More from these Authors

• Article | American Economic Review | March 2019

  Beliefs about Gender

  Pedro Bordalo, Katherine Baldiga Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer

  We conduct laboratory experiments that explore how gender stereotypes shape beliefs about ability of oneself and others in different categories of knowledge. The data reveal two patterns. First, men’s and women’s beliefs about both oneself and others exceed observed ability on average, particularly in difficult tasks. Second, overestimation of ability by both men and women varies across categories. To understand these patterns, we develop a model that separates gender stereotypes from misestimation of ability related to the difficulty of the task. We find that stereotypes contribute to gender gaps in self-confidence, assessments of others, and behavior in a cooperative game.

  Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Perspective; Prejudice and Bias; Gender;

  Citation:

  Bordalo, Pedro, Katherine Baldiga Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli, and Andrei Shleifer. "Beliefs about Gender." American Economic Review 109, no. 3 (March 2019): 739–773.  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

  Gender Stereotypes in Deliberation and Team Decisions

  Katherine B. Coffman, Clio Bryant Flikkema and Olga Shurchkov

  We run an experiment that features a novel task with deliberation to explore how stereotypes shape group decision-making. We find that women are less likely to be rewarded for their ideas in male-typed domains when gender is known. This is partly due to discrimination and partly due to differences in self-promotion. External analysis of the chat data provides further insights. Though men and women do not vary in their communication styles, coders display pervasive stereotypes, associating warmth with women and competence and negativity with men. We also find that warmer participants, particularly warmer women, are under-rewarded by their groups.

  Keywords: gender differences; stereotypes; teams; economic experiments; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Groups and Teams; Decision Making; Perception; Leadership;

  Citation:

  Coffman, Katherine B., Clio Bryant Flikkema, and Olga Shurchkov. "Gender Stereotypes in Deliberation and Team Decisions." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-069, January 2019.  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

  Stereotypes and Belief Updating

  Katherine B. Coffman, Manuela Collis and Leena Kulkarni

  We explore how beliefs respond to noisy information about own ability across a range of tasks, with a particular focus on how gender stereotypes impact belief updating. Participants in our experiments take tests of their ability across different domains. Absent feedback, beliefs of own ability are strongly influenced by gender stereotypes. We then provide noisy feedback about own absolute performance to participants and elicit posterior beliefs. Gender stereotypes have significant predictive power for posterior beliefs, both through their influence on prior beliefs (as predicted by a Bayesian model) and through their influence on updating. Both men and women’s beliefs are more responsive to information in gender congruent domains than gender incongruent domains. This is primarily driven by differential reactions to exogenously received good news about own ability: both men and women react more to good news when it arrives in a gender congruent domain than when it arrives in a gender incongruent domain. Our results have important implications for understanding how feedback shapes gender gaps in self-assessments.

  Keywords: beliefs; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Information; Performance; Perception;

  Citation:

  Coffman, Katherine B., Manuela Collis, and Leena Kulkarni. "Stereotypes and Belief Updating." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-068, January 2019.  View Details

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