Do women receive less blame than men? Attribution of outcomes in a prosocial setting

We examine gender biases in the attribution of leaders’ outcomes to their choices versus luck. Leaders make unobservable investment choices that affect the payoffs of group members. High investment is costly to the leader but increases the probability of an outcome with a high payoff. We observe gen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic behavior & organization 2023-06, Vol.210, p.441-452
Main Authors: Erkal, Nisvan, Gangadharan, Lata, Koh, Boon Han
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attribution biases
Beliefs
Gender biases
Laboratory experiments
Leadership
Social preferences
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Summary:We examine gender biases in the attribution of leaders’ outcomes to their choices versus luck. Leaders make unobservable investment choices that affect the payoffs of group members. High investment is costly to the leader but increases the probability of an outcome with a high payoff. We observe gender biases in the attribution of low outcomes. Low outcomes of male (female) leaders are attributed more to their selfish decisions (bad luck). These biases are driven by male evaluators. We find no gender differences in the attribution of high outcomes.
ISSN:0167-2681
1879-1751
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2023.04.003