Gender Differences in Accepting and Receiving

Requests for Tasks with Low Promotability1

Lise Vesterlund, University of Pittsburgh, Economics, and NBER

Linda Babcock, CMU, Heinz College and Department of Social and Decision Sciences
Maria Recalde, IFPRI
Laurie Weingart, CMU, Tepper School of Business 2

August 2016

Forthcoming, American Economic Review

Abstract: Gender differences in task allocations may sustain vertical gender segregation in labor
markets. We examine the allocation of a task that everyone prefers be completed by someone else
(writing a report, serving on a committee, etc.) and find evidence that women more than men
volunteer, are asked to volunteer, and accept requests to volunteer for such tasks. Beliefs that women,
more than men, say yes to tasks with low promotability appear as an important driver of these
differences. If women hold tasks that are less promotable than those held by men, then women will
progress more slowly in organizations.

1
We thank David Tannenbaum, Craig Fox, Noah Goldstein, and Jason Doctor for giving us permission to use their
data. We thank David Klinowski, Rachel Landsman, Conor Lennon, and Amanda Weirup for superb research
assistance. Participants at seminars and conferences at the University of Zurich, Stanford, Harvard, UCSB, UCLA,
CMU, Monash University, University of Adelaide, University of Bonn, University of Pittsburgh, University of
Pennsylvania, and Stockholm School of Economics are thanked for their helpful comments. Finally we thank the
Carnegie Bosch Institute and the NSF (SES-1330470) for generous financial support.
2
In accordance with the norms in psychology, we order the authors’ names according to their contributions.
1. Introduction

Despite significant female educational advances, we continue to see gender differences in labor market
outcomes (Goldin, Katz and Kuziemko, 2006; Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz, 2010). Particularly striking is
the persistent vertical gender segregation (Altonji and Blank, 1999; Bertrand and Hallock, 2001). To
better understand the process by which men and women advance in the workplace, researchers have
begun to examine whether the tasks that they perform at work vary, and whether such differences
contribute to differences in advancement.

Of particular interest is whether relative to men, women spend less time on tasks that are likely to
influence their performance evaluations (high-promotability tasks) and more time on tasks that, while
benefitting the organization, are less likely to affect their evaluation and career advancement (low-
promotability tasks). For example, in industry, revenue-generating tasks may be seen as more
promotable than non-revenue-generating tasks. In research-oriented universities, research-related tasks
may be considered more promotable than service-related tasks. We find in a survey of 48 Carnegie
Mellon faculty that there is broad agreement that promotion is more likely when more time is spent on
research and less time is spent on service. Faculty in our survey were presented with four tasks (working
on a research paper, presenting research talks at conferences, serving on an undergraduate curriculum
revision committee, and serving on the faculty senate) and were asked to rank them by how an assistant
professor should best spend 50 additional hours over a semester to increase the likelihood of
promotion. 91.7 percent of those surveyed ranked research paper and conferences as more important
than curriculum committee and faculty senate. While the university benefits from service on faculty
senate and on curriculum review, individual benefits are more limited. The assignments take time away
from research and play a smaller role than research at time of promotion. Faculty who spend more time
on service are disadvantaged relative to those who spend less time.

Our faculty task-ranking study suggests that there is consensus about what tasks are more and less
promotable, and indeed recent survey evidence from academia show gender differences in the
allocation of time on tasks that differ in promotability. In a survey of 349 faculty at the University of
Amherst, Misra, Hickes, Lundquist and Templer (2012) find that relative to male faculty, female faculty
spent 2.45 fewer hours per week on research. Mitchell and Hesli (2013) find, in a sample of 1,399
political science faculty in the US, that women advised more undergraduate students and participated in
more department and college-level committees than men. They conclude that women more than men
provide service that while helping the organization, may not help them to advance in their careers.
Finally, Porter (2007) finds in the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) that female faculty
spend 15 percent more hours on committee work than do men.

Task assignments outside of academia are also shown to differ by gender. Benschop and Doorewaard
(1998) find that women employees of a large bank performed fewer developmental tasks than men, and
Ohlott, Ruderman and McCauley (1994) find, in a sample of professionals, supervisors, middle- and
upper-level managers, that women had fewer challenging and developmental opportunities (high
stakes, managing diversity and external pressure). In a study of mid-level jobs De Pater, Van Vianen, and

1
Bechtoldt (2010) show that men, more than women, evaluate their individual task assignments as
challenging, and find that these differences partially result from managers being more likely to assign
challenging tasks to their male rather than to their female subordinates.

The standard explanations for gender differences in labor market experiences can help explain
differences in task allocations. Differences in ability and preferences as well as discrimination may cause
men and women to hold a different portfolio of tasks in the work place (e.g., Polachek, 1981; Goldin and
Rouse, 2000; Black and Strahan, 2001). Other explanations for gender differences in the portfolio of
tasks may be that women are more reluctant than men to negotiate (Babcock and Laschever, 2003) and
to compete (e.g., Gneezy, Niederle and Rustichini, 2003; Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007) and thus fail to
‘lean-in’ for tasks with high promotability (Sandberg, 2013).

While recent work has emphasized factors that can distort the allocation of tasks with high
promotability, the objective of the present paper is to examine the allocation of tasks with low
promotability. Rather than treating low-promotability tasks as the residual of the allocation of more
desirable tasks, we examine directly whether men and women differ in their response to requests to
perform tasks with low promotability, whether there are differences in the frequency by which men and
women face such requests, and what factors likely contribute to such potential differences.

Our interest is in low-promotability tasks for which the worker has some discretion and can decide
whether or not to perform the task. Consider, for example, an untenured assistant professor at a
research university. She knows that in terms of promotion, the best use of her time is to focus on her
research. What will she do when asked by her Dean to serve on a Faculty Senate committee? She knows
that this will take a lot of her time, take her away from her research, and is less likely to produce
rewards relative to spending time on research. Yet, important faculty matters are debated in the faculty
senate and the institution is important to the well-functioning of the University. Will her response differ
from that of a male colleague with comparable credentials? Is she more likely than a comparable male
colleague to receive such requests?

Gender differences in the frequency of requests and in the acceptance of requests for less-promotable
tasks may help explain why women advance at a slower rate than men in the work place. 3 Unless
women spend more time at work than do men, working on less-promotable tasks means that they
spend less time on more-promotable tasks. The career consequences of accepting a discretionary low-
promotability task may, however, extend beyond the opportunity costs of the assignment itself. In

3
As tasks with low promotability are important to the organization one may ask why the completion of such tasks
does not warrant greater compensation. Central to the framework we have in mind is that independent of worker
skills it is a dominant strategy for workers to ensure that low-promotability tasks are performed. As an example, a
volunteer for the IRB will always be found among scholars who conduct experiments, because absent such a
volunteer no-one will be able to conduct such research. While the performance on low-promotability tasks may
vary, the return to improvements in performance is likely smaller than for high-promotability tasks. Hence with the
low-promotability tasks always being provided, in recruiting, retention, compensation, and promotion, greater
emphasis will be placed on performance of tasks with high promotability (e.g., publications).

2
particular such assignments may generate lower job satisfaction and in turn reduce the worker’s
commitment and investment in her job. 4

In understanding what may give rise to gender differences in the allocation of low-promotability tasks
we examine tasks that individuals prefer be completed yet prefer be completed by others. Avoiding the
task leads to a relative advancement. We examine first whether men and women differ in their ‘supply’
of such tasks and second whether the ‘demand’ for such tasks differs by gender. 5 Examining the
response to requests to perform low-promotability tasks we report on field evidence that suggest that
women more than men accept such requests. Since this finding may result from men and women having
different preferences for the tasks in question, we next explore this gender difference in a controlled
laboratory setting. Specifically, we conduct multiple experiments where participants in a group are
presented with a task that only one person can undertake. The return from performing the task is such
that the individual will only undertake it if no one else is willing to do it. Our design captures the
incentives members of a group face when asked to volunteer for a task that each member prefers that
another member of the group undertakes (such as writing a report, serving on a committee, organizing
an event, etc.)—all group members want the task to be completed yet the person who undertakes the
task is put at a relative disadvantage.

In our first experiment men and women are anonymously paired in groups. All members are treated
equally and face the same incentives to perform a task. Despite facing the same incentives we find that
women volunteer 50 percent more than men, and we do not find evidence that the differential is
explained by individual characteristics such as risk and altruism. To examine the key driver of the
response we use an experimental manipulation to simultaneously assess the role of preferences and
beliefs. Specifically, in a second experiment we manipulate the gender composition of groups. The study
deviates from the first only by having all participants in the lab be of the same sex and thus securing that
participants know that they are grouped only with members of their own sex. Results from this same-
sex experiment reveal that men and women are equally likely to volunteer. This response to the gender
composition of the group shows that the willingness to volunteer is not fixed, and it suggests that the
documented gender gap in volunteering likely results from the belief that women are more likely than
men to volunteer. Our third experiment further explores the role of beliefs and examines whether
women more frequently are asked to volunteer. Specifically, we add an outside requestor to our initial

4
An example of this phenomenon is provided by Chan and Anteby (2015). They find in a study of TSA employees
that, relative to men, women perform more undesirable tasks, have lower levels of job satisfaction, and develop
more narrow skills sets. These gender differences contributed to lower rates of promotion, lower pay, and higher
rates of turnover for women than for men. Thus the finding that career interruptions and differences in weekly
hours explain differences in salaries for male and female MBAs (Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz, 2010) need not imply
gender equality if differences in labor market attachment result from differential task allocations.
5
In discussing both the demand and supply of less-promotable tasks we consider tasks for which there is a request
and some discretion over the acceptance of the request. The tasks examined fall between those considered in the
psychology literature on “organizational citizenship behaviors” (OCBs), where individuals on their own initiate
tasks that benefit the organization (e.g., Organ, 1988), and those considered in the organizational psychology
literature’s examination of task allocation, where the employee must accept an assigned task (e.g. De Pater et al
2010).

3
design and charge this requestor with the task of asking one group member to volunteer. Consistent
with the belief that women are more likely than men to accept requests, we find that requestors more
frequently ask female rather than male group members to volunteer. Confirming this belief, women
more than men agree to volunteer when asked to do so. Using two additional experiments we find, as
further evidence of the role played by beliefs, that third parties asked to predict behavior in our first
experiment anticipate a higher rate of volunteering for women than for men, and that the participants’
altruistic preferences are such that they cannot generate the observed difference in volunteering.

The documented gender differences in volunteering and in requests to volunteer for low-promotability
tasks likely contribute to gender differences in task allocations, and these differences may create
barriers to the advancement of women in organizations and in society as a whole.

2. Response to volunteer requests

We begin by examining whether women more than men volunteer to perform tasks with low
promotability. Finding field evidence that men and women differ in the frequency by which they
volunteer for such tasks, we proceed to examine volunteering behavior in the laboratory where we can
control and manipulate the incentives individuals face for volunteering.

2.1. Field evidence

Each year a large public University sends an email from the Chair of the Faculty Senate to all faculty
members asking them to volunteer to serve on a Faculty Senate committee. As seen in our survey,
faculty view service on faculty senate as less promotable than research-related tasks. The responses to
these emails are therefore useful in understanding responses to requests to perform low-promotability
tasks. Manipulating the email requests, Professors Tannenbaum, Fox, Goldstein and Doctor conducted
an experiment to determine how the language in the email affects the probability that a faculty member
agrees to serve on a committee. These researchers kindly gave us access to their data for the 2012-2013
academic year, consisting of email requests to a total of 3,271 faculty members, 24.7 percent of whom
were female. Faculty responded to the email in one of three ways: did not respond; declined the
request; or volunteered to join a committee. As these data contain both the faculty member’s response
to the email and their demographic characteristics, we can determine whether, when presented with a
request to do the same low-promotability task, men and women differ in their likelihood of accepting
such requests.

Consistent with the view that service on faculty senate is a low-promotability task, we see across all
faculty that only 3.7 percent volunteered to serve, 4.3 percent responded to the email but indicated that
they did not wish to serve, and 92 percent ignored the email. There are, however, gender differences in
the response. Female faculty are significantly more likely than male faculty to volunteer to be on a

4
committee (7.0 percent versus 2.6 percent, a Fisher’s exact test yields p < 0.001). 6 Looking at the results
of a probit model for the probability of volunteering, we see in Table 1 that this gender difference is
robust to controlling for faculty rank (assistant professor is the excluded category), as well as to
controlling for being in the medical school and to being in a STEM related field.

Table 1: Probability of volunteering to join a committee (probit)

(1) (2)
Female 0.034*** 0.034***
(0.000) (0.000)
Associate Professor -0.005 -0.004
(0.629) (0.621)
Full Professor -0.016* -0.015*
(0.057) (0.058)
Emeritus Professor -0.033*** -0.030***
(0.000) (0.000)
Other Rank -0.016 -0.014
(0.516) (0.563)
Medical School 0.040***
(0.000)
STEM -0.024***
(0.013)
Dependent variable: Individual decision to volunteer (1-volunteer, 0-don’t volunteer).
The table presents marginal effects. Assistant professor is the excluded category. Faculty
at the medical school are also in a STEM related field. P-values are reported in
parenthesis. 3,271 participants.

These gender differences in the likelihood of saying yes to a request to serve on a faculty senate
committee translate into higher representation of women on these committees. For the 2012-2013
academic year we find that although women constituted 24.7 percent of faculty they accounted for 37.5
percent of faculty senate committee members at the university. 7

What is not clear from these field data is why women are more likely than men to accept such requests.
One explanation may be that men and women differ in their preferences for performing such low-
promotability tasks. Women may simply have a stronger preference for service work such as serving on
a faculty senate committee. To understand the differential response to requests we next move to the
laboratory where we can better control and manipulate the incentives associated with volunteering and
thus can begin to understand why men and women differ in their response to such requests.

6
Failure to respond is treated as declining the request. For non-volunteers we find that women more than men
politely and directly declined the request by return email: 6.1 percent of female faculty and 4 percent of male
faculty directly declined the request, p<0.05.
7
We collected statistics about the gender composition of faculty senate committees from the University’s website.
The faculty gender composition numbers are those in the data from Profs. Tannenbaum Fox, Goldstein and Doctor.
As another example of gender differences in willingness to volunteer to perform less-promotable tasks Weingart,
Babcock, Vesterlund, and Weirup (2014) find gender differences in the response to perform a 1-week diary pilot
study. Participation can be seen as a less-promotable task. With the endorsement of the Pittsburgh Human
Resources Association 539 of their members were emailed a request to participate in the study. 10.3 percent of
men and 18.7 percent of women agreed to participate (Fisher’s exact test p<0.01).

5
2.2. Are women more likely than men to volunteer (Experiment 1)?

To study differences in the propensity by which men and women accept requests to perform low-
promotability tasks, we conduct a laboratory experiment mirroring the incentives that a small group
faces when it is asked to find a volunteer for a task that everyone is reluctant to undertake (writing a
report, serving on a committee, planning a holiday party, etc.). The setting we have in mind is one where
every member of a committee or group prefers that the task be undertaken, yet everyone prefers that it
be undertaken by someone other than themselves. An individual is relatively better off if the task is
done by someone else because it allows that individual to spend more time on more-promotable tasks. 8
With the request for a volunteer being made to the group, every member waits for a volunteer to step
forward, fully aware that an excessive delay increases the likelihood that an inferior outcome will result
(such as the task not being completed in time or not completed at all). As no explicit request is made of
any one individual, the request is implicit and arises through time pressure. 9

2.2.1. Design

Capturing the incentives described above, our experimental design is as follows. In each of ten rounds
participants are randomly and anonymously assigned to groups of three. Members of the group are
then given 2 minutes to make an investment (volunteering) decision. Individual earnings are $1 in the
event that no one invests before the end of the 2 minutes. If one group member makes the investment,
the round ends, and the individual making the investment secures a payment of $1.25, while the other
two group members each receive $2. The investor is randomly determined in the event that multiple
parties simultaneously invest.

