Do prosocial incentives motivate women to set higher goals and improve performance?

Yu Cao, C. Mónica Capra and Yuxin Su

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2023, vol. 99, issue C

Abstract: We investigate the effect of prosocial rewards on goal-setting and performance of women. We designed an online experiment where participants performed real-effort tasks. In our experimental treatments, participants were asked to set their own goals as to how many tasks they would perform within a fixed time frame. Contrary to previous research indicating that women tend to underperform due to setting lower goals for themselves compared to men, our study demonstrates that when rewards are prosocial, women set challenging, but achievable and their performance improves. Our results suggest that prosocial incentives within the goal-setting scheme can be an effective way to help women improve their performance.

Keywords: Prosocial incentives; Gender; Performance goal; Experiment; Real-effort tasks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 C90 J24 J30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:99:y:2023:i:c:s0167487023000600

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2023.102659

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