Gender Differences In Decisions Research Articles

Gender effects for loss aversion: A reconsideration

Gender differences in decision making is a topic that has attracted much attention in the literature and the debate seems to be inconclusive. In a recent study, Bouchouicha et al. (2019) using data from an incentivised experiment with almost 3000 students and 30 different countries, estimate gender effects assuming four commonly employed definitions of loss aversion. Despite the fact that their analysis is based on the same data and the same functional forms and econometric setup, their results are inconclusive regarding the existence and the direction of gender effects for loss aversion. In this study, we investigate two extensions of their work in an effort to shed some light on the potential reasons behind this contradictory result. In particular, we explore whether: (1) a more flexible estimation method that allows for individual heterogeneity and generates more robust estimates in the presence of noise and; (2) a different utility function, can generate more robust inference regarding gender effects. We show that while a more flexible Hierarchical Bayesian estimation method is not sufficient to explain the contradictory results, an alternative utility function detects a uniform gender effect, with women being always more loss-averse, regardless the adopted definition of loss aversion.

Understanding gender differences of people with HIV newly diagnosed or returning to care with advanced HIV disease in Malawi: a qualitative study

BackgroundDespite tremendous progress in improving antiretroviral therapy (ART) access, advanced HIV disease (AHD) still remains a challenge globally. Reasons for delayed presentation to care and ART adherence may be affected by gender. We present qualitative study findings on gender differences in decisions for HIV testing and ART initiation/adherence in adults with AHD in Malawi.MethodsWe used a qualitative study design, interviewing 16 men and 16 women aged 18 years and above diagnosed with AHD in sites implementing an optimized package of AHD care, from December 2021-February 2022. We included study participants receiving AHD services for at least two months. We also interviewed 16 lay workers and 16 health care workers supporting people living with AHD. In-depths interviews (IDIs) were conducted in English or Chichewa by trained research assistants using semi-structured interview guides. A short-answer analysis was conducted, and findings were interpreted according to thematic areas.ResultsBoth men and women reported stigma as a main barrier influencing their decision to test for HIV and to initiate and adhere to ART. Fear of side effects, insufficient food, and the need for more information were other barriers reported among men and women as well as perceived as barriers by HCWs. Men appear to have tested later for HIV and stated that they were waiting until experiencing significant symptoms before testing. According to clients and HCWs, men were also less inclined to initiate ART after a HIV diagnosis, whereas women were motivated to start treatment to remain healthy and care for the family. Both genders reported that treatment could be delayed if they were feeling healthy. Treatment fatigue was reported among all groups as the main reason to discontinue treatment.ConclusionsThere were similarities and differences between genders in decision-making about HIV care. Concerns about stigma were important reasons for delay in HIV care in both genders. Motivations for accessing HIV treatment and care were different among men and women, pushing the need for gender-tailored counseling services and community messaging that educate both men and women on the benefits of initiating ART early, in turn reducing the number of people presenting with AHD.Trial registrationNCT05510973, first registration 22/08/2022.

Analisis Perbedaan Perilaku Investasi Saham Antara Wanita dan Pria di Pasar Modal Indonesia

This study aims to analyze 1) Do women have a tendency to have low financial literacy compared to men in making stock investment decisions. 2) Do women have a tendency to be not overconfident than men in making stock investment decisions. 3) Do women have a tendency to have low risk tolerance compared to men in making stock investment decisions. 4) Do women have a tendency to herding behavior compared to men in making stock investment decisions. The novelty of this research from the previous one is that the author places more emphasis on gender differences in decision making when influenced by behavioral finance bias. This study uses quantitative methods with data collection techniques using questionnaires distributed through online media to investors with a sample of 146 investor respondents. The sample is distributed to respondents who are listed on the IDX of West Sumatra. The analytical method used in this research is descriptive analysis and Mann-Whitney test. The results of the study found 1) There is no significant difference between the financial literacy of women and men in making stock investment decisions. 2) There is a significant difference between overconfidence of women and men in making stock investment decisions, and female investors tend to be not overconfident than men in making stock investment decisions. 3) There is a significant difference between the risk tolerance of women and men in making stock investment decisions, and female investors tend to have low risk tolerance compared to men in making stock investment decisions. 4) There is a significant difference between the herding behavior of women and men in making stock investment decisions, but male investors tend to have high herding behavior compared to women in making stock investment decisions.