With no cost of waiting, investments will be made in the last second of the round and the game reduces
to one of simultaneous moves. Accounting for the possibility of ties, the game gives rise to three types
of equilibria: A pure strategy asymmetric Nash equilibria where one individual invests and the others do
not; a mixed strategy symmetric equilibrium where each player invests 23.2 percent of the time; and a
mixed strategy asymmetric equilibrium where one person does not invest and the two others invest 40
percent of the time. Depending on the equilibrium selected the probability that an investment occurs is
100 percent, 54 percent or 64 percent, respectively. 10

8
There are likely also low-promotability tasks that are not individually rational to undertake.
9
While delay does not carry a monetary cost it may carry a psychological cost. Bliss and Nalebuff (1984) develop a
model with costly delay where individuals decide whether to secure the provision of a binary public good.
10
The payoff structure corresponds to that of a 3-player game of chicken, Hawk-Dove game (Maynard Smith and
Price, 1973), Dragon-Slayer Game (Bliss and Nalebuff, 1984), or Volunteer’s Dilemma (Diekmann 1985). Note that
any participant’s decision to cooperate immediately solves the coordination problem. Existing experimental work
of the static volunteer’s dilemma focuses on the theoretical predictions that group size decreases volunteering and
the probability that no member of the group volunteers (Diekmann, 1993; Franzen, 1995; Goeree, Holt, and
Moore, 2005; Healy and Pate, 2009; Murnighan, Kim, and Metzger, 1993). Recent work has also investigated the
distribution of player types (Bergstrom, Garrat, and Leo 2015) and mechanisms to allow flexible turn taking (Leo
2014).

6
2.2.2. Participants and procedures

This and other laboratory studies in this paper used a computerized interface (z-Tree, Fischbacher, 2007)
and were conducted at the Pittsburgh Experimental Economics Laboratory (PEEL) at the University of
Pittsburgh. Participants were recruited from introductory economics classes and were only informed
that they would participate in a study on decision making. None of the participants had prior experience
with studies at PEEL. The experiment lasted slightly less than an hour. Average earnings from the ten
decision rounds were $16.50.11 Nine sessions were conducted, with between 12 and 21 participants per
session, for a total of 150 participants (82 males and 68 females). Sessions were roughly gender
balanced with the share of women participating in a session ranging between 33 percent and 53
percent. 12 The population was rather homogeneous. The average age was 18.9 years, with 18 and 19
year olds accounting for 76 percent of the participants, 74 percent were Caucasian, 87 percent were
born in the US, and 83 percent were either freshmen or sophomores. None of these characteristics
differed significantly by gender. 13

Upon entering the lab, participants were seated in a pre-marked cubicle, asked to provide informed
consent, and given instructions. These instructions were also read aloud and explained all procedures of
the study, the payoff structure, the random matching protocol, and what information participants would
receive during the study. 14 We then began the ten round decision phase of the experiment. In each
round participants were anonymously matched in groups of three, with the stipulation that no one
could be paired with the same person twice in a row. Each group member was shown an individual
computer screen that displayed the seconds remaining in the round and a button that could be clicked if
the individual wanted to invest. The round ended the instant someone in the group clicked the
investment button. Participants waited until all groups had either made an investment decision or the
two minutes passed without an investment being made. At the end of the ten rounds, participants
answered a number of questions to assess individual preferences and personality attributes. A
description of the measures and procedures used to elicit them is provided in Appendix C. A
demographic questionnaire elicited gender, age, nationality, year in college, and college major. Gender
was not mentioned until the very end of the experiment.

11
Including a $6 show-up fee and payment of an incentivized risk elicitation secured average earnings of $22.80.
12
The share of females in each session was: 33.3 percent in 2 sessions, 44.4 percent in 2 sessions, 47.6 percent in 1
session, 50 percent in 3 sessions, and 53.3 percent in 1 session. The likelihood that individuals invest is not affected
by this degree of variation in gender composition. Clustering on the individual and controlling for round a probit of
the individual’s propensity to invest on the share of women in the session reveals a marginal effect of 0.031
(p=0.921). Furthermore, the marginal effects reported in our central results are not affected by controlling for the
share of women in the session (the coefficient on female is 0.113 rather than the 0.111 seen in Table 2, column 1),
nor is the coefficient on the session share of women statistically significant (coefficient -0.145, p=0.614).
13
The mean age of men and women is not significantly different (18.98 vs. 18.78, two-sided t-test p=0.319).
Similarly using a Fisher’s exact test there is no significant gender difference in the distribution of age (p=0.824),
race (p=0.681), number of years in the US (p=0.587), years in college (p=0.292) or in choice of major (p=0.681).
14
See Appendix A for instructions and sample decision screens of all experiments.

7
2.2.3. Results

To characterize behavior in the experiment we first determine whether groups succeeded in making
investments and what the timing was of such investments. We then ask whether men and women were
equally likely to make the investment.

Over the course of the ten rounds groups succeed in investing 84.2 percent of the time (std. error
=1.63). With two thirds of these investments being made within the last two seconds of a round,
participants largely treated the environment as one of a war of attrition. 15 The likelihood that a group
succeeded in making an investment decreased from 88.4 percent during the first five rounds to 80
percent during the last 5 rounds. The per round decrease in the investment rate is significant. 16

With four out of five groups securing an investment, the group’s rate of success exceeds that predicted
by the symmetric mixed strategy Nash equilibrium success rate of 54 percent. This raises the question of
whether asymmetric play better characterizes behavior and whether certain members of the group
more frequently make the mutually beneficial investment. Of particular interest is whether the
likelihood that the individual invests differs by gender. Figure 1 reveals that women are systematically
more likely than men to undertake the investment. 17 Starting in round one the investment rate by
women surpasses that of men. With a sustained differential over the ten rounds, this results in a
substantial difference in the total number of times men and women invest over the ten rounds. Over
the ten rounds women on average invest 3.4 times, whereas men invest 2.3 times. This 48 percent
difference in total investment is statistically significant (two-sided t-test p=0.003). Figure 2 shows the
distribution of total investments aggregated over the ten rounds by gender. The distribution for women
first order stochastically dominates that for men, and the difference between the two is significant (a
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test yields p=0.020). 18 While 60 percent of men invest two or fewer times, only 40
percent of women fall in this lower investment range.

15
The share of investments made in the last two seconds of a round increases from 63.3 percent during the first
half of the experiment (Rounds 1-5) to 90.6 percent during the second half (Rounds 6-10). Appendix Table B1
shows the distribution of decision times in Experiment 1.
16
Treating the group as the unit of observation, a probit regression of the probability that a group invests on round
number yields a marginal effect of -0.019, p=0.001.
17
As we only see the individual making the investment we cannot compare the individual investment rate with the
equilibrium prediction.
18
The median contribution is 2 for men and 4 for women (Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney rank-sum z=-2.929, p=0.003).

8
 Figure 1: Probability of investing (Exp 1) Figure 2: Distribution of total investment (Exp 1)
.5

.25
.4

.2
Probability of Investing

Relative Frequency
.3

.15
.2

.1
.1

.05
0

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Round Total Investment
male female male female

In Table 2 we estimate the probability that men and women invest in a given round. Standard errors are
clustered on the individual to account for the repeated nature of decisions. The reported marginal
effects confirm the insights from Figure 1 and 2. Pooling the data from all ten rounds we see in column 1
that participants become less likely to invest over the course of the experiment and that women are
significantly more likely to invest than are men. The average investment rate for men is 23 percent and
that for women is 11 percentage points higher. Columns 2 and 3 confirm that these results hold both for
the first and second half of the experiment.19

19
Including a (female x round) interaction reveals a small and insignificant decrease in the gender gap over the
course of the experiment. The marginal effect of the interaction term, corrected to account for the non-linear
nature of the estimation, is -0.0005 (p=0.944) in the column-1 specification. Appendix Table B2 shows similar
results when including session dummies. We do not lead with these specifications because session dummies
cannot be included for our single-sex sessions of Experiment 2 given that they perfectly correlate (by design) with
gender. We do not cluster standard errors at the session level either, because the number of clusters (sessions) is
small. Score boot-strapped tests (Kline and Santos 2012) conducted for all models presented in the paper that
cluster standard errors at the session level show similar results. Note also that results are similar when including
round dummies instead of having round enter linearly in the model, and when analyzing only behavior in round 1.

9
 Table 2: Probability of investing (probit), Experiment 1
All rounds Rounds 1-5 Rounds 6-10 All rounds
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Female 0.111*** 0.107*** 0.115** 0.0866**
(0.003) (0.005) (0.013) (0.043)
Round -0.006* -0.009 -0.009 -0.006**
(0.052) (0.407) (0.350) (0.050)
Non-conformity -0.019
(0.447)
Risk-seeking -0.024
(0.237)
Altruism 0.022
(0.398)
Agreeable -0.014
(0.654)
N 1500 750 750 1500
Dependent variable: Individual investment decision (1-invest, 0-don’t invest). The
table presents marginal effects. Standard errors are clustered on the individual. P-
values are reported in parentheses. 150 participants.

2.3. Why does the rate of investment differ by gender?

There are two potential explanations for the gender difference in the investment rate. First, gender may
be a proxy for individual preferences and these differences may cause women to invest more than men.
For example, women may be more likely than men to agree to requests to perform non-promotable
tasks if they are more other-regarding and more concerned for the welfare of others (e.g., Eckel and
Grossman, 1998; Andreoni and Vesterlund, 2001), if they are more agreeable and have a greater desire
to be liked by the requestor (Braiker, 2001), if they have a greater desire to conform to a norm of
accepting such requests (e.g., Santee and Jackson, 1982; Eagly, Wood, and Fishbaugh 1981), if they are
more risk averse (e.g., Eckel and Grossman, 2008) and more concerned about the consequences from
declining the request (Heilman and Chen, 2005). 20 Second, differences in beliefs about whether others
will invest can cause women to invest more than men. For example, both men and women may believe
that women are more likely to invest than men.

2.3.1. Gender differences in preferences

We first explore whether there is direct evidence that preferences help to explain the gender gap in
investment rates. After the experiment, we asked participants a series of questions to elicit measures of
risk aversion, altruism, agreeableness, and non-conformity (see Appendix C for the full set of items used
to measure these constructs and for the correlation between these variables and the outcome of
interest). While finding significant gender differences in some of these measures, we see in Table 2

20
See Croson and Gneezy (2009) and Niederle (forthcoming) for reviews on gender differences.

10
(column 4) that these additional controls do not eliminate the gender difference in investment rates.
The coefficient on female remains large and statistically different form zero. 21

Of course, the results in column 4 do not conclusively rule out that gender is standing in for individual
differences in preferences and attitudes. For example, our included variables could be measured
imprecisely or we might have omitted important factors in our empirical model. 22 To examine what
gives rise to the gender gap in investments we therefore rely on an experimental manipulation for
identification. By slightly changing the experiment we can simultaneously assess whether gender
differences in investment is explained by gender differences in preferences and/or by beliefs.

2.3.2. Beliefs: Does the response to requests depend on the gender composition of the group
(Experiment 2)?

To manipulate beliefs we conducted a single-sex version of Experiment 1. 23 That is, instead of inviting
close to equal proportions of men and women to our laboratory for each session, we conducted
sessions where only men or only women participated. The purpose of the single-sex experiment was to
determine whether gender differences in investments are robust to the group’s gender composition or
if they are instead influenced by beliefs. If gender differences in investing are caused by women being
more conforming, more altruistic and more risk averse, then we would expect to see higher investment
rates in all-female session than in all-male sessions. 24 However, if behavior is influenced by a belief that
women more frequently invest than men, then we would expect the individual rate of investments to
change in single-sex groups. In particular, when a man moves from what is likely a mixed-sex trio to
knowing that his fellow group members are all men, he will see his decision to invest as more critical and
will increase the probability that he invests. By contrast when a woman moves from what is likely a
mixed-sex trio to knowing that her fellow group members are all female, she will see her decision to
invest as less critical and will decrease the probability that she invests.

The recruitment method, instructions, and procedures of these single-sex sessions were identical to
those of the mixed-sex sessions of Experiment 1. 117 undergraduate students were recruited from

21
Including controls for participant age, race, year in school and whether they were born in the U.S. leaves the
coefficient on female virtually unchanged, the marginal effect is 0.094 (p=0.026).
22
Our elicitation of risk and altruism was improved in Experiments 3 and 4 to mirror the incentives of investing.
These improved measures are predictive of the decision to invest when gender is controlled for, but do not explain
the gender gap (see Appendix Table B9, which shows the results of a 5-round replication of Experiment 1).
23
Examining coordination in the battle-of-the-sexes game, Holm (2000) points to the role of a gender-based focal
point. He finds that when males and females are paired with a female, they are more likely to select the action
associated with their preferred equilibrium. This ‘hawkish’ behavior implied that coordination more frequently was
achieved in mixed-sex pairing – thus securing greater efficiency. In our setting the investment can only be made by
one individual, and coordination issues are resolved when investing. Thus the decision not to invest cannot be
justified by it reducing the chance of mis-coordination, and we do not find greater efficiency in mixed-sex groups.
24
In our first experiment participants did not know the gender composition of the group they were in. However,
with women being more likely to invest than men we find an insignificantly larger chance that investments are
secured in all-female groups than in groups with at least one male (All-female mean =0.935, Not-all-female mean
=0.836, two-sided Fisher’s exact test p=0.141).

11
introductory economics classes at the University of Pittsburgh and the characteristics of this pool of
participants were similar to those of Experiment 1. Participants were on average 18.7 years old, with 18
and 19 year olds accounting for 81 percent. 74 percent were Caucasian, 91 percent were born in the US,
and 85 percent were either freshmen or sophomores. We conducted three sessions with all women
(n=66) and three sessions with all men (n=51). Sessions consisted of between 15 and 24 participants.
With ten rounds we have a total of 390 group decisions. 25 Following the procedures of Experiment 1
gender was not mentioned until the survey at the end of the experiment. Although gender was not
mentioned, by looking around the room participants could see the population from which members of
their anonymously drawn groups would be drawn. Hence, the gender composition of the room could
influence the participants’ beliefs about the likelihood that other members of their group would invest.

The results are shown below. Pooling first the data from the all-male and all-female sessions we find
aggregate behavior and investment times very similar to those of Experiment 1. Compared to the 84.2
percent investment rate in the mixed-sex sessions of Experiment 1, we find an investment rate of 80.8
percent in the single-sex sessions of Experiment 2. The timing of the investments is also similar (see
Appendix Table B3). Investments were primarily made within the last two seconds of a round, with this
share increasing from 69.4 percent during the first half of the experiment (Rounds 1-5) to 82.8 percent
during the second half (Rounds 6-10). Furthermore, over the course of the experiment the likelihood
that a group invests decreases from 90.3 percent in the first half to 71.3 percent in the second half. A
probit regression reveals that this decrease in investments over time is significant. 26

Next we ask whether these aggregate results mask differences between the all-female and all-male
groups. Of interest is whether the gender gap in the probability of investing is sensitive to the single-sex
setting. Figure 3 displays by gender the probability that an individual invests in a given round. In sharp
contrast to our results from Experiment 1 we do not find that women are more likely to invest than
men. The average number of investments over the ten rounds does not differ by gender (mean men =
2.67, mean women = 2.71, two-sided subject-level t-test p=0.918). 27 When the gender composition of
the group is known to the participants there is no evidence that all-female groups fare better than all-
male groups. The success rate is 81 percent for female groups and 80 percent for male groups. Figure 4
shows the distributions of total investments aggregated over the ten rounds by gender. 28

25
Average individual earnings from the ten decision rounds were $16.06. Including a $6 show up fee and payment
for the incentivized elicitation of risk secured average earnings of $22. The mean age of men and women is not
significantly different (18.73 vs. 18.67, two-sided t-test p=0.7806). Similarly, using a Fisher’s exact test there is no
significant gender difference in the distribution of age (p=0.975), race (p= 0.879), number of years in the US
(p=0.641), years in college (p= 0.878), or in choice of major (p= 0.112).
26
Treating the group as the unit of observation a probit of the likelihood that a group invests on round yields a
marginal effect of -0.038 (p<0.001).
27
The median contribution is 2 for men and 3 for women (Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney rank-sum z=-0.198, p=0.843).
28
A Fisher’s exact test for equality of distributions yields p=0.158. A two-sided variance test provides p=0.687.

