Experimental Design
The experiment takes place in the context of a campus-wide tournament at a university, where students register to participate and provide demographic information (gender, social class, parental education). After registration, participants engage in a throwing event in an outdoor game, where they make eight throws that yield points (0, 5, 10, or 20 points per throw). Each participant is randomly paired with another participant after completing the event, with one designated as Player 1 (P1) and the other as Player 2 (P2), who will serve as the team leader.
Each team’s score is determined by three randomly chosen throws from both P1 and P2. The remaining five throws for each player are kept as replacement options. P2, the team leader, is tasked with revising the team’s score by replacing the lowest-scoring throw of either P1 or themselves, using a replacement throw either from their own remaining pile or from P1’s. Crucially, P2 does not know the exact scores of the remaining throws in P1’s pile, introducing an element of uncertainty. P2 is asked which throw they would like to correct and, ultimately, which of the two decisions (replacing their own or P1's throw) they would like to implement. After the revisions, the top 50% of teams based on final scores will be entered into a lottery for team prizes.
The main experimental manipulations involves three treatments: an “Info_Class” treatment, where P2 is informed that their leadership position was assigned due to a diversity goal ensuring 50-50 representation of high and low socioeconomic status (SES) leaders, a "Info_Gender" treatment, where the diversity goal is on 50-50 representation of male and female leaders, and a “No Info” treatment, where P2 is simply told they are the leader without being given further details. In addition to this, P2s are asked to make decisions across four potential team matches (strategy method), where P1’s characteristics vary by gender (male or female) and social class (high or low). One of these matches will be randomly chosen to determine the final team.