Prowse

2011

SSRN Journal

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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. In a real effort experiment with repeated competition we find striking differences in how the work effort of men and women responds to previous wins and losses. For women, losing per se is detrimental to productivity, but for men, a loss impacts negatively on productivity only when the prize at stake is big enough. Responses to luck are more persistent and explain more of the variation in behavior for women, and account for about half of the gender performance gap in our experiment. Our findings shed new light on why women may be less inclined to pursue competition-intensive careers. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may

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The importance of being confident; gender, career choice, and willingness to compete

Cited by 113 publications

References 17 publications

Toward Value Co-Creation: Increasing Women’s Presence in Management Positions through Competition against a Set Target

Toward Value Co-Creation: Increasing Women’s Presence in Management Positions through Competition against a Set Target

Why Do Women Favor Same-Gender Competition? Evidence from a Choice Experiment

Gender Differences and Dynamics in Competition: The Role of Luck

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