Is There a Gender Gap in Preschoolers' Competitiveness? An Experiment in the U.S

Anya Samek

Artefactual Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website

Abstract: We experimentally investigate the difference in competitiveness of 3-5 year-old boys and girls in the U.S. 123 children from a preschool are randomly matched into girl-girl, boy-boy, and boy-girl pairs of similar age and participate in a gender-neutral, competitive classroom activity using candy as an incentive. Children participate in a piece rate incentive scheme and a tournament incentive scheme in rounds 1 and 2, and select their preferred incentive scheme for round 3. We find that girls and boys choose to compete at equal rates - with 80% of children choosing to compete overall. We also find that girls' output in the task is significantly lower than that of boys under the tournament scheme, but not different in round 3 for the girls and boys who self-select into the tournament. All children display a remarkable rate of confidence - 84% of children believe they won under the tournament scheme. The gender of the match does not play a significant role.

Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Journal Article: Is there a gender gap in preschoolers’ competitiveness? An experiment in the U.S (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:feb:artefa:00436

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