12
 Figure 3: Probability of investing (Exp. 2) Figure 4: Distribution of total investment (Exp. 2)

.25
.5 .4

.2
Probability of investing

Relative frequency
.15
.3

.1
.2

.05
.1

0
0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Round Total investment

male female male female

Verifying the results of Figure 3 we see from the probit models in Table 3 that in single-sex sessions the
decision to invest does not depend on the sex of the participant. Across all ten rounds, the first five
rounds, and the last five rounds, we find that men and women are equally likely to invest. 29 The
coefficient on female is small in magnitude and not significantly different from zero. When the four
measures of individual characteristics are included in the regression (risk aversion, altruism,
agreeableness, and non-conformity) the coefficient on female remains insignificant (column 4). 30

Table 3: Probability of investing (probit), Experiment 2

All rounds Rounds 1-5 Rounds 6-10 All rounds
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Female 0.00443 0.00494 0.00395 -0.00214
(0.920) (0.916) (0.935) (0.962)
Round -0.0124*** -0.0146 -0.00856 -0.0125***
(0.000) (0.248) (0.389) (0.000)
Non-conformity 0.0384
(0.192)
Risk-seeking -0.0502**
(0.041)
Altruism 0.0350
(0.288)
Agreeable 0.0195
(0.614)
N 1170 585 585 1170
Dependent variable: Individual investment decision (1-invest, 0-don’t invest). The
table presents marginal effects. Standard errors are clustered on the individual. P-
values are reported in parentheses. 117 participants.

29
Treating the group decision as the unit of observation we see in Experiment 2 that controlling for round a probit
of group investment on all female generates a marginal effect of 0.016 (p=0.679).
30
Similar results are obtained when demographic variables such as race, year in school, and whether the
participant was born in the US are included in the regressions. The marginal effect of gender is 0.002 (p=0.972).
The results are also similar when analyzing only behavior in round 1.

13
The finding that there is no gender difference in the probability of investing when participants make
decisions in single-sex groups helps explain why differences in individual characteristics did not explain
the gender difference in investing seen in the mixed-sex experiment. The changes in investment rates
between Experiment 1 and 2 suggest that the individual’s behavior is not caused by fixed preferences
but instead depends upon the population from which group members are drawn. This response to the
gender of the other group members is consistent with beliefs about the investment rates of men versus
women playing a central role when deciding whether to volunteer.

Figure 5 summarizes the results of the two group compositions in Experiments 1 and 2. The group’s rate
of success is independent of the group being drawn from a single- or mixed-sex population, and in the
single-sex sessions it is independent of whether the group is all-male or all-female. 31 As demonstrated in
Figure 6 the individual’s propensity to invest is sensitive to the group’s gender composition. The dashed-
lines, single_m and single_f, refer to the all-male and all-female sessions (Experiment 2) respectively.
The solid-lines, mixed_m and mixed_f, refer to males and females in the mixed-sex sessions (Experiment
1) respectively. Relative to the mixed-sex results, the investment rate decreases for women and
increases for men in single-sex sessions. 32 While women are significantly more likely than men to invest
in mixed-sex sessions, this gender gap is eliminated in single-sex sessions. 33

31
The marginal effect of a probit of group investment on single-sex that controls for round provides a coefficient
on single sex of -0.031 (p=0.214). The similar provision rates in the mixed- and single-sex sessions suggest that the
completion of low-promotability tasks is unlikely to contribute to performance differences that may arise as a
result of gender diversity. For examples of work on gender diversity and performance see Ali, Kulik, and Metz
(2011), Bear and Woolley (2011), and Woolley and Malone (2011).
32
The results are consistent with the predictions of evolutionary game theory, as it predicts in a hawk-dove game
that a symmetric equilibrium will be selected within a single population, whereas an asymmetric equilibrium is
predicted when the players are drawn from different populations (Maynard Smith, 1982). Oprea, Henwood, and
Friedman (2011) confirm this prediction. Examining investments in a two-person Hawk-Dove game they find that
play converged to the symmetric mixed Nash equilibrium under a one-population matching protocol, while it
moves toward an asymmetric and inequitable pure strategy Nash equilibrium when the participants are assigned
either to be row or column players and interact in a two-population environment. As we do not elicit individual
strategies we are not able to determine whether play converges to a particular equilibrium. While the group
investment rate does not correspond to that predicted in either of the three possible equilibria, it is easily
reconciled with a model where individuals have other regarding preferences. Letting 𝜋𝜋𝑠𝑠 , 𝜋𝜋1 and 𝜋𝜋2 , denote payoff
to self and to the two other group members respectively, assuming preferences of the form 𝜋𝜋𝑠𝑠 + 0.148(𝜋𝜋1 + 𝜋𝜋2 )
predicts a group investment rate of 80 percent in a symmetric mixed strategy equilibrium, and of 86 percent in an
asymmetric mixed strategy equilibrium, where only two of the three group members invest. The literature on
public good provision suggests that concern for payoffs to others is easily this large.
33
Clustering standard errors on the individual and controlling for round, a probit of investing on dummies for
female and single-sex treatment and their interactions secures marginal effect on female of 0.109 (p=0.003), on
single-sex of 0.038 (p=0.375), on the female-single-sex interaction of -0.106 (p=0.066), and on round of -0.009
(p=0.000). The coefficient and standard error on the interaction is corrected to account for the nonlinear nature of
the estimation. In another set of analysis, there is no significant gender difference in mean decision time.
Clustering the standard errors on the individual an OLS regression of decision time on female and round reveals a
coefficient on female of -5.266 (p=0.532) in Experiment 1 and of -6.67 (p=0.272) in Experiment 2.

14
 Figure 5: Probability group invests Figure 6: Individual propensity to invest

.5
1

.4
.8

Probability of Investing
Likelihood group invests

.3
.6

.2
.4

.1
.2

0
0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Round Round

mixed all male all female single_m single_f mixed_m mixed_f

The results regarding gender differences in investing in mixed- and single-sex groups are intriguing. They
document that men and women differ in the propensity by which they agree to implicit requests in
mixed-sex groups, and provide insights into what drives these differences. When moving from a mixed-
sex environment to a single-sex one, women see a decrease in the need to volunteer, while men see an
increase. This change in behavior suggest that beliefs rather than preferences drive the gender
difference documented in Experiment 1.

3. Are women asked to volunteer more than men (Experiment 3)?

The studies of how faculty spend their time indicates that women are spending more time on service
tasks than men. While it is possible that Deans and Department Heads believe women to be more skilled
at these tasks than men, an alternative explanation, suggested by our two first experiments, is instead
that they may believe that women are more likely than men to accept requests to do these assignments.
In a laboratory experiment we can examine whether differences in requests arise when there are no
gender differences in ability. This examination of the demand side allows us to further assess whether
beliefs are likely to drive the gender difference in volunteering. We conduct a third experiment where
we extend our design to include an outside requestor, who after seeing pictures of the three group
members must ask one of them to invest. This outside requestor has the incentive to ask the person he
or she believes is most likely to accept the request. Based on our findings in the first two experiments,
we expect that participants will be more likely to ask a woman than a man to volunteer.

3.1. Design

We modify our experimental framework to study the demand side of task allocation. We add a fourth
group member, a requestor, who prior to the two minute investment round is charged with asking one
of the three members of the investment group to invest. While unable to personally invest, the
requestor benefits from the group’s investment. The requestor receives $1 if no one invests and
receives $2 if any member of the investment group invests before the end of the two minute round. The
choices and payoffs of the three members of the investment group are, as in our first two experiments,

15
$1 if no one invests and if one person invests then the investor receives $1.25 while non-investors
receive $2.

3.2. Participants and procedures

We conducted four sessions of Experiment 3. With 20 participants per session we have choices from a
total of 80 participants (37 males and 43 females). Sessions were roughly gender balanced with the
share of women participating in a session ranging between 40 and 60 percent. Participants were
recruited from introductory classes in the social sciences (economics, political science, and
anthropology) and none of the participants had prior experience with studies at PEEL. 34 The average age
was 19.4 years, with 18 and 19 year olds accounting for 68 percent of participants, 74 percent were
Caucasian, 94 percent were born in the US, and 76 percent were either freshmen or sophomores. With
the exception of age none of these characteristics differed significantly by gender. 35

To test whether there are differences in the likelihood of asking a female versus a male participant to
invest, photos were secured one by one as participants entered the lab, and taken on the count of
three. After obtaining photos, participants were seated in pre-marked cubicles, asked to provide
informed consent, and were then given instructions.

Participants were informed that in each round, one person of the 4-person group would be designated
the role of “red” player while three individuals would be designated the role of “green” players and
would form an investment group. The red player was unable to make the investment but was charged
with asking one member of the investment group to invest. Requests by red players were solicited using
the strategy method. After assignment to a group of four, and before learning who was assigned the
role of red or green player, each participant was shown the photos of the potential investment group
and was asked which member they would ask to invest in the event that they were assigned the role of
a red player. Each member simultaneously saw the photos of the potential investment group members,
with the order of photos being different for each participant. Once all four members of the group
submitted their requests, photos of the four group members appeared on the screen indicating the
selected role and associated request. The photo of the red player appeared at the top of the screen,
photos of the three green players appeared in a row at the bottom of the screen clearly indicating which
green player was asked by the red player to invest. The green player who was asked to invest saw a
message below his or her photo stating “The red player asked you to invest,” while the two other green
players saw the photos with the message “The red player asked this group member to invest” below the

34
Note that Experiment 3 is an examination of the demand side and an additional test of the role of beliefs. Since
the design of Experiment 3 differs from that of Experiments 1 and 2, we never compare behavior between the two
types of experiments. Small differences in participant characteristics between the two sets of experiments also
caution against comparing behavior in the two sets of studies.
35
The mean age of men is significantly larger than for women (19.89 vs. 18.95, two-sided t-test p=0.005). There are
minor, but not significant differences in other characteristics. Fisher’s exact tests reveal no significant gender
difference in the distribution of age (p=0.168), race (p=0.148), number of years in the US (p=0.343), years in
college (p=0.131) or in choice of major (p=0.936). Average earnings from the ten decision rounds were $17.60.
Including a $6 show up fee and two incentivized preference elicitation tasks secured average earnings of $26.70.

16
photo of the green player who was asked. After all participants acknowledged the role assignment and
request, the two-minute investment period began and any green player could invest—both the green
player who was asked and the other green players who were not asked to invest. Mirroring Experiments
1 and 2, participants learned if an investment was secured, but did not learn who invested.

For each of the ten rounds, participants were matched in groups of four, using an algorithm to ensure
that participants were not matched with the same individuals during the first five rounds. While
participants for rounds 6-10 can be characterized as ‘non-strangers’ it is important to keep in mind that
they never learn the investment decisions of any other participants.

Following the ten rounds of decision making individual characteristics were elicited. We changed the
incentivized risk elicitation task to closely parallel the type of risk participants experience in the
investment task. We also elicited an incentivized measure of altruism that asks participants to make 6
binary decisions between two payoff distributions for group members that reflect the types of payoffs
that participants experience in the investment task (see Appendix C for details). Finally individuals were
asked to indicate whether they knew any of the other participants in the lab. Seeing photos of all the
participants in the session they first had to click on photos of the people they knew or had seen before,
then from this subset indicate whom they had communicated with, and from this remaining subset
whom they were friends with. 36

3.3. Results

Investments occurred rather quickly in Experiment 3: 33.2 percent of investments were made in the first
ten seconds and only 40.1 percent were made in the last two seconds of the round. The share of early
investments is not sensitive to whether group members are ‘strangers’ (rounds 1-5 where participants
had not yet been paired with each other) or ‘non-strangers’ (rounds 6-10 where participants had been
paired with each other in previous rounds). With 93.5 of groups succeeding in investing in Experiment 3
we find a high level of coordination. 37

The central question of Experiment 3 is whether men and women are equally likely to receive requests
from a requestor. That is, when a potential requestor sees photos of the three potential investment
group members, does a group member’s gender help predict whether they are asked?

In using the strategy method to elicit requests, over the ten decision rounds an individual can at most
receive 30 strategy-method requests. Our data reveal substantial heterogeneity in the number of
requests participants receive, ranging between 1 to 16 requests. Consistent with participants holding
the belief that women are more likely to invest than men, an individual’s gender is predictive of the
number of requests. Figure 7 shows how the distribution of the total number of strategy-method

36
52.5 percent of subjects knew at least one other participant in the session. The mean number of participants
individuals report knowing, having communicated with, and being friends with is 1.34, 0.13, and 0.11 respectively.
37
Appendix Table B4 shows the distribution of investment times in Experiment 3.

17
requests for women first order stochastically dominates that for men (Kolmogorov-Smirnov p=0.017).
The mean and median number of requests for men are 8.7 and 9 respectively, while for women they are
11.1 and 12, respectively (two-sided t-test p<0.01; Wilcoxon Mann Whitney Rank-sum test p<0.01).

Figure 7: Distribution of strategy-method requests per individual (Exp. 3)

.15
Relative Frequency
.05 0 .1

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Total times asked to invest

male female

The differences in the number of requests received by men and women are confirmed in Table 4 when
we control for other observable characteristics. Across all rounds gender is predictive of the number of
requests an individual receives. Controlling for observable characteristics such as being Caucasian and
being someone whom participants in the lab are familiar with, we find that on average females receive
2.5 more requests than males over the ten rounds of the experiment. 38 This difference in requests
increases over the course of the experiment. Females receive on average 0.9 more requests than males
during the stranger rounds (rounds 1-5), while they receive 1.6 more requests during the non-stranger
rounds (rounds 6-10).

38
The results are similar when analyzing only behavior in round 1. Given the small age variation and participant’s
likely limited ability to distinguish participants by age we do not control for age. Adding an age control does not
affect the coefficient on the female dummy. Results also do not change when we include individual measures of
preferences and personality attributes as controls (see Appendix Table B5). The effect of gender is similar if we
instead control for the number of people who reported that they know or are friends with the participant. Only the
coefficients on “N communicate with in session” and “N friends with in session” are statistically significant. Results
from multinomial probits that simultaneously control for the characteristics of all group members who could be
asked to invest are provided in Appendix Table B6.

18
 Table 4: Requests received via the strategy method (OLS), Experiment 3
Rounds 1-10 Rounds 1-5 Rounds 6-10
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Female 2.476* 2.521* 0.863 0.889 1.613* 1.631*
(0.070) (0.070) (0.214) (0.214) (0.070) (0.070)
Non-Caucasian -1.307 -1.196 -0.677 -0.610 -0.630 -0.585
(0.114) (0.222) (0.114) (0.114) (0.222) (0.222)
N communicate with in session 2.880*** 1.709 1.171***
(0.000) (0.122) (0.000)
Constant 9.012*** 8.599*** 4.714*** 4.469*** 4.298*** 4.130***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
N 80 80 80 80 80 80
Dependent Variable: Total requests received. N communicate with refers to the number of subjects who reported the
subject as someone they communicate with. P-values are in parentheses. Standard errors are clustered at the session level
using wild bootstrapping procedures that test the null hypothesis that the coefficient on female equals zero. 80 participants.

