Do Women Have More Shame than Men? An Experiment on Self-Assessment and the Shame of Overestimating Oneself

Sandra Ludwig and Carmen Thoma

VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: We analyze how subjects' self-assessment depends on whether its accuracy is observable to others. We find that women downgrade their self-assessment given observability while men do not. Women avoid the shame they may have if others observe that they overestimated themselves. Men, however, do not seem to be similarly shame-averse. This gender difference may be due to different societal expectations: While we find that men are expected to be overconfident, women are not. Shame-aversion may explain recent findings that women shy away from competition, demanding jobs and wage negotiations, as entering these situations shows a certain confidence of one's ability.

JEL-codes: C91 D03 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/79814/1/VfS_2013_pid_794.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do women have more shame than men? An experiment on self-assessment and the shame of overestimating oneself (2017)
Working Paper: Do women have more shame than men? An experiment on self-assessment and the shame of overestimating oneself (2017)
Working Paper: Do Women Have More Shame than Men? An Experiment on Self-Assessment and the Shame of Overestimating Oneself (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79814

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