Social and Cognitive Skills at Work: Do Gender Stereotypes Influence Teamwork Performance?

Last registered on April 17, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social and Cognitive Skills at Work: Do Gender Stereotypes Influence Teamwork Performance?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015768
Initial registration date
April 08, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 17, 2025, 6:22 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Lucrezia Di Scanno
Affiliation
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Francesca Rinaldi
PI Affiliation
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PI Name
Michela Carlana
PI Affiliation
Harvard Kennedy School
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-08-01
End date
2027-07-31
Keywords
Education, Gender
Additional Keywords
Teamwork, Stereotypes, Soft skills, Problem-solving
JEL code(s)
I21, I24, I26, J16, J22, J24
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Effective collaboration in teamwork comprises social and math-intensive cognitive components, with boys and girls performing differently on the two dimensions. While women outperform men in terms of willingness to collaborate and engage with others, men tend to be better in the problem-solving and reasoning dimension (Borgonovi et al., 2023). These wide-documented gaps across countries may contribute to gender disparities in the education and labor market, given the growing importance of social and soft skills in most working environments (Deming, 2017). In this project, we address the issue of gender differences in social and quantitative skills by focusing on Italian middle school students’ individual and group performance on a teamwork task. We aim to causally address two main research questions: (1) Do adolescent boys and girls hold gender self-stereotypes and stereotypes on math-intensive cognitive and social skills? (2) Is individual contribution to teamwork affected by stereotypes on own quantitative and social abilities? Before performing the task, we randomise students between two treatment arms, where we individually emphasise the relevance of the cognitive or social abilities for the success of group performance. Students in the same team are assigned ex-ante to the same treatment group. Using experimental, survey, and administrative data, we will investigate the impact on overall productivity and individual contribution to group performance.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Carlana , Michela, Lucrezia Di Scanno and Francesca Rinaldi. 2025. "Social and Cognitive Skills at Work: Do Gender Stereotypes Influence Teamwork Performance?." AEA RCT Registry. April 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15768-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2025-08-01
Intervention End Date
2027-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Individual contribution to group performance; group productivity
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We measure individual contribution to group performance in a modified cryptography task in two ways, from the students’ questionnaire implemented in April-June 2025. First, before completing the task, we ask students to identify a team leader for each group. Depending on the stimulus received (importance of cognitive vs social dimension), we are interested in the characteristics of the team leader chosen. Second, for each player, we will count the number of attempts entered from the own tablet as a proxy of active participation in achieving the final solution. We measure group productivity as the overall score achieved in the cryptography task.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Gender stereotypes in soft skills; aspirations and occupational fit
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
The secondary outcomes of interest will include data collected from a student's questionnaire that will be implemented in April-June 2025. Data will encompass students’ self-perceptions and gender attitudes towards cognitive and social skills and occupational aspirations. We will invite students to complete a set of questions and incentivised games to elicit stereotypical beliefs around gender, soft and cognitive skills; a set of questions on occupational fit and aspirations.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The project involves two level of randomization. First, students are randomly assigned to groups. Second, we randomize groups to either a control, a first, or a second treatment arm.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
The randomization will be done in the office by a computer. For the randomization to groups, a number will be randomly associated with each student, and, starting from the smallest number, students will be assigned to groups of three, three by three. For the treatment randomization, a number will be randomly associated with each group. Then, starting from the smallest number, the first 1/3 of the teams will be assigned to control, the second 1/3 to treatment one, and the remaining teams will be treatment two.
Randomization Unit
We perform the randomization to teams at the student-level. We perform the randomization to treatment arms at the group-level within each class.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
For the randomization to groups, there is no cluster. For the randomization to treatment arms, the clusters are the groups, and we expect a total of around 2000 groups of students across 20 schools.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Overall, we expect a total of around 6000 students.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Random groups will consist of three students, with multiple groups within each class. For the randomization to the treatment, we include around 33% of groups in treatment arm one, 33% in treatment arm two, and 33% in the control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
To investigate the impact of eliciting the cognitive vs social dimension of teamwork, we will randomize at the group-level. Considering around 2000 groups, with 3 students each, we expect a minimum detectable effect on individual contribution to teamwork and group productivity of 0.07 standard deviation.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University
IRB Approval Date
2024-10-01
IRB Approval Number
IRB24-1038
IRB Name
Bocconi University
IRB Approval Date
2024-09-30
IRB Approval Number
RA000802
Analysis Plan