Another way of summarizing the differences in requests is to examine mixed-sex groups where both
men and women could be asked to invest. If men and women are equally likely to be asked then they
should be asked a third of the time in mixed-sex groups. Instead we see a 39 percent chance that a
woman is asked and a 27 percent chance that a man is asked. This 12 percentage point difference is
statistically significant across all rounds and for the first and second half of the experiment (stranger and
non-stranger rounds). 39

The finding that women are asked to invest more than men is consistent with the belief that they are
more likely to accept such requests. As evidence that such beliefs are commonly held we find that both
male and female requestors are more likely to ask female rather than male group members to invest.
When a male requestor has the option of asking either a man or woman to invest, a woman is asked 39
percent of the time and a man is asked 29 percent. The choice made by a female requestor is similar as
she asks a woman 39 percent of the time and a man 26 percent of the time. 40

Requests have a substantial impact on the individual’s decision to invest. Participants who are asked to
invest have an investment rate of 65.5 percent, while the investment rate is only 14 percent for those
who are not asked to invest. Thus a requestor can, by asking, significantly increase the likelihood that an
individual invests. 41 Absent a request, the investment rate does not differ by gender (both men and
women invest 14 percent of the time). The response to a request, however, does differ by gender, as
the investment rate becomes 51 percent for men and 76 percent for women. The probit regression in
Table 5 confirms that the response to requests is significant and that the likelihood of agreeing to the
request is significantly greater for women than for men. This result holds both for the first and second

39
Two-sided session-level paired t-test p=0.014 for rounds 1-10. Differentiating between stranger and non-
stranger rounds gives p=0.109 and 0.070, respectively.
40
Controlling for round and clustering standard errors at the individual level a probit of asking a female to invest
on the gender of requestor provides a marginal effect on female requestor of 0.024 (p=0.262).
41
A probit of investment that controls for round and clusters standard errors at the individual level indicates that
being asked to invest increases the probability of investment by 0.515 (p<0.001).

19
half of the experiment. 42 Using the improved measures for risk aversion and altruism, we find that both
measures predict the likelihood of investing, but do not reduce the gender difference in investing (see
columns 3 and 6 of Appendix Table B7). The net result of women more frequently being asked to invest
and more frequently accepting such requests is of course that the investment rate for women exceeds
that for men. The aggregate investment rate is 37 percent for women and 25 percent for men. 43

Table 5. Probability of investing (probit): All green players, Experiment 3

All rounds Rounds 1-5 Rounds 6-10
(1) (2) (3)
Asked to invest 0.382*** 0.402*** 0.368***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Female -0.010 0.083 -0.108
(0.882) (0.283) (0.226)
Female X asked to invest 0.258*** 0.252** 0.270***
(0.005) (0.048) (0.007)
Round -0.0032 -0.006 -0.010
(0.643) (0.769) (0.572)
N 600 300 300
Dependent variable: Individual investment decision (1-invest, 0-don’t
invest). Marginal effects presented in the table. Standard errors clustered
on the individual. P-values reported in parentheses. The coefficient and
standard error on the interaction terms is corrected to account for the
nonlinear nature of the estimation. 80 participants.

4. Explaining the differential response by women and men: Altruism and beliefs

Our results demonstrate that, in a mixed-sex group, women more than men perform tasks that, while
benefitting the collective, place them at a relative disadvantage. The findings in our three experiments
are consistent with this gender difference resulting from a commonly held belief that women more than
men will agree to perform such tasks. Such a belief is consistent with the higher investment rate for
women than men in the mixed-sex groups (Experiment 1); with women investing less and men investing
more when moving from mixed-sex to single-sex groups (Experiments 1 and 2); and with women more
than men receiving requests to invest and more frequently accepting such requests (Experiment 3).

While our results align well with the belief that women more than men will invest, we do not directly
demonstrate that beliefs differ, nor do we fully rule out that the gender differences in behavior result
from altruistic preferences. 44 To explore the role of beliefs and altruism we conduct two additional

42
The results are similar when analyzing only behavior in round 1. With only 20 realized requests per round we are
however underpowered, and while the coefficient on the female-being asked interaction is the same the
coefficient is not significant (coefficient 0.260, p=0.280). Specifications that interact female with all covariates,
include session dummies, and control for individual preferences and personality attributes are presented in
Appendix Table B7.
43
A probit regression of investment on round and gender with standard errors clustered at the subject level
provides a marginal effect on female of 0.116 (p=0.028).
44
While the results from Experiments 1 and 2 are not consistent with altruism varying between men and women,
they are consistent with men and women being more altruistic toward men than women (see Section 4.2).

20
experiments (Experiments 4 and 5). Recruitment and general procedures mirrored those of our initial
experiments. 189 undergraduates were recruited from introductory economics classes at the University
of Pittsburgh. They were on average 18.5 years old, 90 percent were 18 and 19 years old, 75 percent
were Caucasian, 86 percent were born in the US, and 93 percent were either freshmen or sophomores.

4.1. Experiment 4: Is the investment rate for women believed to be higher than it is for men?

Experiment 4 was used to explore the role of beliefs. To confirm that beliefs drive investment choices in
Experiment 1 we would ideally want to elicit participants’ beliefs as they make decisions in the same
environment as in Experiment 1. However, as investment decisions are made in real time with the round
ending and all uncertainty being resolved once an investment is made, a strategy method would be
needed to simultaneously elicit beliefs and behavior. Such a modification to our design is likely to affect
behavior (see e.g., Croson, 2000). We instead asked third-party participants to predict behavior in a
representative session from Experiment 1.

We conducted 7 sessions of Experiment 4 with 21 participants in each session. Participants were asked
to perform two different tasks, with the instructions for each task only being given immediately
preceding the task. Task 1 was a five-round version of Experiment 1 and aimed to familiarize the
participants with the strategic environment. Task 2 asked participants to predict the outcomes in a
previous session of Experiment 1. Participants were informed that another session of 21 individuals had
made decisions in a 10-round version of the preceding Task 1, and they were asked to predict, for ten
groups of three, how likely it was that each member of the group invested. After participants completed
these two tasks, we collected measures of individual characteristics, including improved measures of
risk aversion and altruism that mirror the incentives associated with investing (see Appendix C).

With the exception of the smaller number of rounds the procedures for Task 1 were identical to that for
Experiment 1, and thus should generate similar results. This is precisely what we find. On average 92.7
percent of Task-1 groups succeed in investing, and 63.4 percent of these investments occur in the last 2
seconds. 45 Importantly, the individual investment rates differ by gender. Consistent with our Experiment
1 results, the median number of investments is 1 for men and 2 for women, and the investment rates
for women and men are 35 and 27 percent respectively (two-sided t-test p=0.047). 46 A probit regression
of the probability of investment on female and round that clusters standard errors at the participant
level shows a positive and significant coefficient on female (marginal effect of 0.082, p=0.045) and a
negative but insignificant coefficient on round (marginal effect of -0.01, p=0.319). In Appendix Table B9
we present specifications that include the improved measures of risk and altruism preferences. Closely
mirroring the incentives at stake we see that being more risk averse and more altruistic helps predict

45
Appendix Table B8 shows the distribution of investment times in Task 1 of Experiment 4.
46
The corresponding numbers for the first-five rounds of Experiment 1 were a group investment rate of 88.4
percent; 63.3 percent of investments occur in the last two seconds; and investment rates of 34 percent for women
and 24 percent for men. Similar to Experiment 1 the share of females in a session ranged from 0.38 to 0.57. The
share of females in each session was: 38.1 percent in 1 session, 42.9 percent in 1 session, 47.6 percent in 3
sessions, 54.2 percent in 1 session, and 57.1 percent in 1 session.

21
investment decisions. However, consistent with our earlier results these improved controls for
preferences do not help explain the gender gap in the probability of investing.

Having completed Task 1 participants proceeded to Task 2 where over ten rounds they predict how
individuals behaved in a previous session of Experiment 1. 47 In each round, they were shown individual
characteristics of three individuals who formed a group in the corresponding round of the Experiment 1
session. For each group, participants were informed of each of the three group member’s age, sex,
whether the participant was born in U.S., his or her year in school (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior,
Senior), and choice of major (Business, Social Science, or Other major). Participants indicated for each
group of three players the probability that four possible events occurred: group member 1 invested;
group member 2 invested; group member 3 invested; and no one invested. The sum of probabilities had
to sum to one.

For robustness we used two different procedures to elicit beliefs over the four events. The first
procedure asked for a probabilistic assessment of how likely the individual thought each event was and
incentivized the elicitation using a binarized quadratic scoring rule (BQSR). The second procedure asked
participants to first rank the events from most to least likely to have occurred and then assess how likely
they thought each event was to have occurred, only the rank was incentivized. 48 For each of 10 rounds
participants were shown a new group of three players for which they were asked to guess behavior.
Between rounds, participants were only informed whether an investment was made in the group, which
corresponded to the feedback given between rounds in Experiment 1. The specific outcome of who
invested in each round was only learned at the end of the ten rounds, at which point we calculated the
participant’s earnings as a result of their guess and the event that actually occurred.

While the quadratic scoring rule (Brier, 1950) is an incentive compatible elicitation for risk neutral
individuals, risk averse individuals have an incentive to report less dispersed beliefs. To address this
concern Hossain and Okui (2013), build on the insights of Smith (1961) and Roth and Malouf (1979), and
propose instead a binarized-scoring rule. Rather than having the quadratic score secure a payoff, the
quadratic score generates a chance of winning a high rather than a low fixed prize. 49 Depending on the
accuracy of their guesses, participants in Experiment 4 received either $1 or $2 for the round.

47
As a representative session we asked participants to predict the behavior of 21 participants in Session 8 of
Experiment 1. Participant characteristics and behavior in Session 8 mirrored those of Experiment 1 overall. 48
percent of participants in that session were female, the average age was 18.24 years old, 76 percent were
Caucasian, 100 percent were either freshman or sophomores, and 90 percent were born in the US. Across Session
8 the group investment rate was 79 percent and the investment rates for women and men were 32 and 21 percent
respectively.
48
We conducted four sessions (n=84) using the BQSR elicitation and three sessions (n=63) where unincentivized
beliefs were elicited after participants provided an incentivized measure of belief rank.
49
In a set of experimental studies Hossain and Okui (2013) show that the binarized scoring rule secures reported
beliefs that are closer to the true probability than those seen under the standard quadratic scoring rule. A similar
result is provided by Harrison, Martínez-Correa, and Swarthout (2013, 2014), who show that the binarized
quadratic scoring rule induces a shift towards risk neutrality in objective and subjective probabilities. Harrison,
Martínez-Correa, Swarthout, and Ulm (2015), however, show no difference in reported probabilities when eliciting
subjective probability distributions over continuous events that are discretized into 10 possible outcomes.

22
Specifically, for the event that occurred in Experiment 1 the quadratic score was used to calculate the
individual’s chance to win (CTW) $2 rather than $1. The chance-to-win function was:

4
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 = 100 − 50 � (1𝑖𝑖 − 𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑖 )2
𝑖𝑖=1

where 1𝑖𝑖 is an indicator function that acquires the value of 1 when event 𝑖𝑖 occurs and 𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑖 is the
probability a participant places on event i. Participants were given examples of how this scoring rule
worked and were provided a calculator button on the decision screen that allowed them to compute the
chance-to-win for any probability distribution they entered before finalizing a decision. They were also
told that they had the highest chance of winning $2 if they honestly reported their best guess. At the
end of the ten rounds we calculated the chance-to-win for the round given the event that actually
occurred and the participant’s belief submitted for that event. By randomly drawing a number between
1 and 100 for each round we then determined whether the participant won $2. The individual won $2 if
the drawn number was less than or equal to the individual’s chance-to-win for the event that occurred.
We did this for each of the ten rounds.

The elicited beliefs under BQSR correspond to the observed group investment rate and its sensitivity to
the number of women in the group. While informed that participants in the original experiment did not
know who they were grouped with, individuals nonetheless predict that the groups’ investment rate
increases monotonically with the number of women in the group. The elicited investment rate starts at
0.86 in all-male groups and increases to 0.94 in all-female groups. 50 The sensitivity to the number of
women in a group reflects that participants expect women to invest more than men. In mixed-sex
groups participants tended to attach the greatest chance of investing to a female participant.
Eliminating observations where a man and a woman are tied for being most likely to invest, we find in
groups with one female and two males (1F2M) that women were thought most likely to invest 47.1
percent of the time, in groups with two females and one male (2F1M) the corresponding number was
75.3 percent. If men and women were thought to be equally likely to invest, those numbers would be
33.3 and 66.6 percent respectively. The observed beliefs were significantly higher in both cases
(subject-level two-sided t-test p=0.008 for 1F2M, and p=0.005 for 2F1M). 51

The elicited point estimates of the third-party beliefs reveal that women are thought to be more likely to
invest than men. The expected probability of investment is 0.287 (std. error 0.004) for men and 0.309
(std. error 0.004) for women. 52 As seen in Table 6 a regression of the probability of investment that
clusters standard errors at the subject guessing level reveals that women are thought to be 2.3

50
This response to gender composition is significant. An OLS regression of the guessed probability of group
investment rate on the number of females in a group that clusters standard errors at the subject guessing level
provides a coefficient on the number of females in a group of 0.021 (std. error 0.006, p=0.001).
51
Similar results are obtained when using a multinomial probit model. See Appendix Table B10.
52
Removing cases where participants report three-way ties (13 percent) for the three group members, the
reported chance that a man and woman invests changes to 0.292 (std. error 0.004) and 0.314 (std. error 0.004)
respectively.

23
percentage points more likely to invest than a man with the same demographic characteristics other
than gender. Columns 3 and 4 report the corresponding probabilities from Experiment 1 and reveal that
while the average investment rate mirrors that observed, under BQSR the anticipated gender gap in
investment rates is smaller than the 11.2 percentage point differential observed in Experiment 1.

Table 6. Linear probability of investing on group member characteristics (OLS): All groups 53
BQSR-belief Experiment 1-behavior Rank-belief
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Group member female 0.022** 0.023** 0.111*** 0.112*** 0.015** 0.019**
(0.018) (0.025) (0.004) (0.005) (0.034) (0.015)
Group member age 19+ -0.027* -0.030 0.009
(0.071) (0.591) (0.627)
Group member US born -0.039** -0.021 -0.017
(0.022) (0.678) (0.337)
Group member sophomore 0.015 0.034 -0.016
(0.260) (0.553) (0.334)
Group member business major -0.002 -0.059 -0.000
(0.832) (0.298) (0.976)
Group member other major 0.002 -0.043 0.009
(0.821) (0.383) (0.231)
Round -0.022 -0.000 -0.006* -0.006* -0.000 -0.000
(0.738) (0.740) (0.054) (0.054) (0.774) (0.776)
Constant 0.288*** 0.324*** 0.265*** 0.322*** 0.274*** 0.285***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
N 2520 2520 1500 1500 1890 1890
Dependent variable: Individual investment decision (1=invest, 0=don’t invest). Standard errors are clustered
at the subject level. P-values are reported in parentheses.

