Gender, Emotions, and Tournament Performance in the Laboratory

Brianna Halladay

doi:10.3390/g8030026

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.

Highlights

Many employees face competition within the workplace
The average rating of feelings towards the matched opponent over all treatments was 2.9 and the average assigned rating across all group members was 2.89.5 Table 1 presents the breakdown of opponent ratings by treatment, while Table 2 presents the breakdown of opponent ratings by gender
Finding 1: Higher contributions do lead to higher ratings: My data confirm that individuals view low contributions negatively

Summary

Introduction

Many employees face competition within the workplace. Job promotions, awards such as employee of the month or incentive pay for top performers are a few of the common tournament structures employed in many workplaces. employee interaction outside of the workplace is increasingly common.A study recently published by Millennial Branding found that individuals between the ages of 18 and 29 are friends with an average of 16 co-workers on Facebook. Garcia et al (2013) [3] cite determined personal history as a potential influence on competitive behavior. Many employees face competition within the workplace. Job promotions, awards such as employee of the month or incentive pay for top performers are a few of the common tournament structures employed in many workplaces.. Employee interaction outside of the workplace is increasingly common. A study recently published by Millennial Branding found that individuals between the ages of 18 and 29 are friends with an average of 16 co-workers on Facebook.. Garcia et al (2013) [3] cite determined personal history as a potential influence on competitive behavior. The authors note that situational factors can come into play where comparison and competitiveness are found within what the authors label “Social Category Fault Lines.”

Results

Discussion

Conclusion