Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Exploring gender differences in effort before competition

DRMS 博士论文研究：探索赛前努力的性别差异

• 批准号: 2049764
• 负责人: Coren Apicella
• 金额: $ 1.91万
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-08-15 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2049764&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; DRMS; Exploring

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Competitions are increasingly prevalent in the global labor market, where winners are disproportionately rewarded. Prior work has suggested that gender differences in competitiveness, with women being less competitive, on average, than men, may contribute to persistent gender disparities in labor market outcomes. As a result, much of the research on gender differences in competitions has focused on i) understanding the sources of the gender difference and ii) designing interventions to encourage women to compete more. Less consideration, however, has been paid to whether and how women and men may differently respond to competitions. Because past research suggests that women are less confident and more risk-averse than men, and this may, in part, explain their reluctance to compete, women may spend more time preparing for competitions when they do compete. The first aim of this research is to examine whether women spend more time than men preparing for tasks where their performance will be evaluated, and specifically, when their performance is being evaluated against a competitor. The second aim of this dissertation is to test whether beliefs about gender differences in performance on a task, which have previously been shown to affect confidence and performance, also affect gender differences in preparation before competition. Experiments are conducted using an online marketplace, where participants are paid for their performance on various tasks. Understanding how individuals respond to competitive situations may help address economic disparities across groups, including persistent gender differences in labor market outcomes. If, for instance, competitions exacerbate gender differences in the amount of effort exerted (i.e., preparing) before performance, this may affect women’s labor output, career advancement, their ability to achieve a satisfying work-life balance, and even their decision to enter or stay in competitive environments. As this is a new area of research, there are many promising and exciting avenues for future exploration, all of which have the potential to inform policies that promote greater gender equality.The researchers hypothesize that women will spend more time preparing than men, especially before competitions, in part because they are, on average, less risk-seeking and confident than men. We will also test boundary conditions of the anticipated interaction by examining how beliefs about gender differences in performance shape decisions to prepare before competitions. The researchers experimentally test these hypotheses in an online marketplace where participant performance on the task is incentivized. In the first experiment they manipulate whether participants will be paid according to a competitive payment scheme (i.e., incentives for their performance are higher, but they must outperform another individual in the study to earn anything for their performance) or a non-competitive payment scheme (i.e., incentives for their performance are guaranteed, but lower). Participants will have the option to complete an unlimited amount of practice problems that closely resemble the incentivized task before entering the incentivized stage of the study. In the second experiment, they manipulate participants’ beliefs about gender differences in performance on a task under a competitive payment scheme. Specifically, participants are randomly assigned to learn about results from a scientific article that either i) point to a male advantage or ii) point to a female advantage on the task. Similar to the first experiment, participants have the option to complete an unlimited amount of practice problems before moving on to the competition. Across both studies, the main dependent variable of interest is amount of time spent preparing for the incentivized task. It is predicted that women will choose to prepare more than men before a competition, especially when they are led to believe that males may have a performance advantage. The proposed work will advance knowledge by providing the foundation for a fruitful line of work focused on how men and women differently respond to competitions, and its possible economic ramifications for women.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项的全部或部分资金来源于《2021 年美国救援计划法案》（公法 117-2）。全球劳动力市场上的竞争日益普遍，获奖者获得的奖励不成比例。之前的研究表明，竞争力方面存在性别差异。平均而言，女性的竞争力低于男性，这可能会导致劳动力市场结果中持续存在的性别差异。因此，许多关于竞争中性别差异的研究都集中在 i) 了解性别差异的根源。 ii) 设计干预措施以鼓励女性参与更多竞争，但很少考虑女性和男性对竞争的反应是否不同，以及如何反应，因为过去的研究表明，女性比男性更缺乏自信，更不愿意冒险。这可能在一定程度上解释了她们不愿参加比赛的原因，女性在参加比赛时可能会花更多的时间来准备比赛。这项研究的首要目的是调查女性是否比男性花更多的时间来准备她们表现出色的任务。评估，特别是在评估他们的表现时本论文的第二个目的是测试对任务表现中的性别差异的信念是否也会影响赛前准备中的性别差异。实验是通过在线进行的。了解个人如何应对竞争情况可能有助于解决群体之间的经济差异，包括劳动力市场结果中持续存在的性别差异，例如，竞争加剧了性别差异。表演前付出的努力（即准备），这可能会影响女性的劳动产出、职业发展、实现令人满意的工作与生活平衡的能力，甚至影响她们进入或留在竞争环境中的决定，因为这是一个新的研究领域，有许多有希望和令人兴奋的研究。未来探索的途径，所有这些都有可能为促进性别平等的政策提供信息。研究人员发现，女性会比男性花更多的时间做准备，尤其是在比赛前，部分原因是她们平均而言不太愿意冒险。我们还将测试边界条件。研究人员在一个在线市场上实验性地测试了这些假设，在第一个实验中，他们根据参与者的任务表现来操纵是否会获得报酬。有竞争力的薪酬计划（即，对他们的绩效的激励更高，但他们必须优于研究中的其他人，才能为其绩效赚取任何报酬）或非竞争性薪酬计划（即，对他们的绩效的激励有保证，但较低） .参与者将在进入研究的激励阶段之前，他们可以选择完成无限数量的与激励任务非常相似的练习问题。在第二个实验中，他们操纵参与者对竞争性报酬计划下任务表现中性别差异的看法。与第一个实验类似，具体来说，参与者可以选择在参加比赛之前完成无限数量的练习题。这两项研究的主要因变量是为激励任务做准备所花费的时间。据预测，女性在比赛前会选择比男性做更多的准备，特别是当她们被引导相信男性可能具有表现优势时。拟议的工作将通过为富有成效的工作奠定基础来增进知识，重点关注男性和女性对竞争的不同反应及其对女性可能产生的经济影响。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并被认为值得通过以下方式获得支持。使用基金会的智力进行评估优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。