While third parties anticipate the direction of the gender gap in investment rates, they fail to predict the
magnitude of the difference. There are several potential explanations for the quantitative difference.
First it is not easy to calculate an individual’s observed investment rate. Imagine for example that a
participant expects that each member invests 33 percent of the time. As only one participant can invest
at a time this belief corresponds to an observed individual investment rate of 23.5 percent.54 Second
while the BQSR elicitation is incentive compatible, the chance-to-win function is very flat at high beliefs.
Thus individuals may prefer to report probabilities that are less dispersed than their true belief, because
such a report substantially increases the chance-to-win on events that are seen as less likely. 55

53
The gender gap in beliefs presented in Table 6 is robust to including round fixed effects in the regressions.
54
Since a participant cannot invest if another participant has already chosen to invest, the observed individual
3
investment rate is (1-(1-0.33) )/3.
55
For example, submitting a belief (p1,p2,p3,p4)=(1.0,0,0,0) would create a chance to win of (1.0, 0, 0, 0) in the case
that each event occurred. However, a less extreme belief of (p1,p2,p3,p4)=(.60,.20,.20,0) would secure
corresponding chances to win of (.88, .48, .48, .28). This less extreme belief only slightly reduces the chance to win
in the event that group member 1 invests, while increasing substantially the chance to win in the event that one of
the three other events occurred. The flatness of the incentives under BQSR implies that an individual, who
correctly believes that there is a 12 percentage point gender gap in the investment frequency, in expectation
would lose 0.3 cents by falsely reporting probabilities consistent with the elicited 2 percentage point gender gap
(assuming equal investment rates within gender and a 10 percent chance that no one invests).

24
Concerned that the incentives presented under BQSR caused participants to report probabilities that
were less dispersed than their actual beliefs we also ran three sessions using a dual elicitation
procedure. Participants ranked the four possible events from most to least likely and then reported how
likely they thought each event was to have occurred. Only the elicitation on rank was incentivized. 56 The
probabilistic assessments under this dual procedure also secured a statistically significant gender gap in
predicted investment rates. The investment rate is on average believed to be 0.273 (std. error 0.003) for
men and 0.288 (std. error 0.004) for women. 57 As seen in Table 6 columns 5 and 6 a regression of the
elicited probability of investing that clusters standard errors at the subject guessing level reveals that
women are thought to be 1.9 percentage points more likely to invest than a man with the same
demographic characteristics. A gender difference is also found when examining the elicited ranks.
Looking at strict rankings and thus removing observations where there are ties in the probabilities we
find that the mean rank assigned to men is 2.241 (std. error 0.048) and that to women is 2.116 (std.
error. 0.049). 58 These elicitations are further evidence that participants believe women to be more likely
to invest than men.

Across two different elicitation procedures we find that participants believe that women are more likely
than men to invest. While the elicited beliefs show a gap in investment rates that is smaller than that
observed in Experiment 1, such differences in expectations may nonetheless perturb a greater than
expected response in behavior. Furthermore, the elicited beliefs may not fully capture the beliefs
participants held in the experiment as elicited beliefs frequently differ from the beliefs consistent with
observed behavior. For example Costa-Gomes and Weizsäcker (2008) find inconsistencies between the
actions individuals take and their belief statements, and argue that “we need to be cautious when
evaluating elicited beliefs to understand action choices” (p. 731). Similarly, in discussing the role of
subjective survey data, Bertrand and Mullianathan (2001) argue that people may not be good at
forecasting their behavior or understanding why they did what they did. While the magnitude of the
differences in the probability that a man and a woman invests is smaller than that observed in
Experiment 1, the finding that men and women are believed to have different investment rates may be

56
Participants were paid $2 if the reported rank 1 event occurred, $1.5 if the rank 2 event occurred, $1 if the rank
3 event occurred, and 50 cents if the rank 4 event occurred. Participants were told that earnings were maximized
by choosing a ranking that reflected the events they thought most likely occurred. The unincentivized probabilities
elicited under this procedure do not show greater variation in the reported beliefs. The frequency of three-way
ties in the probability that group members invest increases from 13.3 percent under BQSR to 30.7 percent under
Rank.
57
This difference is significant in a two-sided paired t-test by subject (p=0.023). Removing the 30.7 percent of cases
where participants report three-way ties between the three group members investing, the reported chances that a
man and woman invests changes to 0.276 (std. error 0.004) and 0.297 (std. error 0.005).
58
Two-sided subject-level paired t-test p=0.082. Restricting attention to mixed-gender groups p=0.101 (mean
men=2.234, std. error=0.054, mean women=2.100, std. error=0.053). Our focus on strict rankings considerably
reduces our sample size, but restricts attention to cases where the rankings have meaning. Using the elicited
beliefs to construct comparable ranks from the BQSR reported beliefs, we find a mean rank for men of 2.240 (std.
error 0.045) and for women of 2.041 (std. error 0.043). Restricting attention to mixed gender groups, the mean
rank for men is 2.261 (std. error 0.052) and for women is 2.036 (std. error 0.046).

25
sufficient to secure that it influences equilibrium selection and in turn cause women to more frequently
invest than men.

4.2. Altruism (Experiment 5)

Much economic research has been done to investigate whether men and women differ in their altruistic
preferences. Although the empirical evidence is somewhat mixed (see e.g., Andreoni and Vesterlund,
2001), women are commonly thought to be more altruistic than men. Such a conviction is consistent
with the behavior seen in Experiments 1 and 3, and with the elicited beliefs in Experiment 4. However, it
is not consistent with the behavior seen in Experiment 2. If women are more altruistic than men then
the aggregate investment rate should be higher in the all-female sessions than in the all-male sessions of
Experiment 2. 59 The differential individual response in the mixed- versus single-sex session may,
however, result if altruism varies by the beneficiary’s gender. If participants are more generous toward
men than women, then women would give less in all-female groups compared to mixed-sex group, and
men would give more in all-male groups compared to mixed-sex groups. While such male-recipient
favoritism can explain our results, existing empirical evidence is not consistent with such a preference.
Boschini, Muren and Persson (2012) conduct dictator games in both mixed- and single-sex groups and
find that the transfers by both men and women are insensitive to the sex of the recipient.60 As our
setting differs from that of the standard dictator game, we conduct an additional experiment
(Experiment 5) to determine whether in a setting similar to that of our investment game we find that
generosity varies with the gender of the decision maker and of the other members of the group.

To assess the impact of beneficiary’s gender on altruistic transfers, 42 undergraduates participated in

Experiment 5. At the beginning of the experiment, each participant provided their demographic
information. Mirroring the procedures employed in Experiment 4, participants were in each of ten

59
The aggregate investment rate in Experiment 2 was 80 percent in all-male sessions and 81.36 percent in all-
female sessions (two-sided Fisher’s exact test p=0.796). As an additional assessment of altruism we also examine
the improved altruism measure included at the end of Experiment 3. While eliciting altruism over the domain of
interest, this measure did not provide evidence that women are more altruistically inclined than men (mean
altruism men=3.432, std. error 0.231; mean altruism women=3.209, std. error 0.168; two-sided t-test p=0.429). A
description of this incentivized altruism measure is provided in Appendix C.
60
Evidence that participants are not more altruistic toward men than women can also be seen in the investment
decisions of Experiment 3. A probit model of the investment decision shows that the gender of the requestor has
no effect on the likelihood that individuals invest using the same specification as column 1 in Table 6 (the marginal
effect of the coefficient on female requestor is -0.0183 p=0.660).The insensitivity to the requestor’s gender is also
seen in single-sex groups of Experiment 3. In all-male groups a probit of investing on a dummy for female
requestor that clusters standard errors at the subject level secures a marginal effect of 0.100 (p=0.725) for those
asked to invest and of -0.050 (p=0.786) for those not asked to invest. The results are similar for the all-female
groups where the marginal effect of the dummy for female requestor is -0.079 (p=0.595) for those asked to invest
and of -0.0317 (p=0.664) for those not asked to invest. Further evidence that participants are not more altruistic
toward men than women is seen from the gender of the person who is asked to invest not influencing the decision
to invest early by other group members. That is, when a man rather than a woman is asked to invest the remaining
participants are no more likely invest within the first 10 seconds of a round (a probit of investing that clusters
standard errors at the individual level provides a marginal effect on female of -0.008, p=0.581) or within the first
20 seconds of a round (the marginal effect on female in the same model is -0.001, p=0.943).

26
rounds paired in groups of three and were provided demographic information (age, sex, born in the US,
year in school and major) of the other group members. They knew that they would never be paired with
the same participant twice in a row. For each of ten rounds participants were asked to make six
decisions that result in payoffs to themselves and to the other two group members. Specifically, they
were asked whether they preferred the payoffs associated with an option A or B, with the set of possible
payoffs shown in Table 7.

Table 7: Payoffs associated with each decision, Experiment 5

Option A Payoffs Option B Payoffs
Decision Group Group Group Group
You You
member 1 member 2 member 1 member 2
1 $1.25 $2.00 $2.00 $1.00 $1.00 $1.00
2 $1.25 $2.00 $2.00 $1.20 $1.05 $1.20
3 $1.25 $2.00 $2.00 $1.40 $1.10 $1.40
4 $1.25 $2.00 $2.00 $1.60 $1.15 $1.60
5 $1.25 $2.00 $2.00 $1.80 $1.20 $1.80
6 $1.25 $2.00 $2.00 $2.00 $1.25 $2.00

Option A corresponds to the payoffs that result from the participant making the generous investment
decision in the original investment game (Experiments 1 and 2): $1.25 for themselves and $2.00 for each
of the two other group members. Option B by contrast corresponds to the payoffs that result from the
participant not investing and instead taking the gamble that Group member 1 invests with a certain
probability. Moving from decision 1 through 6 the probability of Group member 1 investing increases in
20 percentage point increments from 0 for decision 1 to 100 percent for decision 6. A more generous
participant will delay the point at which he or she switches from choosing option A to B. 61 We measure
the “switch point” for preferring payoffs for other group members versus oneself, where later switching
points reflect greater altruism toward other group members, especially toward Group member 1.
Participants knew that for each round and for each group, one group-member’s decision would be
randomly chosen and implemented.

The key results of interest are shown in Table 8. Focusing on the last point at which men and women
switch from Option A to B we see that the mean switch point is approximately Decision 4. That is, the
average participant is willing to take the gamble of another participant investing when the chance that
Group member 1 invests is perceived to be at least 60 percent. Looking at the differences in switch
points we find, consistent with Experiment 2, that there is no evidence that women are more likely to
choose a later and more altruistic switch point than men. Whether looking at the decision associated
with the first or last switch, men chose to switch at a later decision and are thus making decisions that
are more generous toward the other group members (two-sided subject-level t-test p=0.016 for the first
switch point, p=0.472 for the last switch point).

61
Note that individuals who are more concerned about efficiency also will delay the switch point. Research shows
that men are relatively more concerned about efficiency (Andreoni and Vesterlund, 2001), which may result in
men selecting a later switch point. Greater concerns for efficiency would predict greater investments in
Experiments 1-4. Our new altruism measure thus encompasses both elements (generosity and efficiency).

27
Next we ask if there is evidence of greater generosity toward male group members than female group
members. We see first that decisions are no more generous when an individual is faced with two male
group members rather than with two female group members (two-sided subject-level paired t-tests p=
0.822 for the first switch point, p=0.895 for the last). Similarly we do not find that participants are more
generous when the individual who is more influenced by the decision maker’s selfish choice is male.
That is, when Group member 1 is male we do not find that our participants select a later switch point
than when Group member 1 is female (two-sided subject-level paired t-test is p=0.795 for the first
switch point, p=0.632 for the last).

In summary, the literature on other regarding behavior and the results from Experiments 3 and 5
suggest that the gender difference in investing seen in Experiments 1 and 2 is not driven by women
being more altruistic than men, nor by participants being more generous toward men than women.

Table 8: Mean decision where participant switches from Option A to B

Full Sample Subsample with
First Switch Point Last Switch Point one Switch Point
Decision Maker
Male 3.542 (0.100) 4.185 (0.097) 3.898 (0.100)
Female 2.638 (0.104) 3.925 (0.138) 3.099 (0.114)
Group members
2 Males 2.988 (0.120) 4.137 (0.129) 3.518 (0.126)
2 Females 3.148 (0.076) 4.066 (0.215) 3.542 (0.206)
Group member 1
Male 3.081 (0.098) 4.073 (0.104) 3.549 (0.104)
Female 3.388 (0.120) 4.106 (0.124) 3.742 (0.121)
N obs. 420 420 327
N participants 42 42 27
Later switch points suggest greater altruism towards other group members, especially
Group member 1. Standard errors are in parentheses.

6. Conclusion

Much research has been conducted to understand gender differences in the labor market. We add to
this literature an understanding of differences in the allocation of tasks that while helping the group,
place the individual performing the task at a relative disadvantage (low-promotability tasks). In a series
of studies we find consistent evidence that women, more than men, perform such tasks. The difference
arises both from demand and supply as women more than men are asked to perform such tasks and
more frequently accept requests to perform such tasks.

On the supply side, we report on field and experimental studies. The field data show that relative to
men, women are significantly more likely to respond favorably to requests to undertake a task with low
promotability. While this field evidence helps motivate our research question, it does not help
determine why a gender gap in willingness to engage in low-promotability tasks exists. Turning to the

28
laboratory we conduct five experiments to determine whether gender differences in the propensity to
volunteer arise when incentives are better controlled, and to determine what drives such differences.

Our experimental design mirrors the incentives that group members face when asked to find a volunteer
for a task that they prefer another group member undertakes. In our first two experiments all group
members face the same implicit request to volunteer. In Experiment 1, when both men and women are
present in the lab, we find that women are 50 percent more likely to volunteer. While there is no
evidence that this gap is driven by differences in preferences, we use an experimental manipulation to
simultaneously evaluate whether it results from preferences or beliefs. Our Experiment 2 uses a single-
sex rather than a mixed-sex subject pool. Interestingly, the gender gap in volunteering is eliminated
when participants know that they are paired only with members of their own sex. Thus, an individual’s
willingness to volunteer is not fixed and responds to the gender composition of the group.

We interpret the differential response to the single-sex environment as evidence that the gender gap
documented in Experiment 1 is not driven by preferences but rather by the belief that women are more
likely than men to volunteer. Both men and women are less likely to volunteer when there are more
women in the group. This response to gender composition is consistent with the belief that women
more than men will volunteer. 62

By directly examining the demand side of the problem our Experiment 3 further investigates the role of
beliefs. We examine whether women more frequently are asked to volunteer than men. Modifying our
design to add a requestor who can ask one other participant to volunteer, we show that women are
asked to volunteer more than men, and that women are asked more by both men and women. The
difference in requests is consistent with the belief that women more than men accept such requests.
Confirming the role of beliefs we find that women respond more favorably to these directed requests
than do men. While requests increase volunteering for both men and women, the increase for women is
substantially larger.

Finally, Experiments 4 and 5 shed additional light on the extent to which beliefs and/or altruism drive
the gender difference in volunteering. Replicating our initial result we find in Experiment 4 direct
evidence that women are expected to volunteer more than men. Along with the findings in Experiment
5 we argue that the gender difference in volunteering is driven not by preferences but rather by the
belief that women more than men will volunteer.

In examining the allocation of tasks with low promotability, our analysis is focused on a simple
laboratory setting where decisions are anonymous, group size is small, and behavior can largely be
characterized as being one-shot. While such a setting mirrors the allocation of some low-promotability
tasks, it is of interest in future work to extend the analysis to non-anonymous settings that allow for the
62
In addition to shedding light on why men and women differ in their response to the mixed-sex sessions, the
results from Experiment 1 and 2 point to the environment in which we may expect differences in willingness to
volunteer to be severe. In particular, women may be more likely than men to volunteer in male-dominated
environments.

