دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی جنسیت رقیب: تفسیر تفاوت های جنسیتی در عملکرد و ریسک کردن - الزویر 2018

Abstract

Analyzing 8,169 contestants over 32 years of the US game show Jeopardy!, we find that women compete more aggressively, become (marginally) more competitive, and take on more risk when paired against men. Specifically, a woman is more likely to win a Jeopardy! episode and, within the show, to respond to a clue. Once responding, she is also marginally more likely to respond correctly. Potentially most surprising, even the sizeable gender gap in risk-taking (analyzing Daily Double wagering decisions) disappears once a woman competes in an otherwise all-male field of competitors. Men, on the other hand, wager significantly less when paired against women only, but the gender of opponents does not affect their competitive performance otherwise. Our rich sample allows us to control for a host of potentially confounding factors and player-fixed effects, thereby eliminating potential biases from unobservable individual characteristics. Our findings are consistent with an explanation that emphasizes an adaptation to “social norms” applied to gender.

Conclusion

This paper analyzes a rich database of 4,279 Jeopardy! episodes with 8,169 contestants to study whether the gender of one’s opponents affects behavior in a highly competitive situation with large stakes. As contestants are unable to choose the gender of their opponents, Jeopardy! provides an attractive field setting to explore such dynamics, with individual outcomes being readily available for the researcher. We study four distinct scenarios: The likelihood (i) to win an episode, (ii) to respond to a clue, (iii) to respond correctly to a clue, and (iv) the wagering decisions in Daily Double clues. Contrary to existing studies, we find that a woman is more likely to win and competes more aggressively when paired against males. Further, the otherwise robust gender gap in risktaking disappears once a woman competes in an all-male field of competitors. These results are robust to the inclusion of a rich list of potentially confounding variables and player-fixed effects, which allow us to control for any unobservable differences on the individual level. Further, these results are unlikely to be driven by a strategic consideration of women performing more aggressively because of a potential under-performance in particularly high-stakes clues. From the male perspective, we find performance indicators to be less responsive to their opponents’ gender, but a notable heterogeneity emerges for wagering decisions. In particular, a man wagers significantly less when competing against women. We discuss potential policy consequences in Section 6, but advise caution in the interpretation and generalization of our results. At the least, we hope that this study stimulates further research on the role of the opponents’ gender in influencing performance and risk-taking in high-pressure situations.