Visceral Influences and Gender Difference in Competitiveness

Abstract: Building upon the much-celebrated sex-specific hypothesis regarding visceral responses, we explore the potential impact of visceral responses on the well-replicated gender difference in competitiveness. In the first experiment, we document that exposure to the piece-rate and tournament tasks leads to an arousal of sex hormones among men, while women do not experience a similar response. This arousal is positively associated with competitiveness. In the second experiment, we observe that the gender gap in competitiveness is reduced by introducing a resting period. Our results contribute to the literature on gender differences in the willingness to compete and suggest that mitigating visceral influences is beneficial for promoting gender equality.

Documentation of Data Files and Codes (In Stata):

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* Data files:
* vrexp2.dta is the data file for Experiment 1 with hormonal essays
* vrexp2_hormoneassays.dta is the data file for the duplicated hormonal essays in Experiment 1
* vrexp1.dta is the data file for Experiment 2 with the control and rest conditions

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* Summary statistics for both experiments:

* Table 1 and Table 3 summary of characteristics
do sum_chara_gender

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* Experiment 1 Results
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* Figure 2: Cross-plots of Hormonal Levels
do gr_hormone_distribution

* Figure 3 Hormonal Responses
do gr_hormone

* Correlations between baseline hormon levels and tournament entry
* Figure 4 and Table A4, A5, A6
do gr_binscatter_baseline

* Correlations between hormonal responses and tournament entry
* Figures 5 and 6, Tables A7, A8, A9
do gr_binscatter

* Table 2 Do Hormonal Responses Explain Gender Difference in Competitiveness
do reg_c_gh

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* Experiment 2 Results
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* Figures 7 Competitiveness by Gender and Condition
do gr_genderTgap_norest_rest

* Table 4: Treatment Effect on Competitiveness by Gender
do reg_c_break

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* Appendix Tables & Figures (excluding already generated above)

* Table A1 Summary statistics for the hormonal measures in experiment 1
do sum_hormones

* Table A2 Spearman correlation btw hormonal Measures
do hormone_corr

* Table A3 PCA for hormonal responses
do an_pca

* Table A5 PCA for baseline hormonal levels
do an_pca_baseline

* Table A10, A11 Over- and Under-entry
do reg_over_under_entry

* Figure A1
do reg_c_gh_robustness

* Table B1
do reg_confidence_risk_hormone

* Table B2
do reg_confidence_risk_rest

* Other results mentioned in the text

* Analyse the correlations between duplicated hormone assays
do corr_duplicate_assays

* Ex post power analysis
do expost_power