29
possibility of reputation building. The field evidence from industry and academia suggest that the
differences documented here may extend to such environments, and the evidence from Experiment 3
shows that when individuals are not anonymous women are more likely to be asked to invest and to
accept such requests. Initial gender differences may become self-reinforcing in repeated interactions if
they strengthen the belief that women more than men will agree to perform less-promotable tasks.
Furthermore, initial gender differences in task allocations may perpetuate themselves if the resulting
productivity differences that arise when women spend less time than men on more-promotable tasks
may make it appear to be more efficient to allocate less-promotable tasks to the seemingly ‘less-
productive’ women. Finally, future research could examine how our results extend to group sizes that
are larger than those examined here. For some tasks, groups sizes could be quite small (e.g., needing a
full professor in an academic department who conducts lab experiments to be on the IRB) whereas for
other tasks it might be quite large (e.g., needing a representative for a faculty senate committee). It is
possible that increases in group size would decrease volunteering overall (as found in prior research),
though gender differences may remain, as seen in the field study on faculty senate committees.

In our research we find that, relative to men, women are more likely to volunteer, more likely to be
asked to volunteer, and more likely to accept direct requests to volunteer. These results suggest that the
allocation of tasks with low promotability may differ even when there are no gender differences in
ability and preferences. The resulting differences in task allocations can create barriers to the
advancement of women in organizations and in society as a whole.

While the gender difference in volunteering and in requests to volunteer is disturbing, it is important to
note that the decision to perform such tasks is not made in error. If no-one else will volunteer it is, in our
setting, individually rational to do so even if it places the individual at a relative disadvantage. From the
organization’s perspective it may, however, be an error to let the acceptance of low-promotability tasks
be discretionary. If performance on high-promotability tasks is more important than performance on
low-promotability tasks then organizations should prefer to have the latter performed by those who are
least able to perform tasks with high promotability. In improving the allocation of tasks it is promising
that differential request and acceptance rates appear to be influenced by beliefs. This suggests that
small interventions can help reduce the differences in allocations of less-promotable tasks. In particular,
beliefs may be perturbed by awareness of these differences so that documenting differences and
pointing out the resulting inequities (and potential inefficiencies) may help alter the expectation that
women more than men will volunteer. Further, in modifying the mechanisms by which we assign tasks
we may also be able to reduce the effect of these differences. With homogenous skills it may be
preferable to encourage turn-taking or to enforce random assignment, rather than to ask for volunteers.
By understanding the forces that cause gender differences in task allocation it may be possible for
managers to alter beliefs and the mechanisms used to assign low-promotability tasks, and this in turn
may help improve the advancement of women.

30
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34
Appendix A. Instructions

Experiments 1 and 2

Introduction
Thank you for participating in our study. This is an experiment about decision making. The other people
in this room are also participating in the experiment. You must not talk to them or communicate with
them in any way. If you have a question please raise your hand and one of us will come to where you are
sitting to answer it.

The experiment consists of ten rounds. In each round you are randomly paired with two other
participants to form a group. You will never be paired with the same participant twice in a row. Your
decisions are anonymous; no one will be able to determine which decisions were made by you. Your
round earnings depend on the decisions made by you and by your group members. At the end of the
experiment you will be paid, in private and in cash. Your total earnings will equal the sum of your
earnings from the ten rounds plus $6 for showing up to the experiment.

Decisions
In each round you and the two other group members will have an opportunity to invest in a group
account. You and your group members will have 120 seconds to individually decide whether you want to
invest in the group account. The round ends when the 120 seconds are up or when the first group
member invests in the group account.

Earnings
If no investment is made in the group account, all members of the group will earn $1 for the round. If
one group member invests in the group account before the 120 seconds are up, then that individual
earns $1.25 for the round and the other two group members each earn $2 for the round. If two group
members simultaneously decide to invest, then it is randomly determined which of the two earns $1.25
versus $2 for the round.

Decision Screen
Below you can see a screen shot of the decision screen you will be given to make your investment
decision. Listed in the upper right corner is the number of seconds that remain of a round. To the left
you can see the round number. The red button in the center of the screen is used to make your
investment decision. Please click this button if you wish to invest. The round ends and the decision
screen disappears as soon as you or a member of your group invests in the group account.

35
Summary

1. In each round you are randomly paired with two other people in this room. You are never paired
with the same person twice in a row.
2. A round lasts 120 seconds.
3. During each round you and your group members may invest in the group account. If no one
invests you and the two other group members each earn $1 for the round. If one person invests
then that person earns $1.25 and the other two group members each earn $2.
4. The round ends once someone invests or when the 120 seconds are up

Please raise your hand if you have any questions before we begin.

36
Experiment 3

Instructions

Introduction
Thank you for participating in our study. This is an experiment about decision making. The other people
in this room are also participating in the experiment. You must not talk to them or communicate with
them in any way. If you have a question please raise your hand and one of us will come to where you are
sitting to answer you in private.

During the experiment you will make decisions in 10 rounds. In each round you will be randomly
matched with three other people to form a group of four. Your earnings will depend on the decisions
made by you and by your group members. At the end of the experiment you will be paid in private and
in cash. Your payment will equal the sum of your earnings from each of the 10 rounds plus $6 for
showing up to the experiment.

Identity and roles

We will use a photo of you to identify you. In each round we will show you the photos of the three other
people you are matched with. At the beginning of each round you and your group members will be
randomly assigned roles. One member of the group will be assigned the role of red player and the
remaining three members of the group will be assigned the role of green players. Green players form an
investment group and can make an investment. The red player cannot make an investment. The
earnings of all four group members depend on the investment choices made by the three green players.

Decisions and Earnings

In each round the three green players form an investment group and have 120 seconds to individually
decide whether to invest in the group account. The round ends when the 120 seconds are up or when
someone invests. If no one invests each group member earns $1 for the round. If a green player invests
before the 120 seconds are up, then that individual earns $1.25 for the round and the other group
members each earn $2 for the round. If multiple green players invest at the exact same time, then it is
randomly determined which player’s investment choice counts and therefore which player earns $1.25.

If you are selected to be a red player you earn $2 if a green player invests, and you earn $1 if no green
player invests. As a red player you cannot invest. However, as the red player you can ask a green player
to invest. You indicate which player you would like to ask before it is determined whether you are the
red player. That is, prior to knowing your role, all members will indicate which green player they would
like to ask to invest. When the round begins, one group member is randomly selected to be the red
player, and it is revealed which green player the red player asked to invest.

37
Group Information Screen
Below you see a screenshot of the group information screen. In the upper left corner you see the round
number. Photos of the three other members of your group are shown below. The order of photos differs
within the group. You can indicate who you would like to ask to invest by marking your preferred option.
Your choice is only revealed to the other members of your group if you are randomly assigned the role
of red player.

38
Red Player Assignment Screen
The computer randomly selects one group member to be assigned the role of red player. The remaining
three group members are assigned the role of green players. A sample of the screenshot revealing this
information is shown below. The red player’s photo is shown on the first row and photos of the three
green players forming the investment group are shown on the second row. Investments can only be
made by green players, who form the investment group. Any member of the investment group may
invest. The screen also reveals which green player the red player asked to invest in the round.

39
Decision Screen
The decision screen records your investment decision. Listed in the upper right corner is the number of
seconds that remain in a round. The button in the center of the screen is used to make your investment
decision. Please click this button if you want to invest. The round ends and the decision screen
disappears as soon as you or a member of your investment group chooses to invest.

Summary
1. The experiment consists of 10 rounds.
2. At the beginning of each round you see photos of the three other members of your group.
3. One group member is randomly assigned the role of red player and the three others are
assigned the role of green players.
4. Green players form an investment group and any green player can invest. The red player cannot
invest. All group members are affected by the green players’ investments.
5. Members of the investment group have 120 seconds to decide whether to invest. The round
ends once someone chooses to invest or when the 120 seconds are up.
6. If no one invests each group member earns $1 for the round. If someone invests, that person
earns $1.25 and the three other group members each earn $2.
7. Before selecting which member is assigned the role of red player everyone must indicate which
group member they want to ask to invest if they are selected to be the red player.
8. Before each round the computer reveals which group member was randomly selected to be a
red player and which group member was asked by the red player to invest.
9. When the round ends you learn whether an investment was made. However, you do not learn
the investment choices of your investment group members.

Please raise your hand if you have any questions before we begin.

40
Experiment 4

[ Task 1 ]
Instructions

Introduction

Thank you for participating in our study. This is an experiment about decision making. The other people
in this room are also participating in the experiment. You must not talk to them or communicate with
them in any way. If you have a question please raise your hand and one of us will come to where you are
sitting to answer it.

You will be paid for four decision tasks in today’s experiment. We will give you the details of those
decision tasks immediately before proceeding to them. Your decisions in each task is anonymous; no
one will be able to determine which decisions were made by you. At the end of the experiment you will
be paid, in private and in cash. Your total earnings will equal the sum of your earnings from your
decisions plus $6 for showing up to the experiment.

Decision Task 1

Decision task 1 will consist of five rounds. In each round you are randomly paired with two other
participants to form a group. You will never be paired with the same participant twice in a row. Your
round earnings depend on the decisions made by you and by your group members.

In each round you and the two other group members will have an opportunity to invest in a group
account. You and your group members will have 120 seconds to individually decide whether you want to
invest in the group account. The round ends when the 120 seconds are up or when the first group
member invests in the group account.

Earnings

If no investment is made in the group account, all members of the group will earn $1 for the round. If
one group member invests in the group account before the 120 seconds are up, then that individual
earns $1.25 for the round and the other two group members each earn $2 for the round. If two group
members simultaneously decide to invest, then it is randomly determined which of the two earns $1.25
versus $2 for the round.

Decision Screen

Below you can see a screen shot of the decision screen you will be given to make your investment
decision. Listed in the upper right corner is the number of seconds that remain of a round. To the left
you can see the round number. The button in the center of the screen is used to make your investment
decision. Please click this button if you wish to invest. The round ends and the decision screen
disappears as soon as you or a member of your group invests in the group account.

41
Summary

1. In each round you are randomly paired with two other people in this room. You are never paired
with the same person twice in a row.
2. A round lasts 120 seconds.
3. During each round you and your group members may invest in the group account. If no one
invests you and the two other group members each earn $1 for the round. If one person invests
then that person earns $1.25 and the other two group members each earn $2.
4. The round ends once someone invests or when the 120 seconds are up

Please raise your hand if you have any questions before we begin.

[ Task 2 – Binarized quadratic scoring rule ]

Instructions

In a previous experiment we had 21 individuals participate in a ten-round version of the Decision-Task-1

experiment you just performed. In Decision Task 2 you will have ten rounds to guess how they behaved.
Your earnings will depend on the accuracy of your guess.

42
The Original Experiment

Participants were randomly and anonymously paired in groups of 3 in each round. They did not know
who they were paired with but knew that new groups were formed randomly each round, and that they
would not be paired with the same people twice in a row. A round lasted 120 seconds and in each round
participants individually decided whether to invest in a group account. The round ended when a group
member invested or when the 120 seconds were up. If no investment was made, all members of the
group earned $1. If one group member invested before the 120 seconds were up, then that individual
earned $1.25 and the other two group members each earned $2. If two group members simultaneously
invested, then it was randomly determined which of the two earned $1.25 and $2.00. At the end of each
round participants learned whether someone in the group invested but not who the investor was.

Decision Task 2

In each round you will be shown groups that interacted in each of the ten rounds of the original
experiment, and your task is to guess whether group members invested. We will provide you with
group-member profiles and will ask you to report how likely you think it is that each group member
invested.

The group member’s profile will inform you of the individual’s age, gender, whether he or she was born
in the US, year in school (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior), and major (social sciences, business
major, or other major). Keep in mind that participants did not have this information available to them.
All decisions were anonymous. Participants only knew that they were randomly paired with other
individuals who also participated in the experiment.

With three different group members there are four possible outcomes for each group: Group member 1
invested; Group member 2 invested; Group member 3 invested; or no one invested. For each round you
will be asked to report how likely you think it is that each of these events occurred. You will submit a
guess of {p 1 , p 2 , p 3 , p 4 } that each of the four events occurred. The group you see in a given round
interacted in the corresponding round in the original experiment. In round 1 you will see the profiles of
individuals who interacted in a group in round 1 of the original experiment, and in round 2 you will see
the profiles of individuals who interacted in a group in round 2.

At the end of each round you will learn if someone in the group invested, but not which group member
invested. This corresponds to the information participants received in the original experiment. We will
not inform you about the accuracy of your guess until the end of the experiment.

Guessing

We will ask you to enter your guess in a screen similar to the one shown on the next page. Each screen
will show profiles of participants who interacted in a group. The round in which they interacted is listed
in the upper left corner of the screen. We will show you one group from each round sequentially moving
from round 1 through 10.

For each group you will be asked to report how likely you think it is that each of the four events
occurred. For each event you must submit a percent chance that the event happened. The percent
chance must be an integer between 0 and 100, and the sum must equal 100. On the right side of your

43
screen you will see a calculator icon. Feel free to click it if you wish to use a calculator. You finalize your
guess by clicking the Finalize Decision button.

Earnings

Your finalized guess will secure you a payment of either $2 or $0. For the event that actually occurred
your guess will result in a “chance-to-win.” This “chance-to-win” indicates how likely you are to win the
$2 prize. If you lose, you instead receive $0 for your guess. When you have entered your guess for each
of the four events you may push the "calculate" button to learn the “chance-to-win” you would get for
each of the four events. You can use the calculate button to understand how your guess determines
your chance-to-win. You can revise your guesses and recalculate your chance-to-win until you are ready
to finalize your guess. At the end of the experiment we will use your chance-to-win for the event that
occurred to determine your earnings.

At the end of Decision Task 2 we will determine whether you win $2 by having the computer generate
one random number between 1 and 100 for each of the ten rounds. Each of the numbers is equally
likely. You win $2 if this random number equals or falls below your “chance-to- win” for the event that
occurred, and you earn $0 if the random number exceeds your “chance-to-win.” To maximize your
earnings you want to submit a guess that secures a high chance-to-win for the events you think are most
likely, and a low chance-to-win for the events that you think are least likely.

To secure that it is in your interest to enter your best guess, we use the following procedure to calculate
your “chance-you-win.” Suppose you submitted a guess of {p 1 , p 2 , p 3 , p 4 } that each of the four events
occurred, and that we denoted the probability you attached to the event that actually occurred by 𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 .
Then your “chance-to-win” would be given by the equation: Chance-to-win = 50 ∙ ( 1 + 2𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 − 𝑤𝑤),

44
where 𝑤𝑤 is the sum of squares of the probability you attached to each event. While this equation may
look complicated, what it means for you is simple: you have the highest chance of winning $2 when you
honestly report your best guess about the probability that each of the four events occurred. The
following examples will help demonstrate how your chance-to-win is calculated.

Example 1: Imagine that you entered the guess shown below:

As seen in the rightmost column your chance to win $2 would be 100 percent if group member 1
invested, and 0 percent otherwise. To see why, note first that for the sum of squares: 𝑤𝑤 = 𝑝𝑝12 + 𝑝𝑝22 +
𝑝𝑝32 + 𝑝𝑝42 = 12 + 02 + 02 + 02 = 1. Since you attached a 100 percent chance to the event that actually
occurred, 𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 = 𝑝𝑝1 = 1, and your Chance-to-win = 50 ∙ ( 1 + 2𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 − 𝑤𝑤) = 50 ∙ ( 1 + 2 ∙ 1 − 1) = 100.
That is you would win $2 if the randomly drawn number (between 1 and 100) is less than or equal to
100. Since this always will be the case your chance to win $2 would be 100 percent.

If the event that actually occurred instead was that group member 2 invested, then the sum of squares
still equals 1, but 𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 = 𝑝𝑝2 = 0. Therefore your Chance-to-win = 50 ∙ ( 1 + 2 ∙ 0 − 1) = 0. Specifically,
you would win $2 if the randomly drawn number between 1 and 100 is less than or equal to 0. As this
will never happen, your chance to win $2 would be 0 percent.

