Gender differences in interpersonal and intrapersonal competitive behavior

Jeffrey Carpenter, Rachel Frank and Emiliano Huet-Vaughn

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2018, vol. 77, issue C, 170-176

Abstract: Gender differences in competitive behavior continue to be documented by economists and other social scientists; however, the bulk of the research addresses competition with others and excludes other economically relevant contests. In this paper, we ask: how does gender affect how individuals react to competing against themselves? In a laboratory experiment in which some subjects compete against others and some compete against themselves, we find women select into intrapersonal competition at significantly higher rates than interpersonal competition and comparatively more than men. In addition, we find that while perseverance or “grit” does not explain the gender difference in behavior, risk attitudes have some explanatory power.

Keywords: Competitiveness; Gender differences; Intrapersonal; Grit; Risk preference; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Gender Differences in Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Competitive Behavior (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:77:y:2018:i:c:p:170-176

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2018.10.003

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