Risk preferences, gender effects and Bayesian econometrics

Gender differences in decision making is a topic that has attracted much attention in the literature and the debate seems to be inconclusive. A method that is often used in the economics literature to account for gender effects is by estimating econometric structural models and testing the significance of the estimated parameters. In this paper we focus on estimations of preference models and we show how omitting to account for behavioural heterogeneity can lead to failures in identifying potential differences. Using data from risky choice experiments, we compare the traditional representative agent Maximum Likelihood Estimation approach against two more flexible inference methods that allow for heterogeneity at the individual level, the Maximum Simulated Likelihood Estimation, and the Hierarchical Bayesian modelling. We show how ignoring heterogeneity may lead to failures capturing gender differences and we suggest the use of Bayesian modelling to effectively estimate the underlying parameters.

The role of contextual information in a virtual trolly problem: A psychophysiological investigation

ABSTRACT Trolley problems have persisted as a popular method to examine moral decision-making in the face of many criticisms. One such criticism is that thought experiments provide unrealistically abundant contextual information, leading to mental simulation. Recent work utilizing virtual reality technology has reduced contextual information with mixed results. However, this work has not departed entirely from the thought experiment tradition, often providing written or verbal descriptions of the trolley problem before or during the simulation. This approach may still allow for mental simulation prior to decision-making. The goal of the current study is to examine whether or not this criticism is relevant for the classic version of the trolley problem. One hundred and nineteen participants were randomly assigned to either receive prior contextual information about the trolley problem or receive no information. All participants then entered a virtual reality simulation of the classic trolley problem. We examined decision-making from an affective and autonomic nervous system perspective. We found no effect on any measure in response to the reduction of contextual information. There were, however, surprising gender differences in decision-making and autonomic response. Further, we discuss how these findings relate to competing dual-process models of moral decision-making.

‘A dream come true’? Adolescents’ perspectives on urban relocation and life in condominiums in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

ABSTRACT Relocation from inner cities and rehousing in suburbs is becoming an increasingly prevalent issue in developing countries. However, there is limited evidence about the perspectives of adolescents and most studies are from western contexts. In addressing this gap this study tracked adolescents before and after they were relocated over an eight-year interval from the centre of Addis Ababa to the outskirts, mainly to government-sponsored condominium housing. The paper also compares the views of those who were relocated with those who stayed behind. The paper argues that condominium housing enabled low-to-middle-income households to become house owners, while the poorest could not afford the costs, and the richest preferred building their own houses. From the perspective of adolescents who were relocated the move led to better housing and improved sanitation. However, students faced difficulties in the first year commuting, and schools and health centres were considered better quality in the previous locations; markets and shops were initially less well developed in the condominium areas, and there were fewer recreation options, though pollution and safety were greater concerns in the old neighbourhoods. A significant majority of the adolescents (79%) felt that the changes were positive or mainly positive and soon adapted to the new social environment, though social ties were less strong than in their previous neighbourhoods. Those who moved had better internet access and there were gender differences in decision-making, leisure activities and spending, with girls having less freedom, somewhat compensated for by mobile phones and social media.

Lab-in-the-field experiments: perspectives from research on gender

This paper highlights the contributions made by lab-in-the-field experiments, which are also known as artefactual, framed and extra-lab experiments. We present a curated sample of lab-in-the-field experiments and discuss how they can be conducted on their own or combined with conventional laboratory experiments, natural experiments, randomised control trials and surveys to provide unique insights into the behaviour of a diverse population. Using our recent research on gender and leadership, we demonstrate how lab-in-the-field experiments have offered new perspectives about gender differences in decision-making. Finally, we outline the ethical and implementational challenges researchers may face while conducting these experiments and share some of the strategies we employed to address them.

