Publications
"Experimental Methods: Pay One or Pay All" with Gary Charness & Uri Gneezy (Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization)
Abstract: In some experiments participants make multiple decisions; this feature facilitates gathering a considerable amount of incentivized data over the course of a compact session. A conservative payment scheme is to pay for the outcome from every decision made. An alternative approach is to pay for the outcome of only a subset of the choices made, with the amount at stake for this choice multiplied to compensate for the decreased likelihood of that choice’s outcome being drawn for payoff. This “pay one” approach can help to avoid wealth effects, hedging, and bankruptcy considerations. A third method is to pay only a subset of the participants for their choices, thereby minimizing transactions costs. While the evidence on differences across payment methods is mixed, overall it suggests that paying for only a subset of periods or individuals is at least as effective as the "pay all" approach and can well be more effective. We further the discussion about how to best choose an incentive structure when designing an experiment.
"Gender, Emotions, and Tournament Performance in the Laboratory" (Games)
Abstract: Individuals face competitive environments daily, and it is important to understand how emotions affect behavior in these environments and resulting economic consequences. Using a two-stage laboratory experiment, I analyze the role of reported emotions in tournament performance and assess how the behavioral response differs across genders. The first stage serves to induce emotions, while the second stage presents the subject with a one-on-one winner-take-all tournament with the individual who generated the feeling, using a real-effort task. Ultimately, I show that women respond to the negative feelings more strongly than men. I find that women increase performance when experiencing negative emotions, while male performance remains unaffected. Remarkably, there is no gender gap in tournament performance when there are negative emotions.
"BE and EE: Cousins but not Twins" with Gary Charness (Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy)
Abstract: While behavioral economics and experimental economics are largely aligned and share many similarities, they also share differences. Behavioral economics is a collection of theories and models while experimental economics is a tool. The clear union of behavioral and experimental economics allows for a continual growth of knowledge. Behavioral models are refined through observed behavior in the laboratory and observed laboratory behavior yields new behavioral models. Behavioral and experimental economics can very much follow a cycle. Both have become valuable tools to policy makers around the world.
"Perception Matters: The Role of Task Gender Stereotype on Confidence and Tournament Selection" with Rachel Landsman
(Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization)
Abstract: Women avoid competition even when they can benefit from potential rewards. It may be that a gender difference in beliefs about future performance drives this gap. Using a laboratory experiment, we analyze differences in tournament entry using a male-stereotyped task and a female stereotyped task. We find that while women enter the tournament significantly less than men under the male stereotyped task, this gender gap in willingness to compete closes and reverses under the female stereotyped task. This suggests the effect of competitiveness on gender is not exclusively about a difference in preference for competition, but may be consistent with a difference in beliefs about future performance.
"Shame on Me: Emotions and Gender Differences in Taking with Earned Endowments" with Rachel Landsman
(Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics)
Abstract: We study gender differences in a taking-framed dictator game. We expand on past studies documenting gender differences in the taking-framed dictator game by asking whether gender differences persist when endowments are earned. We find a strong and robust gender effect. Women take less than men both in terms of overall amounts and share taken. We further elicit emotions following the taking game. Shame is positively correlated with taking behavior; this could be a contributing factor to taking aversion documented in the literature. Interestingly we do not observe gender differences in reported emotions or emotional intensity by either dictators or receivers.
"Anchoring of Political Attitudes" with Courtney Broscious and Rachel Landsman
(Economics Letters)
Abstract: This paper studies the malleability of individuals’ political attitudes to simple anchors. Using an online survey experiment, we provide participants with the policy preference of one anonymous previous survey respondent. We exogenously vary whether participants are shown a Republican-aligned or Democrat-aligned response. We demonstrate that anchoring has a significant effect on an individual’s stated political attitudes even with this minimal anchor. Our results support the susceptibility of individuals to be easily persuaded through strategic anchoring.