Example 2: Imagine instead that you entered the guess shown below:

Your chance to win $2 would be 88 percent if group member 1 actually invested. To see why, note that
the sum of squares equals 𝑤𝑤 =. 62 + 02 + 0.22 + 0.22 = 0.44. Since you attached a 60 percent chance
to the event that actually occurred, 𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 = 𝑝𝑝1 = 0.6, and your Chance-to-win = 50 ∙ ( 1 + 2𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 − 𝑤𝑤) =
50 ∙ ( 1 + 2 ∙ 0.60 − 0.44) = 88. Specifically, you would win $2 if the randomly drawn number is less
than or equal to 88. Thus your chance to win $2 would be 88 percent.

45
If instead group member 2 invested, then 𝑝𝑝𝐸𝐸 = 𝑝𝑝2 = 0, and your Chance-to-win = 50 ∙ ( 1 + 2 ∙ 0 −
0.44) = 0.28. That is, you would win $2 if the randomly drawn number between 1 and 100 is less than
or equal to 28. Thus your chance to win $2 would be 28 percent.

Note that your chance-to-win does not only depend on the guess you entered for the event that actually
occurred, but also on the guesses you entered for the events that did not occur. While the finalized
guess that group member 2 invested was 0 percent in both example 1 and 2, the chance-to-win was 0
percent in example 1 and 28 percent in example 2.

Summary:

a. 21 people faced your Decision Task 1. They made decisions anonymously over ten rounds. In each
round they were paired in groups of three. They did not know who they were paired with, but knew
that they could not be paired with the same people twice in a row. Each round lasted 120 seconds.
During the round participants decided whether to invest in a group account. If no one invested
everyone earned $1 for the round. If one person invested then that person earned $1.25 and the
other two group members each earned $2. The round ended once someone invested or when the
120 seconds were up.
b. For each round you will see profiles of group members that interacted in a group in a corresponding
round of the original experiment. You will be asked to guess how likely you think it is that each of
the following events occurred: Group member 1 invested, Group member 2 invested, Group
member 3 invested, and no one in the group invested.
c. The percent chance you attach to each event must be an integer between 0 and 100.
d. The accuracy of your guess will determine your ‘chance-to-win’ $2. You get $0 if you lose.
e. Given your best guess about the likelihood that each of the four events occurred you will get the
highest chance of winning $2 when you honestly report your best guess.

Please raise your hand if you have any questions before we begin.

[ Task 2 – Rank]

Instructions

In a previous experiment we had 21 individuals participate in a ten-round version of the Decision-Task-1

experiment you just performed. In Decision Task 2 you will have ten rounds to guess how they behaved.
Your earnings will depend on the accuracy of your guess.

The Original Experiment

Participants were randomly and anonymously paired in groups of 3 in each round. They did not know
who they were paired with but knew that new groups were formed randomly each round, and that they
would not be paired with the same people twice in a row. A round lasted 120 seconds and in each round
participants individually decided whether to invest in a group account. The round ended when a group
member invested or when the 120 seconds were up. If no investment was made, all members of the
group earned $1. If one group member invested before the 120 seconds were up, then that individual
earned $1.25 and the other two group members each earned $2. If two group members simultaneously

46
invested, then it was randomly determined which of the two earned $1.25 and $2.00. At the end of each
round participants learned whether someone in the group invested but not who the investor was.

Decision Task 2

In each round you will be shown groups that interacted in each of the ten rounds of the original
experiment. With three different group members there are four possible outcomes for each group: A.
Group member 1 invested; B. Group member 2 invested; C. Group member 3 invested; or D. no one
invested. We will provide you with group-member profiles and will ask you to guess which of these
events was most likely to have occurred.

The group member’s profile will inform you of the individual’s age, gender, whether he or she was born
in the US, year in school (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior), and major (social sciences, business
major, or other major). Keep in mind that participants did not have this information available to them.
All decisions were anonymous. Participants only knew that they were randomly paired with other
individuals who also participated in the experiment.

At the end of each round you will learn if someone in the group invested, but not which group member
invested. This corresponds to the information participants received in the original experiment. You will
learn who invested at the end of the experiment.

Guessing and Earnings

We will ask you to enter your guess in a screen similar to the one shown below. Each screen will show
profiles of participants who interacted in a group. The round in which they interacted is listed in the
upper left corner of the screen. We will show you one group from each round sequentially moving from
round 1 through 10.

The four possible events are listed in the bottom part of the screen. For each group you will be asked to
report which event was most likely to occur, giving rank 1 to the most likely event and rank 4 to the least
likely event.

47
Your payment will depend on how you rank the event that actually occurred. You earn $2 if you give a
rank of 1 to the event that actually occurred; you earn $1.5 if you give it a rank of 2; $1 if you give it a
rank of 3; and finally 50 cents if you give a rank of 4 to the event that actually occurred. You maximize
your earnings by choosing a ranking that corresponds to the events you think most likely occurred.

You finalize your rank by clicking the Finalize Decision button. Once your rank is submitted a column
titled “Percent Chance” will appear next to your submitted rank. For each event you will be asked to
report how likely you think it is that each of the four events occurred. For each event you must submit a
percent chance that the event happened. The percent chance must be an integer between 0 and 100,
and the sum must equal 100. On the right side of your screen there will be a calculator icon. Feel free to
click it if you wish to use a calculator. You finalize your guess by clicking the Finalize Decision button.
Please be as accurate as you can.

Summary:

f. 21 people faced your Decision Task 1. They made decisions anonymously over ten rounds. In each
round they were paired in groups of three. They did not know who they were paired with, but knew
that they could not be paired with the same people twice in a row. Each round lasted 120 seconds.
During the round participants decided whether to invest in a group account. If no one invested
everyone earned $1 for the round. If one person invested then that person earned $1.25 and the
other two group members each earned $2. The round ended once someone invested or when the
120 seconds were up.
g. For each round you will see profiles of group members that interacted in a group in a corresponding
round of the original experiment. Four different events could have occurred for each group: Group
member 1 invested, Group member 2 invested, Group member 3 invested, and no one in the group

48
 invested. Using ranks 1 through 4 you will be asked to report which of the events were most to least
likely to have occurred.
h. You receive $2 if you give a rank of 1 to the event that actually occurred; $1.5 if you give it a rank of
2; $1 if you give it a rank of 3; and 50 cents if you give it a rank of 4.
i. You will also be asked to report how likely you think it is that each of the events occurred. The
percent chance you attach to each event must be an integer between 0 and 100.

Please raise your hand if you have any questions before we begin.

Experiment 5

Introduction

Thank you for participating in our study. This is an experiment about decision making. The other people
in this room are also participating in the experiment. You must not talk to them or communicate with
them in any way. If you have a question please raise your hand and one of us will come to where you are
sitting to answer you in private.

At the end of the experiment you will be paid, in private and in cash. Your total earnings will equal the
sum of your earnings from your decisions plus $6 for showing up to the experiment.

Decision Tasks

There will be two decision tasks in today’s experiment. We will describe the tasks immediately before
you face them. The main task will be Decision Task 1 which will require you to make decisions over a
sequence of ten rounds. In each round you are randomly paired with two other participants to form a
group. You will never be paired with the same participant twice in a row. Your round earnings depend
on the decisions made by you or on the decisions made by one of your group members. We will
randomly determine whose decision counts for payment.

We will use the information you provided at the beginning of the experiment to create your individual
profile. In each round, you will be shown the individual profiles of the two other group members you are
paired with. You will then for each round have to make 6 choices between an A and a B option. Each
decision results in specific earnings for you and for the two other group members. We will ask you to
enter your A/B choice in a screen similar to the one shown below. The round is listed in the upper left
corner of the screen. Below are profiles of three members of your group (including your profile), finally
at the bottom of the screen are the six decisions you are asked to make for the round. For each decision
you must enter an A or B choice. You finalize your choice by clicking the OK button.

49
Each member of your group will make decisions similar to the one you are making. At the end of the
experiment we will for each round randomly select a group member and decision number to count for
payment. If for a round one of your six decisions are selected and you chose Option A then you will
make $1.25 and the other members of your group will each make $2. If you chose Option B then the
payments for that round will depend on which decision was selected. You will be paid for each of the ten
rounds.

At the end of the experiment you will learn whether for each round one of your decisions counted for
payment, or whether the decision by another group member counted for payment. You will also learn
which decision number was chosen and what your earnings were for each round.

Even though you make decisions seeing the profiles of the other members of your group, the profile of
the individual whose choice is randomly selected to be realized in each round will not be revealed to
anyone. Others will therefore not know whether your choice was implemented.

Summary

a. Decision Task 1 consists of ten rounds.

b. In each round you are randomly paired with two other people in this room.
c. You will each face six decisions for which you must choose between an A and a B option.
d. At the end of the experiment we will for each round randomly select one member of your group
and one of their six decisions to be carried out.
e. At the end of the experiment you will learn for each round whether one of your decisions was
carried out, which decision number counted for payment, and what your earnings were.
f. If your decision is not implemented you will not learn whose decision was implemented.

Please raise your hand if you have any questions before we proceed with Decision Task 1.

50
Appendix B

Table B1. Distribution of investment times, Experiment 1

Seconds remaining at time of Relative frequency of investments
investment Round 1-10 Round 1-5 Round 6-10
Less than 1 12.4 4.5 21.0
1 44.9 33.0 58.0
2 12.6 20.4 4.0
3-10 6.7 10.4 2.5
11-20 0.5 0.5 0.5
21-30 0.2 0.0 0.5
31-40 0.7 1.4 0.0
41-50 1.0 1.8 0.0
51-60 1.0 1.4 0.5
61-70 1.4 1.4 1.5
71-80 0.5 0.9 0.0
81-90 1.0 1.4 0.5
91-100 2.4 4.1 0.5
101-110 2.6 3.6 1.5
111-120 12.4 15.4 9.0
Percent groups investing 84.2 88.4 80
Total number of group decisions 500 250 250

Table B2. Probability of investing (probit), Experiment 1

All rounds Rounds 1-5 Rounds 6-10 All rounds All rounds
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Female 0.114*** 0.108*** 0.121*** 0.0877** 0.095**
(0.002) (0.006) (0.008) (0.038) (0.023)
Round -0.006* -0.009 -0.009 -0.007** -0.007**
(0.051) (0.406) (0.356) (0.047) (0.046)
Non-conformity -0.017 -0.012
(0.492) (0.653)
Risk-seeking -0.030 -0.032
(0.151) (0.116)
Altruism 0.014 0.008
(0.578) (0.759)
Agreeable -0.021 -0.021
(0.549) (0.531)
Age 0.026
(0.512)
Non-Caucasian -0.033
(0.457)
Year in school -0.001
(0.982)
US born -0.048
(0.476)
Session dummies Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
N 1500 750 750 1500 1500
Dependent variable: Individual investment decision (1-invest, 0-don’t invest). The table presents
marginal effects. Standard errors are clustered on the individual. P-values are reported in
parentheses. 150 participants.

51
 Table B3. Distribution of investment times, Experiment 2
Seconds remaining Frequency of investments
at time of investment Round 1-10 Round 1-5 Round 6-10
Less than 1 13.0 6.3 21.6
1 43.8 40.9 47.5
2 18.4 22.2 13.7
3-10 5.4 8.5 1.4
11-20 0.0 0.0 0.0
21-30 1.3 0.6 0.0
31-40 1.3 1.1 2.2
41-50 0.6 1.1 1.4
51-60 1.0 1.7 0.0
61-70 1.0 1.1 0.7
71-80 0.3 0.6 0.0
81-90 0.6 1.1 0.0
91-100 1.3 1.7 0.7
101-110 1.9 2.3 1.4
111-120 10.2 10.8 9.4
Percent of groups investing 80.8 90.3 71.3
Total number of group decisions 390 195 195

Table B4. Distribution of investment times, Experiment 3

Seconds remaining at time of Relative frequency of investments
investment Round 1-10 Round 1-5 Round 6-10
Less than 1 1.6 1.1 2.2
1 23.5 16.0 31.2
2 15.0 14.9 15.1
3-10 10.7 11.7 9.7
11-20 1.1 2.1 0.0
21-30 1.6 2.1 1.1
31-40 0.0 0.0 0.0
51-60 0.5 1.1 0.0
61-70 1.1 1.1 1.1
71-80 1.6 1.1 2.2
81-90 2.7 3.2 2.2
91-100 4.3 6.4 2.2
101-110 3.2 5.3 1.1
111-120 33.2 34.0 32.3
Percent groups investing 93.5 94.0 93.0
Total number of group decisions 200 100 100

52
Table B5. Requests received via the strategy method (OLS), Experiment 3
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Female 2.476* 2.521* 2.792* 2.370*
(0.070) (0.070) (0.070) (0.070)
Non-Caucasian -1.307 -1.196 -1.082 -0.981
(0.114) (0.222) (0.222) (0.386)
N communicate with 2.880*** 2.831 2.982
(0.000) (0.118) (0.118)
Non-conformity 1.150*** 1.119***
(0.000) (0.000)
Risk-seeking 0.020 -0.303
(0.358) (0.494)
Altruism 0.349*** 0.189
(0.000) (0.610)
Agreeable 0.625 0.884
(0.442) (0.442)
Constant 9.012*** 8.599*** 0.383 2.990
(0.000) (0.000) (0.472) (0.974)
N 80 80 80 80
Dependent Variable: Total requests received. N communicate with refers to the
number of subjects who reported the subject as someone they communicate with.
Column 3 uses survey measures of risk-seeking and altruism, column 4 uses
incentivized measures. P-values are in parentheses. Standard errors are clustered at
the session level using wild bootstrapping procedures that test the null hypothesis
that the coefficient on female equals zero. 80 participants.

53
 Table B6. Probability of asking someone to invest (multinomial probit), Experiment 3
(1) (2) (3) (4)
All rounds Rounds 1-5 Rounds 6-10 All rounds
Left Middle Right Left Middle Right Left Middle Right Left Middle Right
Left gm female 0.074*** -0.034** -0.041*** 0.064* -0.038* -0.027** 0.128*** -0.069** -0.059** 0.075** -0.036** -0.039***
(0.003) (0.012) (0.004) (0.053) (0.095) (0.043) (0.001) (0.014) (0.040) (0.010) (0.036) (0.009)
Middle gm female -0.034** 0.078*** -0.044*** -0.038* 0.058* -0.020 -0.069** 0.103*** -0.034 -0.036** 0.082*** -0.046***
(0.012) (0.002) (0.003) (0.096) (0.082) (0.133) (0.014) (0.005) (0.219) (0.036) (0.002) (0.003)
Right gm female -0.041*** -0.044*** 0.085*** -0.027** -0.020 0.047* -0.059** -0.034 0.093** -0.039*** -0.046*** 0.085***
(0.004) (0.003) (0.001) (0.043) (0.133) (0.053) (0.040) (0.219) (0.022) (0.009) (0.003) (0.001)
Left gm Non-Caucasian -0.038* 0.017* 0.021* -0.043 0.025 0.018 -0.047 0.025 0.022 -0.038* 0.018* 0.020*
(0.058) (0.081) (0.059) (0.210) (0.211) (0.246) (0.212) (0.252) (0.239) (0.057) (0.082) (0.065)
Middle gm Non-Caucasian 0.017* -0.040* 0.023* 0.025 -0.039 0.013 0.025 -0.038 0.013 0.018* -0.042* 0.023
(0.081) (0.073) (0.088) (0.211) (0.226) (0.299) (0.252) (0.257) (0.403) (0.082) (0.070) (0.107)
Right gm Non-Caucasian 0.021* 0.023* -0.044* 0.018 0.013 -0.032 0.022 0.013 -0.034 0.020* 0.023 -0.043*
(0.059) (0.088) (0.061) (0.246) (0.299) (0.251) (0.239) (0.403) (0.257) (0.065) (0.107) (0.068)
Left gm communicate with 0.358*** -0.162*** -0.197*** 0.553** -0.323** -0.230** 0.269 -0.146 -0.124 0.354*** -0.171** -0.183***
(0.002) (0.008) (0.005) (0.011) (0.017) (0.038) (0.217) (0.285) (0.203) (0.007) (0.025) (0.009)
Middle gm communicate with -0.162*** 0.376*** -0.214** -0.323** 0.495*** -0.172** -0.146 0.218 -0.072 -0.171** 0.389*** -0.218**
(0.008) (0.005) (0.013) (0.018) (0.005) (0.027) (0.285) (0.334) (0.489) (0.025) (0.004) (0.013)
Right gm communicate with -0.197*** -0.214** 0.411*** -0.230** -0.172** 0.402** -0.124 -0.072 0.195 -0.183*** -0.218** 0.401***
(0.005) (0.013) (0.003) (0.038) (0.027) (0.012) (0.203) (0.489) (0.306) (0.009) (0.013) (0.003)
Round -0.005 0.003 0.002 0.021 0.008 -0.029** 0.007 -0.001 -0.006 -0.004 0.002 0.002
(0.360) (0.583) (0.699) (0.242) (0.524) (0.016) (0.635) (0.945) (0.448) (0.418) (0.718) (0.663)
Session dummies No No No Yes
N obs. 2,400 1,200 1,200 2,400
N cases 800 400 400 800
Dependent variable: Request decision (1-request, 0-no request). There are three possible request choices: left, middle, or right group member (gm). They refer to
the location of the photograph of the group member on the decision screen of the subject making the request decision. Marginal effects presented in the table.
Standard errors clustered on the individual. P-values reported in parentheses. 80 participants.