Gender Differences in Judicial Decisions under Incomplete Information: Evidence from Child Support Cases

We compare decisions by female and male judges in child support trials where a judge decides on the father's income allocation to children. We investigate two types of cases: 1) when fathers have a formal job, their income is known to judges, and awards are set as a fraction of it, and 2) when fathers work in the informal sector, their income is unknown to judges, and awards are given as a fixed amount of money. By exploiting random assignment of cases to judges, we find that female judges set lower awards in both cases in comparison to male judges. However, the gender gap under incomplete information is around two thirds the size of that under complete information. In exploring mechanisms underlying this difference, we propose a simple framework to elicit judges' beliefs about the unknown income in such cases by using their judicial behaviour in cases where income is known. We find that female judges estimate that the unknown income is higher, but still award lower amounts of child support than male judges do. Thus, gender differences act as a countervailing force and explain the attenuation of judges' gender differences in decisions under incomplete information.

Lab-in-the-Field Experiments: Perspectives from Research on Gender

This paper highlights the contributions made by lab-in-the-field experiments, which are also known as artefactual, framed and extra-lab experiments. We present a curated sample of lab-in-the-field experiments and discuss how they can be conducted on their own or combined with conventional laboratory experiments, natural experiments, randomised control trials and surveys to provide unique insights into the behaviour of a diverse population. Using our recent research on gender and leadership, we demonstrate how lab-in-the-field experiments have offered new perspectives about gender differences in decision-making. Finally, we outline the ethical and implementational challenges researchers may face while conducting these experiments, and share some of the strategies we employed to address them

Gender Differences in Decision-making and Leadership: Evidence from Armenia

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of gender differences in decision-making and leadership positions. The main purpose of the research is to find out if there are gender differences in decision-making styles, career development, and leadership and reveal the main causes. A systematization of literary sources on the issue of gender differences in the decision-making process indicates that there are real differences: women are more sensitive, men are overconfident, men tend to be leaders more than women. Investigation of the topic proves that in leadership positions men are promoted more than women are, also there is a pay gap between genders. Analysis in the paper is carried out in the following logical sequence: the statistical data available has been analyzed, and then a survey is done, which reveals some issues of gender differences in leadership and decision-making in workplaces in Armenia. Based on the generalization of the results, the differences in decision-making are determined and the corresponding conclusions are drawn. Methodological tools of the research methods were analysis and synthesis of the available data, survey, and statistical methods: cross-tabulation with Pearson Chi-square testing, which proves that there are significant relationships between some factors. The paper presents the results of an empirical analysis, which shows that in Armenia women and men make decisions differently, women have fewer opportunities for career promotion. The survey reveals that women make decisions in groups, men – alone. The main characteristics of women during the decision-making process are: analytical thinking, consulting, honesty, and intuitive thinking. Also, the workers, lower and middle-level managers make decisions mainly in groups, high-level managers – alone. The survey also reveals the main reasons why men are appointed to leadership positions and the main stereotypes that hinder women’s career advancement. The results of the research can be useful for state bodies, labor markets, organizations, educational institutions, researchers, etc. Keywords: gender, inequality, decision-making, leadership, Chi-square testing, survey, gender differences.

Household Management Systems and Women’s Decision Making Within the Family in Europe

ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes household management systems and their effect on intrahousehold gender differences in decision making in thirty European countries. The study considers five domains that reflect two types of decisions – time-consuming and frequent decisions like everyday shopping versus infrequent but important decisions like borrowing money or purchasing consumer durables. In time-consuming activities, the gender gap favors women in each system; for infrequent decisions, the gender gap is dependent on the way money is managed and the biggest gap is found in systems where resources are not pooled. This paper also investigates the role of distribution factors in shaping decision-making behavior. For time-consuming decisions, the higher the income (and education) of the woman compared to the man, the less likely she is to make the decisions. For infrequent activities, the higher the income of the woman compared to the man, the more likely she is to make the decisions.

