Domain specificity of sex differences in competition

Alice Wieland and Rakesh Sarin

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2012, vol. 83, issue 1, 151-157

Abstract: There has been much recent literature about sex differences in competition, mostly noting that women are innately less competitive than men (Croson and Gneezy, 2009). This article examines the hypothesis that sex differences in propensity to compete are domain specific. We conducted a 2 (sex)×4 (domain) experiment with 434 participants examining competition decisions, familiarity with the domain, and performance. We find no overall sex differences in rates of competition when collapsing across all four domains, but do find sex differences in rates of competition for individual domains. Additionally we examined the importance of winning at competition on self-esteem using the Contingencies of Self-Worth, Competition subscale (Crocker et al., 2003) and find that the subscale fully mediates the effect of sex on the strength of competitive pay preferences.

Keywords: Gender differences; Sex differences; Competition; Risk; Decision-making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D03 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:83:y:2012:i:1:p:151-157

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2011.06.019

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