Constructing Gender: Self-Stereotyping in Dictator Games

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Constructing GenderSelf-Stereotyping in
Dictator Games

• Anne Boschini, Astri Muren and Mats Persson
• Department of Economics and
• Institute for International Economic Studies,
• Stockholm University

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Priming

• activating certain associations in memory, thus
  affecting our thinking
• A striking example Steele and Aronson (1995)
  primed racial identity by asking participants to
  indicate their race before answering a difficult
  verbal test

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Effects on behaviour

• African Americans in the race prime condition did
  less well in the test than others
• Priming activated stereotypes in the minds of
  subjects, and this affected their behavior
• (In Steele and Aronsons case the stereotype was
  negative for test performance an example of
  stereotype threat)

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Stereotypes

• A stereotype is a generalization about the
  personal characteristics of a group of people,
  often held in common by many
• Gender stereotypes for
• Men competitive, independent, aggressive
• Women emotional, caring, agreeable

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We test the effect of gender priming in a
dictator game

• Law students at Stockholm University
• 161 women, 100 men
• Three dictator games, differing in the price of
  money reaching the recipient, p 1, 2,½
• The recipient was a randomly selected and
  anonymous course-mate
• The dictator had 500 crowns
• 20 of participants were paid

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The dictator chose one alternative in each game.
For p 1
Alternative You keep The other person gets
A 500 kr 0 kr
B 450 kr 50 kr
C 400 kr 100 kr
D 350 kr 150 kr
E 300 kr 200 kr
F 250 kr 250 kr
G 200 kr 300 kr
H 150 kr 350 kr
I 100 kr 400 kr
K 50 kr 450 kr
L 0 kr 500 kr
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3 treatments

• Post Men and women were seated in a big lecture
  hall. After choosing alternatives in all games
  they were asked to indicate their sex.
• Pre Same as above but the question about sex
  came before playing the games.
• Homogenous Men and women were seated in separate
  rooms. The question about sex came after the
  games.

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The questionnaire in the Pre treatment
(Introduction ) Indicate your sex here
Woman Man (. several pages with the games
.)
Concluding questions Indicate your age
here How many terms have you studied at
university/college before this term? Thank you
for your participation!
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Post at p 1, women (0) and men (1)
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Pre at p 1, women (0) and men (1)
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Homogenous at p 1, women (0) and men (1)
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Pre
Homogenous
Post
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Means of amount given for p 1
Post Pre Homogenous
Men 129 58 140
Women 98 119 142
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With gender priming in Pre

• There is a statistically significant gender
  difference in the gender primed treatment Pre
• With gender priming, men donate less than women
• This difference is consistent with gender
  stereotypes

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In Post and Homogenous

• No gender differences in Post or Homogenous
• Men similar in Post and Homogenous
• Women more generous in Homogenous
• Post or Homogenous as control group (?)

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Effects of gender priming

• Self-stereotyping thinking that you are like the
  stereotype for your group
• Gender stereotypes in dictator games Aguiar et
  al. (2008) find that there is an expectation that
  women will give more
• In our experiment this happens in Pre, but not
  otherwise

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Means and medians of amount given for all prices
Post Post Post Pre Pre Pre Homogenous Homogenous Homogenous
p 1 p 2 p ½ p 1 p 2 p ½ p 1 p 2 p ½
Men Mean Median 129 125 100 0 176 125 58 0 63 0 146 100 140 150 71 0 204 150
Women Mean Median 98 50 98 0 147 100 119 100 108 0 164 150 142 175 114 50 162 150
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Significant gender differences in amounts given
Post Post Post Pre Pre Pre Homogenous Homogenous Homogenous
p 1 p 2 p ½ p 1 p 2 p ½ p 1 p 2 p ½
t test No No No Yes Yes No No No No
WMW test No No No Yes Yes No No Yes No
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Implications

• Gender priming affects dictator game decisions
• Inadvertent gender priming in experiments?
• Gender priming in other economic decisions?
• Charitable giving
• Investment
• Consumption
• Bargaining