Gender differences in decisions under profound uncertainty are non-robust to the availability of information on equally informed others’ decisions

We investigated in the laboratory whether gender differences in decisions made under uncertainty without information on decisions of equally informed others are robust to the availability of that information. Participants specified in each of at most 60 periods four capital volumes making up the skeletal balance sheet of a financial institution in a computer-simulated environment with rare but potentially payoff-devastating crises. In the main study, we compared decision outcomes from two treatments: in the first, a participant had access to information on business numbers of two other participants, at least one of whom – unknown to the participant – was of the opposite sex (treatment with group information); in the second, no such outside information was available (treatment without group information). Our main finding is that, without group information, men adopted significantly more risk-exposed financial positions than women, whereas this pattern did not obtain beyond the first few periods when group information was available. A further study produced evidence that this effect of the availability of group information upon risk exposure is moderated by the gender composition of the groups. We also confirm the well-established tendency of social information to diminish cross-sectional variability in decisions.

Gender differences when subjective probabilities affect risky decisions: an analysis from the television game show Cash Cab

This study uses the television show Cash Cab as a natural experiment to investigate gender differences in decision making under uncertainty. As expected, men are much more likely to accept the end-of-game gamble than are women, but men and women appear to weigh performance variables differently when relying on subjective probabilities. At best men base their risky decisions on general aspects of their previous “good” play (not all of which is relevant at the time the decision is made) and at worst fail to condition their risky decisions on any of the relevant information available to them. In sharp contrast, women appear to consider all of the information available to them, including previous “poor” play as well as their most recent confident “good” play, which, by design, is likely the most relevant information to consider.

Development of a computerised version of the Children's Gambling Task for the evaluation of affective decision-making in Brazilian preschool children

Despite the large number of instruments developed to assess the more purely cognitive executive functions in Brazilian children, few studies have developed instruments for the assessment of the most motivational components of these functions. The primary aim of this study was to develop a computerised version of the Children’s Gambling Task (CGT) to assess affective decision-making in preschoolers. The present study also aimed to investigate whether this version of the task is sensitive to developmental changes across the preschool period and to examine gender differences in decision-making. We administered the CGT and the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS) to 137 Brazilian children between the ages of three and five years old. Age differences between three-and four-year-olds, but not between four-and five-year-olds were found. Gender differences were not found. From this preliminary study, the computerised version of the CGT for Brazilian child population proved to be suitable for Brazilian child population.

Why Have All the Boys Gone? Gender Differences in Prosecution Acceptance of Child Sexual Abuse Cases

Cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) referred to the District Attorney (DA) are not necessarily accepted for prosecution. Two pilot studies sought to investigate whether there were gender differences in whether cases of CSA referred to the DA's office were accepted by the DA and, if they existed, what might account for gender differences in decisions to accept cases and file charges. The results of the first study indicated that cases involving male victims were significantly less likely to be accepted for prosecution than cases involving female victims. Comparisons of acceptance rates were based on expected frequencies given CSA prevalence rates by gender in the literature and on the proportion of males and females seen at a Child Abuse Assessment Center (CAAC) from where the DA referrals were obtained. The second study assessed both disclosure-related variables (assessed by content analyses of disclosures made at a CAAC) and abuse-related variables (that occurred at or near the time of the abuse) that might explain these differences. Few variables were found to significantly differentiate males' and females' cases; these were the relationship of the child to the perpetrator, whether the child was offended by a juvenile, whether the child told someone of the abuse, pornography exposure, whether the child displayed concerning behaviors, and whether the child was questioned about possible abuse. Implications of these results are discussed.

Stereotype Threat Affects Financial Decision Making

The research presented in this article provides the first evidence that one’s decision making can be influenced by concerns about stereotypes and the devaluation of one’s identity. Many studies document gender differences in decision making, and often attribute these differences to innate and stable factors, such as biological and hormonal differences. In three studies, we found that stereotype threat affected decision making and led to gender differences in loss-aversion and risk-aversion behaviors. In Study 1, women subjected to stereotype threat in academic and business settings were more loss averse than both men and women who were not facing the threat of being viewed in light of negative stereotypes. We found no gender differences in loss-aversion behavior in the absence of stereotype threat. In Studies 2a and 2b, we found the same pattern of effects for risk-aversion behavior that we had observed for loss-aversion behavior. In addition, in Study 2b, ego depletion mediated the effects of stereotype threat on women’s decision making. These results suggest that individuals’ decision making can be influenced by stereotype concerns.

“It is Not Just about Me”: A Relational Understanding of Young Women's Sexual Negotiations

Social work has historically been reactive in approaching young women's sexuality, often focusing on the consequences of unintended pregnancy. This pattern has inadvertently perpetuated the silencing of young women's sexual selves, leaving them vulnerable in sexual decision making. This article presents a new conceptual model to explore relational influences on young women's sexual negotiations. It extends the theory of planned behavior, previously used to predict contraceptive use, by incorporating the self‐in‐relation model, which addresses gender differences in decision making. A case scenario depicts how practitioners can explore the difficulties of sexual negotiation and develop possible solutions in a manner that is consistent with young women's lived experiences.

Gender moderates the association between 5-HTTLPR and decision-making under ambiguity but not under risk

Decisions made under ambiguity may involve a different genetic architecture than those made under risk. Because gender moderates the effect of genetic polymorphisms on serotonin function and because there are gender differences in decision-making, the present study examined potential gender moderation of associations between polymorphisms in important serotonin system candidate genes (serotonin transporter [SLC6A4] and tryptophan hydroxylase-2 [TPH2]) and performance on a decision-making task (Iowa Gambling Task, IGT) in healthy, adults (N = 188; 62% women). Subjects were genotyped for the well-studied SLC6A4 promoter variant 5-HTTLPR and a TPH2 single nucleotide polymorphism in intron-8 (rs1386438). Genotype at rs1386438 was not associated with performance on the IGT. A significant gender by 5-HTTLPR genotype interaction effect was detected when decision-making was under ambiguity (i.e. the first block of 20 choices), but not under risk (blocks 2-5). Performance on the first block of 20 choices was not correlated with performance on subsequent blocks, supporting the interpretation that early performance on the IGT indexes decision-making under ambiguity, while performance on blocks 2-5 indexes decision-making under risk. These findings suggest that decision-making under ambiguity and risk may have different genetic architectures and that individual differences in decision-making under ambiguity are associated with genetic variation in SLC6A4.

Genetic Testing for Late-Onset Diseases: Effect of Disease Controllability, Test Predictivity, and Gender on the Decision to Take the Test

This study was designed to investigate the influence of the predictive power of the genetic test, the disease's controllability, and gender on the intention to take a predictive genetic test. Another aim was to examine the certainty of the intention to take the test. Nine scenarios were presented to a convenience sample of 121 men and women. Each scenario described a hypothetical and devastating late-onset disease and manipulated the level of disease controllability and test predictive value. The more predictivity the test offered and the more controllable the disease, the more the subjects were interested in being tested and the more certain their decision to take the test. Men's decisions were more positive than women's. There were also interactions between disease controllability and gender and between disease controllability and test predictivity. It seems that the factor that most influences the decision not to take the test is low disease controllability. This effect is more pronounced in women. Gender differences in decision making and information processing may be pertinent. The data show a marked gap between the decision itself and the certainty of that decision. The strength of the decision may be a better predictor of actual test uptake than the direction of the decision.

Developmental and Gender Differences in Future-Oriented Decision-Making During the Preschool Period

A child version of the Iowa Gambling task was used to explore the developmental and gender differences in decision making of 4-year-olds (N = 141). The task required children to choose between two decks: a deck with higher immediate rewards and a deck with higher future rewards. Developmental differences between young (4.0–4.5) and older (4.6–4.11) children were found, with older 4-year-olds choosing more from the deck with higher future rewards. Gender differences were found for decision-making strategy. It is suggested that these differences in approaches might account for the pattern of gender differences found in past research.