"Choice Flexibility and Decision to Compete" with Elif Demiral (Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization)
Abstract: Persistent gender gaps in economic outcomes and leadership representation remain a major challenge. One contributing factor is the lower propensity of women to enter competitive environments, a behavioral difference shown to impact career advancement and earnings. In this study, we examine whether introducing flexibility in compensation decisions—specifically, the ability to revise one’s choice between piece rate and tournament after task completion—can reduce gender differences in willingness to compete. We experimentally vary both the availability and timing of this flexibility: some participants learn ex-ante that they may revise their choice, while others are surprised ex-post. Our results show that surprise flexibility can impact the gender gap in tournament entry, helping slightly more women to switch into competition after task completion. In contrast, when participants are informed in advance, the gender gap slightly widens, as men respond more assertively to the competitive option. These findings highlight how the structure and timing of choice flexibility can shape competitive behavior.
Working Papers
"Gender Perceptions of Common Real-Effort Tasks" with Rachel Landsman
(Revise & Resubmit at the Journal of the Economic Science Association)
Abstract: Experimental economics research frequently uses real-effort tasks to study gender-related questions. The ability to draw conclusions relies on using tasks that correctly induce the targeted gender stereotype. This paper formalizes the gender perceptions of these common real-effort tasks and discusses results from an online survey eliciting gender stereotypes. We find that math tasks and verbal tasks carry only weak male and female stereotypes, respectively. In contrast, emotion recognition tasks carry a much stronger female stereotype. More importantly, we find substantial disagreement among participants’ reported beliefs in the gender stereotyping across many of the tasks studied. Using our survey results, we demonstrate that high variance in reported beliefs paired with a weak gender stereotype may cause researchers to fail to induce their chosen stereotype even in large experimental samples. We caution researchers about assuming they have effectively induced their intended gender priming without conducting sample-specific surveys of participant beliefs.
Work in Progress
"Ability Beliefs and Social Acceptability of Real-Effort Tasks" with Rachel Landsman and Erin Giffin
Abstract: Real-effort tasks have often been used to study gender-related questions within experimental economic research. Yet, little is known about whether the stereotypes they actually evoke align with the mechanisms these studies aim to test. To date, research using gendered real-effort tasks has largely focused on varying which gender is perceived to have an advantage at the task. However, work in social psychology and sociology distinguishes between stereotypes about ability (descriptive) and social acceptability (pre/proscriptive). We present results from a survey experiment measuring both the descriptive and pre/proscriptive stereotypes of commonly-used real-effort tasks and show that these stereotypes are not necessarily interchangeable. Some commonly used tasks which elicit descriptive stereotypes are largely neutral with respect to pre/proscriptive stereotypes. Additionally, we show that the relationship between descriptive and pre/proscriptive stereotypes is different for men than it is for women.
"Gendered Outcome Bias" with Rachel Landsman and Erin Giffin
Abstract: Recent empirical studies have shown differences in the punishment and rewarding of men and women following uncertain outcomes that are due to both luck and the agent’s actions. Many studies have shown that men tend to be rewarded following unexpected good outcomes while women tend to be punished more frequently following unexpected bad outcomes. It is unclear whether these gender differences are due to a difference in how male versus female agent’s outcomes are attributed to their actions (outcome bias) or whether they simply stem from a difference in a desire to punish/reward male versus female agents. We build on this literature by designing an experimental study to disentangle these competing mechanisms. We ask whether gender differences in rewards/punishments are due to differences in outcome bias depending on agent gender or differences in punishment preferences dependent on the agent’s gender.
"The effect of gender and framing on dictator decisions with non-WEIRD participants" with Rachel Landsman, Amy Wolaver, John Doces, and Jack Goldberg
Abstract: This study presents results from a double-blind dictator game lab-in-the-field experiment in Côte d’Ivoire. We manipulate the framing of the dictator decision from giving to taking using an envelope system in which participants either move money out of their envelope into their partner’s envelope or move money from their partner’s envelope into their envelope. We examine the effect of framing on dictator decisions and study whether the effects of framing differ by gender. We discuss how these results compare to those from studies run using WEIRD participants. Data collection will be completed in March 2022. We anticipate having results shortly thereafter.
"Hispanic College Graduates in Connecticut: The Psychology of Major Choice and Wage Differentials" with Maryanne Clifford and Margaret Letterman
"The Role of Task Stereotype on Effort Attribution Decisions"