54
 Table B7. Probability of investing (probit): All green players, Experiment 3
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Asked to invest 0.386*** 0.391*** 0.376*** 0.389*** 0.391*** 0.376***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Female 0.100 0.986*** 0.737*** 0.105 0.989*** 0.783***
(0.292) (0.000) (0.006) (0.261) (0.000) (0.001)
Round 0.007 0.008 0.006 0.008 0.008 0.007
(0.403) (0.387) (0.474) (0.387) (0.356) (0.426)
Non-conformity 0.0967 0.0843 0.102 0.0905
(0.126) (0.139) (0.114) (0.127)
Risk-seeking 0.063 -0.031** 0.0608 -0.029**
(0.280) (0.031) (0.276) (0.033)
Altruism 0.174** 0.062* 0.172** 0.062*
(0.030) (0.084) (0.025) (0.072)
Agreeable 0.0415 0.0592 0.0494 0.0704
(0.521) (0.324) (0.476) (0.284)
Female X asked 0.297*** 0.174*** 0.207*** 0.295*** 0.174*** 0.196***
(0.002) (0.000) (0.000) (0.003) (0.000) (0.000)
Female X round -0.016 -0.008 -0.011 -0.016 -0.008 -0.010
(0.140) (0.286) (0.306) (0.142) (0.280) (0.308)
Female X non-conformity -0.049 -0.084 -0.051 -0.084
(0.309) (0.262) (0.307) (0.262)
Female X risk-seeking -0.03598 0.005 -0.038 0.005
(0.401) (0.680) (0.385) ( 0.682)
Female X altruism -0.069 -0.013 -0.066 -0.012
(0.288) (0.798) (0.317) (0.784)
Female X agreeable -0.033 -0.058 -0.038 -0.061
(0.485) (-0.920) (0.438) (0.362)
Session dummies No No No Yes Yes Yes
Inc. risk and altruism N/A No Yes N/A No Yes
N 600 600 600 600 600 600
Dependent variable: Individual investment decision (1-invest, 0-don’t invest). Marginal effects presented in
the table. Standard errors clustered on the individual. P-values reported in parentheses. The coefficient and
standard error on the interactions are corrected to account for the nonlinear nature of the estimation. 80
participants.

55
Table B8. Distribution of investment times, Experiment 4 Task 1
Seconds remaining at time of Relative frequency of investments
investment Round 1-5
Less than 1 1.32
1 40.09
2 22.03
3-10 12.33
11-20 2.2
21-30 0.88
31-40 0.88
51-60 1.76
61-70 1.32
71-80 1.76
81-90 2.64
91-100 1.76
101-110 3.52
111-120 7.49
Percent groups investing 92.7
Total number of group decisions 245

Table B9. Probability of investing (probit), Experiment 4 Task 1

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Female 0.082** 0.106*** 0.082** 0.110***
(0.045) (0.010) (0.047) (0.008)
Round -0.0104 -0.012 -0.0104 -0.012
(0.319) (0.321) (0.317) (0.318)
Risk-seeking -0.021** -0.021**
(0.015) (0.018)
Altruism 0.043*** 0.045***
(0.008) (0.008)
Session dummies No No Yes Yes
N 735 735 735 735
Dependent variable: Individual investment decision (1-invest, 0-don’t invest).
Incentivized measures or risk-seeking and altruism included in columns 2 and
4. Marginal effects presented in the table. Standard errors clustered on the
individual. P-values reported in parentheses. 147 participants.

56
 Table B10. Probability of assigning the highest investment belief to a group member profile, Experiment 4 Task 2
BQSR - belief Rank - belief
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Left gm Middle gm Right gm Left gm Middle gm Right gm Left gm Middle gm Right gm Left gm Middle gm Right gm
Left gm female 0.065** -0.034** -0.031* 0.069** -0.034** -0.034** 0.082* -0.047* -0.036 0.105** -0.065** -0.04
(0.044) (0.048) (0.055) (0.017) (0.021) (0.024) (0.056) (0.057) (0.113) (0.031) (0.019) (0.153)
Middle gm female -0.034** 0.135*** -0.101*** -0.034** 0.140*** -0.105*** -0.047* 0.072* -0.026 -0.065** 0.091** -0.026
(0.048) (0.000) (0.000) (0.021) (0.000) (0.000) (0.057) (0.065) (0.146) (0.019) (0.031) (0.167)
Right gm female -0.031* -0.101*** 0.132*** -0.034** -0.105*** 0.140*** -0.036 -0.026 0.061 -0.04 -0.026 0.065
(0.055) (0.000) (0.000) (0.024) (0.000) (0.000) (0.113) (0.146) (0.104) (0.153) (0.167) (0.138)
Left gm age 19 or more -0.081* 0.041* 0.041* -0.075 0.046 0.028
(0.062) (0.072) (0.069) (0.549) (0.581) (0.501)
Middle gm age 19 or more 0.041* -0.165** 0.125** 0.046 -0.065 0.018
(0.072) (0.025) (0.026) (0.581) (0.562) (0.520)
Right gm age 19 or more 0.041* 0.125** -0.165** 0.028 0.018 -0.046
(0.069) (0.026) (0.023) (0.501) (0.520) (0.504)
Left gm US born -0.115*** 0.057*** 0.058** -0.284*** 0.177** 0.108***
(0.009) (0.008) (0.020) (0.004) (0.043) (0.006)
Middle gm US born 0.057*** -0.234*** 0.176*** 0.177** -0.246** 0.069**
(0.008) (0.000) (0.000) (0.043) (0.014) (0.021)
Right gm US born 0.058** 0.176*** -0.234*** 0.108*** 0.069** -0.177***
(0.020) (0.000) (0.000) (0.006) (0.021) (0.002)
Left gm Sophomore 0.050 -0.025 -0.025 -0.018 0.011 0.007
(0.195) (0.201) (0.201) (0.862) (0.860) (0.865)
Middle gm Sophomore -0.025 0.103 -0.077 0.011 -0.016 0.004
(0.201) (0.139) (0.134) (0.860) (0.862) (0.867)
Right gm Sophomore -0.025 -0.077 0.103 0.007 0.004 -0.011
(0.201) (0.134) (0.137) (0.865) (0.867) (0.866)
Left gm business major -0.004 0.002 0.002 0.003 -0.002 -0.001
(0.870) (0.869) (0.870) (0.973) (0.973) (0.973)
Middle gm business major 0.002 -0.008 0.006 -0.002 0.002 -0.001
(0.869) (0.869) (0.869) (0.973) (0.973) (0.973)
Right gm business major 0.002 0.006 -0.008 -0.001 -0.001 0.002
(0.870) (0.869) (0.869) (0.973) (0.973) (0.973)
Left gm other major 0.018 -0.009 -0.009 0.016 -0.01 -0.006
(0.357) (0.366) (0.355) (0.759) (0.763) (0.756)
Middle gm other major -0.009 0.037 -0.028 -0.01 0.014 -0.004
(0.366) (0.332) (0.328) (0.763) (0.762) (0.762)
Right gm other major -0.009 -0.028 0.037 -0.006 -0.004 0.01
(0.355) (0.328) (0.328) (0.756) (0.762) (0.758)
Round -0.012 0.006 0.006 -0.012*** 0.004 0.007 0.008 0.002 -0.010 0.012 0.001 -0.013
(0.011) (0.364) (0.282) (0.006) (0.485) (0.199) (0.405) (0.821) (0.171) (0.200) (0.867) (0.060)
N cases 1,752 1,752 1,164 1,164
N obs. 584 584 388 388
Dependent variable: Maximum profile belief (1-maximum belief, 0-not maximum belief). There are three possible maximum profile belief choices: left, middle, or
right group member (gm). They refer to the location of the group member profile presented on the decision screen of the subject making the belief elicitation
decision. Marginal effects presented in the table. Standard errors clustered on the individual making the belief decisions. P-values reported in parentheses. Because
the model excluded cases in which there are ties in maximum beliefs, there are 82 participants in the BQSR-belief, and 57 participants in the Rank-belief.

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Appendix C

Individual measures of preferences and personality attributes

At the end of each experiment we elicited individual measures of non-conformity, risk-seeking, altruism,
and agreeableness. This appendix describes the methods used to elicit these measures and to construct
the variables used as controls in our regressions.

Non-conformity

We measure non-conformity using a 3-item social risk measure following Weber, Blais, and Betz (2002).
The 3 items we elicit are: (1) willingness to admit that tastes differ from those of others; (2) willingness
to argue with a friend on an issue in which the participant has a very different opinion; and (3)
willingness to speak up against an unpopular issue on a social occasion. Answers range in values
between 1-5 and increase with willingness not to conform. We average the response to the three items
to construct our measure of non-conformity.

Risk -seeking

To elicit survey measures of risk preferences we follow Dohmen et al. (2011). Participants answer the
following question using a 5-scale answer: “How do you see yourself, are you generally a person who is
fully prepared to take risks or do you try to avoid taking risks?”. To elicit incentivized measures of risk
preferences we use a 6 gamble version of Eckel and Grossman (2002) in Experiments 1 and 2, and a
multiple price list similar to Holt and Laury (2002) in Experiments 3-5.

We changed the incentivized risk elicitation task after Experiment 2 to better capture the risk associated
with decisions in this study. While the task used in Experiments 1 and 2 asked participants to make
choices between lotteries that paid between $1 and $32 dollars (with an expected value of $14-$17),
the multiple price list asked participants to choose between receiving $1.25 for certain or selecting a
gamble that pays $1 with probability p and $2 with probability 1-p. Thirteen binary decisions were
presented to participants in the multiple price list. Probability p decreased across decisions in the list to
identify the value of p for which participants prefer the gamble ($1, p; $2, 1-p) over $1.25 for certain.

We construct the risk-seeking variables used in the paper using the raw choices made by respondents in
both the survey and Eckel and Grossman (2002) task. In the multiple price list we identify the decision in
which participants switch from choosing the safe option to choosing the risky option and reverse score
the switching point. We use the first switching point to construct our risk-seeking measure, but results
are unchanged if we use the last switching point instead.

Altruism

We use the 3-item principle of care construct by Wilhelm and Bekkers (2010) to elicit survey measures
of altruism. We average the responses provided by participants, which range in values between 1 and 5.
In Experiments 3 and 4 we also elicit an incentivized measure of altruism using a price list similar to the
one presented to participants in Experiment 5 (Table 7), but without disclosing any information about
group members. Experiment 3 had 4-person groups while Experiment 4 had 3-person groups. The payoff
table varied between experiments only in that the additional group member in Experiment 3 received
the same payoff as group member 2 in each choice option. The price list in both experiments asks

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participants to make 6 binary decisions between two payoff distributions for group members. We
identify the decision in which respondents switch from making the altruistic group payoff maximizing
choice to making the selfish choice to construct our incentivized measure of altruism. We use the first
switching point in the analysis but results are unchanged if we use the last switching point instead.

Agreeableness

To elicit a measure of agreeableness we used the 9-item agreeableness subscale of the Big Five
Personality Scale (John and Srivastava, 1995). We average the answers provided to each of the 9
questions, reverse scoring answers when appropriate.

Table C1. Spearman correlation between variables, Experiments 1-4

N invest Female Non-conform Risk seeking Inc. risk seeking Altruism Inc. Altruism N asked
Experiment 1
Female 0.240***
Non-conformity -0.142* -0.282*** 1.000
Risk seeking -0.206** -0.319* 0.336*** 1.000
Inc. risk seeking -0.114 -0.277*** 0.278*** 0.251*** 1.000
Altruism 0.054 0.05 0.052 -0.072 0.053 1.000
Agreeable 0.004 0.094 -0.182** -0.074 -0.014 0.273*** N/A N/A
Experiment 2
Female 0.018 1.000
Non-conformity 0.023 -0.137 1.000
Risk-seeking -0.205** -0.099 0.324*** 1.000
Inc. risk-seeking -0.166* -0.337*** -0.063 0.181* 1.000
Altruism 0.223** 0.102 0.054 -0.116 -0.092 1.000
Agreeable 0.122 0.067 -0.134 -0.049 -0.081 0.361*** N/A N/A
Experiment 3
N invest 1.000 0.493***
Female 0.298* 1.000 0.313***
Non-conformity 0.164 -0.1964* 1.000 0.158
Risk seeking -0.052 -0.322*** 0.189* 1.000 -0.055
Inc. risk seeking -0.300*** -0.315*** 0.073 0.378*** 1.000 -0.204*
Altruism 0.157 -0.056 0.019 -0.031 -0.124 1.000 0.111
Inc. altruism 0.174 -0.092 0.185 0.055 -0.207** 0.005 1.000 0.102
Agreeable -0.007 0.110 -0.114 0.008 0.097 0.234** -0.0782 0.079
Experiment 4 (Task1)
Female 0.154* 1.000
Inc. risk seeking -0.216*** -0.061 N/A N/A 1.000
Inc. altruism 0.120 -0.189* N/A N/A -0.141* N/A 1.000 N/A
N invest refers to the number of times an individual invested in a session. N asked refers to the number of times an individual
was asked to invest in a session of Experiment 3. N=150 in all cells of Experiment 1, except those that compare incentivized risk
seeking with other variables. We possess no incentivized risk seeking measure for 30 subjects, so N=120 when the incentivized
risk seeking measure is used. N=117 in all cells of Experiment 2, except those that compare incentivized risk seeking with other
variables. We possess no incentivized risk seeking measure for two subjects, so N=115 when the incentivized risk seeking
measure is used. N=80 in all cells of Experiment 3. N=147 in all cells of Experiment 4. Survey measures of preferences and
personality attributes were not collected in Experiment 4. There are 10 investment rounds in Experiments 1-3 and 5 investment
rounds in Task 1 of Experiment 4. Correlation coefficients reported in table. * p<0.10, **p<0.05, ***p<0.01.

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