Choosing tournament for children: Parenting style and information intervention

Abstract

Information plays a crucial role in shaping parental decisions on nurturing their children's skills. However, empirical evidence is scarce on how parents determine their parenting style in response to information. To address this gap, we conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment focusing on the context of competitiveness. Our findings highlight a noticeable gender disparity in parental decision-making regarding participation in tournament schemes for children. Specifically, parents exhibit a significantly stronger inclination towards tournament schemes for boys than girls. Furthermore, our results indicate that the provision of information has a significant impact on parents' parenting styles. Interestingly, parents' response to information suggests a greater emphasis on promoting children's autonomy in competition rather than monetary rewards potentially obtained from the task. Analysis of the children's experiments reveals that parents valuing autonomy positively influence their children's motivation to enhance performance. Lastly, we observe a gender-based heterogeneity in the effect of information intervention, with a stronger influence observed among parents of boys compared to parents of girls. Our experiment underscores the importance of children's autonomy as a motivational factor and highlights the effectiveness of authoritative parenting. Additionally, our findings emphasize the role of information in updating biased beliefs, which can help mitigate the gender gap.