Social norms and the gender gap in willingness to compete

Last registered on January 21, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social norms and the gender gap in willingness to compete
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017416
Initial registration date
December 07, 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
December 09, 2025, 8:11 AM EST

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

Last updated
January 21, 2026, 6:41 PM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Japan
Region
Osaka

Primary Investigator

Name
Yanni Shen
Affiliation
Jinan University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Yumi Ishikawa
PI Affiliation
Shiga University
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PI Name
Ryo Sakamoto
PI Affiliation
Keio University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2025-12-10
End date
2026-01-21
Keywords
Gender
Additional Keywords
Social norms, Competition aversion
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Female leaders remain underrepresented in Japan, which may be partly related to the recent finding that women are less willing to compete than men. At the same time, prevailing social norms suggest that women are expected to be less aggressive and more egalitarian. We aim to investigate the relationship between social norms and the gender gap in willingness to compete through a laboratory experiment. Our study first elicits the social norms regarding women being competitive (first-order beliefs) and how people perceive these norms (second-order beliefs). Then we examine the impact of belief correction on willingness to compete, that is, whether participants' choices are influenced by informing them of the true social norms (Treatment 1). Additionally, we compare this impact with the impact of advising women to compete more and men to compete less.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Ishikawa, Yumi, Ryo Sakamoto and Yanni Shen. 2026. "Social norms and the gender gap in willingness to compete." AEA RCT Registry. January 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17416-3.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We perform a lab experiment with Japanese university students to examine how they perceive social norms on women being competitive and how the elicitation of social norms affects their behaviors compared with another treatment of simple advice.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2025-12-10
Intervention End Date
2026-01-16

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The effect of two types of information intervention on tournament entry
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Tournament entry is computed by subtracting the initial choice made prior to receiving information from the final choice made after receiveing information. Initial choice and final choice are two dummies equale 1 for choosing tournament scheme and 0 for chooing piece-rate scheme.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Elicited beliefs, risk preferences, confidence, hpothetical career choice
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Pre-survey: measure social norms (first-order and second-order beliefs) regarding women being competitive through a money-incentivized survey.

Main experiment: our main experiment closely follows the design of Niederle and Vesterlund (2007).
Participants are divided into 4-person groups (2 female and 2 male) and are asked to solve addition problems for five minutes. Round one uses the piece-rate scheme in which participants earn 100 JPY per correct answer. Round two uses the tournament scheme in which only the participant with the highest number of correct answers in the group earns 400 JPY per correct answer. Round three allows participants to choose the payment scheme.

Treatments are presented after making the initial choice decision in round three. Half of the participants receive information on social norms measured in the pre-survey, and the other half receive a piece of simple advice that encourages women to compete more and men to compete less. Participants make their decision again after reading the treatment information.

After completing three rounds of solving addition problems, participants answer a short questionnaire including questions on confidence and demographic characteristics.

Follow-up survey: a short survey conducted one month later after the main experiment, asking first-order and second-order beliefs regarding women being competitive.

References:
Niederle, M., & Vesterlund, L. (2007). Do women shy away from competition? Do men compete too much?. The quarterly journal of economics, 122(3), 1067-1101.
Experimental Design Details


Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by arrival order
Randomization Unit
Treatments are randomized within-session at the paricipant level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
This study does not involve clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
300 participants.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
150
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Our study enables the detection of an effect size of 0.23 with a power of 0.8 and an alpha level of 0.05.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Kansai University
IRB Approval Date
2024-11-21
IRB Approval Number
2025028
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials