Gender Differences In Confidence Research Articles

Signaling confidence

We study gender differences in confidence in an experimental hiring market, focusing on how signaling confidence affects the likelihood of being hired. We document that moderate (versus low) levels of confidence enhance the probability of being hired, while excessive confidence, characterized by high performance estimates and high certainty, diminishes employment prospects. Men display greater levels of confidence than women, and this gender gap widens in forward-looking scenarios, where performance estimates are provided ex ante rather than ex post. These findings provide a cautionary reminder of the potential negative consequences of signaling excessive confidence. Hence, encouraging both men and women to signal performance predictions that are aligned with reality instead of simply advising women to be more confident may well be a safer way to foster equity in labor market outcomes.

Strategic Competition and Self-Confidence

This study tests the hypothesis that competitive strategic interactions foster overconfidence. We experimentally compare a strategic environment in which players have an incentive to overstate their own ability to deter competitors and avoid competition with a nonstrategic environment in which these incentives are removed. Subsequently, we measure the participants’ confidence. Overconfidence persists in the former environment but vanishes in the latter. We provide evidence for three mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of overconfidence. First, participants who win uncontested update their confidence as if they had won in an actual competition. Second, by contrast, participants who do not compete do not update their confidence, thus creating an asymmetry in updating. Third, inflated ability messages are “contagious” because they affect positively how their receivers update their confidence. We provide empirical evidence on the role of these mechanisms to explain the Dunning–Kruger effect and gender differences in confidence. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4688 .

Gender differences in confidence during number-line estimation

Prior research has found gender differences in spatial tasks in which men perform better, and are more confident, than women. Do gender differences also occur in people’s confidence as they perform number-line estimation, a common spatial-numeric task predictive of math achievement? To investigate this question, we analyzed outcomes from six studies (N = 758 girls/women and boys/men with over 20,000 observations; grades 1–5 and adults) that involved a similar method: Participants estimated where a provided number (e.g., ¾, 37) was located on a bounded number line (e.g., 0–1; 0–100), then judged their confidence in that estimate. Boys/men were more precise (g = .52) and more confident (g = .30) in their estimates than were girls/women. Linear mixed model analyses of the trial-level data revealed that girls’/women’s estimates had about 31% more error than did boys’/men’s estimates, and even when controlling for precision, girls/women were about 7% less confident in their estimates than were boys/men. These outcomes should encourage researchers to consider gender differences for studies on math cognition and provide pathways for future research to address potential mechanisms underlying the present gender gaps.

Overconfidence and gender gaps in redistributive preferences: Cross-Country experimental evidence

Gender differences in voting patterns and political attitudes towards redistribution are well-documented. The experimental gender literature suggests several plausible behavioral explanations behind these differences, relating to gender differences in confidence concerning future relative income position, risk aversion, and social preferences. We use data from lab experiments on preferences for redistribution conducted in the U.S. and several European countries to investigate gender differences and their causes. On aggregate, women’ s demand for redistribution is higher than men’ s, but the differences vary considerably across locations and countries. Moreover, the gender difference appears only when the source of inequality is based on relative abilities, but not when it is based on luck. Our most robust finding is that across all sampled locations, men’ s relatively higher (over)confidence in their abilities, in comparison to women, leads them to specify lower redistribution levels. We discuss the role of confidence in accounting for gender differences in political and redistributive choices outside the lab.

The student confidence gap: Gender differences in job skill self-efficacy

This study examines gender differences and similarities in students’ confidence in job skills from the Job Outlook 2018 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. As predicted, female students reported higher self-efficacy than male students in interpersonal skills, friendly/outgoing personality and organizational ability, while male students report higher self-perception of competence in problem-solving, analytical/quantitative, technical and computer skills. Consistent with expectations, no gender differences in confidence were found in leadership, initiative, strategic planning and entrepreneurial skills. Implications for curriculum development are discussed.

Ask and You Shall Receive? Gender Differences in Regrades in College

Using administrative data from a large 4-year public university, we show that male students are 18.6 percent more likely than female students to receive favorable grade changes initiated by instructors. These gender differences cannot be explained by observable characteristics of the students, instructors, and the classes. To understand the mechanisms underlying these gendered outcomes, we conduct surveys of students and instructors, which reveal that regrade requests are prevalent, and that male students are more likely than female students to ask for regrades on the intensive margin. Finally, we corroborate the gender differences in regrade requests in an incentivized controlled experiment where participants receive noisy signals of their performance, and where they can ask for regrades: we find that males have a higher willingness to pay (WTP) to ask for regrades. Because students' payoff depends on their final grade and the cost of regrades, male students' higher propensity to ask for regrades makes them financially better off only when the cost is low. Males are more likely than females to become financially worse off when the regrade cost is high. Almost half of the gender difference in the WTP is due to gender differences in confidence, uncertainty in beliefs about ability, and the Big Five personality traits.

Overconfidence and Gender Differences in Wage Expectations

We analyze the impact of (over-)confidence on gender differences in expected start-ing salaries using elicited beliefs of prospective university students in Germany. According to our results, female students have lower wage expectations and are less overconfident than their male counterparts. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of the mean show that 7.7% of the gender gap in wage expectations is attributable to a higher overconfidence of males. Decompositions of the unconditional quantiles of expected salaries suggest that the contribution of gender differences in confidence to the gender gap is particularly strong at the bottom and top of the wage expectation distribution.

Ask and You Shall Receive? Gender Differences in Regrades in College

Using administrative data from a large 4-year public university, we show that male students are 18.6 percent more likely than female students to receive favorable grade changes. These gender differences cannot be explained by observable characteristics of the students, instructors, and the classes. Surveys of students and instructors reveal that regrade requests are prevalent, and that male students are more likely than female students to ask for regrades on the intensive margin. We corroborate the gender differences in regrade requests in an incentivized controlled experiment where participants receive noisy grade signals, and where they can ask for regrades: we find that males have a higher willingness to pay (WTP) for regrades. Almost half of the gender difference in the WTP is due to gender differences in confidence, uncertainty in beliefs, and the Big Five personality traits.

Explaining Gender Differences in Confidence and Overconfidence in Math

This paper investigates empirically how and why men and women are different in their confidence levels. Using the data of the PISA test in math, confidence is decomposed into two dimensions: confidence in correct math knowledge and overconfidence in over-claiming false knowledge. The findings highlight that female students are not less confident than male students, but they are rather less overconfident. Furthermore, mathematical abilities have different effects on male and female students. While ability alone increases confidence and decreases overconfidence, the interaction effect of feminine gender and ability is negative. This means that the negative effect of ability on overconfidence is larger for female students than male ones, while the positive effect of ability on confidence is smaller for females. That being said, the negative gender gap in overconfidence against girls is greater for students in the higher quartiles of math scores than those in the lower quartiles. Also, the positive gender gap in confidence for girls is smaller for well-performing students than under-performing ones. The empirical evidence further reveals that such gender-asymmetric effects of ability can be explained by gender socialization that limits women’s roles and undermines their achievements.

Gender Differences in Performance Predictions: Evidence from the Cognitive Reflection Test.

This paper studies performance predictions in the 7-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and whether they differ by gender. After participants completed the CRT, they predicted their own (i), the other participants’ (ii), men’s (iii), and women’s (iv) number of correct answers. In keeping with existing literature, men scored higher on the CRT than women and both men and women were too optimistic about their own performance. When we compare gender-specific predictions, we observe that men think they perform significantly better than other men and do so significantly more than women. The equality between women’s predictions about their own performance and their female peers cannot be rejected. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on the underpinnings of behavior in economics and in psychology by uncovering gender differences in confidence about one’s ability relative to same and opposite sex peers.

Gender and Redistribution: Experimental Evidence

Gender differences in voting patterns and political attitudes towards redistribution are well-documented. The experimental gender literature suggests several plausible behavioral explanations behind these differences, relating to gender differences in confidence concerning future relative income position, risk aversion, and social preferences. We use data from lab experiments on preferences for redistribution conducted in the U.S. and several European countries to disentangle these potential mechanisms. We find that when choosing to redistribute income as a disinterested observer, women choose higher tax rates than men when initial income depends on performance in a task but not when it is randomly allocated. In a veil of ignorance condition with uncertainty about the income position of the decision maker, this effect is even stronger, leading to a 10ppt gender difference in average chosen tax rates in the performance conditions. We find that this gender difference is mainly due to men being more (over)confident about their task performance and the resulting income position, with gender differences in risk aversion and social preferences playing a minor role.

Gender and task confidence as predictors of the Domain-Masculine Intelligence Type (DMIQ)

This study investigated the relationship between gender, ability tests and task confidence as predictors of self-estimated intelligence. Participants estimated their mathematical and spatial intelligence before and after completing various ability tests which they also rated for their probable success. Males rated their intelligence higher than females on both before and after measures, as well on their task estimated probably success. There was no sex difference on the ability test. Gender and actual task success scores were predictors of self-estimates, with the former being twice as powerful as the latter. The results are discussed in terms of gender differences in confidence and expectations when approaching ability tests and their effect on self-estimated intelligence.

Bodies and occlusion: Item types, cognitive processes, and gender differences in mental rotation

The aim of the current study was to reexamine previous findings in which the magnitude of the male advantage in mental rotation abilities increased when participants mentally rotated occluded versus nonoccluded items and decreased when participants mentally rotated human figures versus blocks. Mainly, the study aimed to address methodological issues noted on previous human figure mental rotations tests as the items composed of blocks and human body were probably not equivalent in terms of their cognitive requirements. Our results did not support previous research on embodied cognition as mental rotation performance decreased among both men and women when mentally rotating human figures compared to block items. However, for women, the effect of occlusion was decreased when mentally rotating human figures. Results are discussed in terms of task difficulty and gender differences in confidence and guessing behaviour.

Male and Female College Students’ College Majors

The first purpose was to determine if overall gender differences in basic confidence as measured by the Expanded Skills Confidence Inventory (ESCI) and basic interests as measured by the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory (SII) would be present within eight college major families. As expected, anticipated overall gender differences in confidence and interests concerning realistic and conventional activities were visible within the major families as well. The second purpose was to determine whether basic domains of confidence and interests would differentially discriminate among the eight major families differentially for 171 male and 176 female college students. When confidence and interests were examined separately, the set of confidence predictors and the set of interest predictors significantly differentiated among college majors for both men and women. When confidence and interests were combined together as two sets of predictors, the hit rate was a significant improvement over the hit rate for the confidence set of predictors alone for both women and men. As anticipated, group centroids and structure matrices varied across men and women.

The Impact of Gender and Experience on User Confidence in Electronic Mail

While electronic communication is advancing rapidly in the organizational context, there remain a considerable number of participants who, for one reason or another, lack the skills and/or confidence to make the medium a pervasive and ubiquitous tool. This paper examines a network of factors that influence attitudes about computer utilization and user confidence in electronic mail (e-mail). A conceptual model of user confidence in e-mail was developed based on the results of a previous study, refined after a review of existing literature, and tested using LISREL. An experiment was conducted which simulated a communication transaction between subordinate and superior using two student groups (Computer Information Systems and other business disciplines) as surrogates. Data was collected from the participants through a survey and interviews. Results indicated that overall confidence in the medium was lacking and that there were gender differences in confidence in the nontechnical group. These differences appear to diminish through technical education and experience. Experience with computing was a significant determinant of attitude. Attitudes regarding computer use were also found to be positively linked to confidence in electronic communication.

Highly confident but wrong: Gender differences and similarities in confidence judgments.

Although gender differences are fairly consistent when people report their general confidence, much less is known about such differences when individuals assess the degree of confidence they have in their ability to answer any particular test question. The objective of this research was to investigate gender differences in item-specific confidence judgments. Data were collected from three psychology courses containing 70 men and 181 women. After answering each item on course exams, students indicated their confidence that their answer to that item was correct. Results showed that gender differences in confidence are dependent on the context (whether items were correct or wrong) and on the domain being tested. Moreover, although both men and women were overconfident, undergraduate men are especially overconfident when incorrect.