Experimental Design Details
We will conduct the experiment on Prolific. Participants will be recruited for a 15-minute study. Their participation will involve responding to 60 questions and completing a demographics questionnaire.
Participants will be randomized into a "self" or "other" version.
In the "self" version, participants will be asked whether they think society reacts in a certain way when a [man/woman] [displays/does not display] certain trait or behavior. The participant's response will not be incentivized.
Participants will answer a block of 30 questions about a man and a block of 30 questions about a woman, where the order of the blocks will be randomized. Within a block, 15 questions ask about an individual who displays a given trait or behavior, and 15 questions ask about an individual who does not display a given trait or behavior. The order of the 30 questions within a block will be randomized.
We will study 15 different traits or behaviors: risk taking, generosity, cooperativeness, positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity in response to behavior toward self, negative reciprocity in response to behavior toward others, trust, trustworthiness, competitiveness, negotiation, ambition, assertiveness, confidence, leadership, and self-promotion. With four questions per trait or behavior, a participant in the "self" version will be asked 60 questions of this type in total.
We will study 3 types of societal reactions: praise, approval, and criticism. Participants will be randomized into one of these 3 reactions.
Participants in the "other" version will be asked to guess the responses given by a randomly-chosen participant in the "self" version. Guesses will be incentivized with a BDM mechanism.
Therefore, there will be in total 6 across-participant treatments: [self/other] x [praise/approval/criticism].
We hypothesize that beliefs in both the "self" and "other" treatments will cluster into three categories based on the following traits or behaviors:
1. Positive social traits or behaviors (generosity, cooperativeness, positive reciprocity, trust, and trustworthiness)
For these traits or behaviors, we hypothesize that individuals will expect that both men and women are similarly able to achieve high levels of praise, secure high levels of approval, and avoid most criticism by engaging in the trait or behavior.
2. Labor market traits or behaviors (risk taking, competitiveness, negotiation, ambition, assertiveness, confidence, leadership, and self-promotion)
We hypothesize that individuals will expect that men receive high levels of praise, high levels of approval, and low levels of criticism by displaying "male-typed" traits or behaviors: by being leaders, competitive, risk-taking, confident, ambitious, assertive, keen to negotiate, and self-promoting. By contrast, individuals will expect that men receive substantially lower levels of praise, lower levels of approval, and higher levels of criticism by not being leaders, competitive, risk-taking, confident, ambitious, assertive, keen to negotiate, and self-promoting.
For women, we hypothesize that individuals will expect that, relative to the high levels of praise and approval and low levels of criticism that men can achieve by displaying the "male-typed" traits or behaviors, women cannot secure similarly high levels of praise, high levels of approval, or low levels of criticism regardless of whether they are leaders or not, competitive or not, risk-taking or not, confident or not, ambitious or not, assertive or not, keen to negotiate or not, and self-promoting or not. At the same time, we hypothesize that, relative to the low levels of praise and approval and high levels of criticism that men receive by not displaying "male-typed" traits or behaviors, women can secure higher levels of praise, higher levels of approval, and lower levels of criticism regardless of whether they are leaders or not, competitive or not, risk-taking or not, confident or not, ambitious or not, assertive or not, keen to negotiate or not, and self-promoting or not.
3. Negative reciprocity (negative reciprocity in response to behavior toward self, negative reciprocity in response to behavior toward others)
For these traits or behaviors, given that women are often expected to be more socially oriented but men are often expected to be more harsh, our predictions are less clear.