Gender Differences in Giving Advice and Role of Feedback

Last registered on September 28, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Gender Differences in Giving Advice and Role of Feedback
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0018774
Initial registration date
September 23, 2026

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
September 28, 2026, 9:37 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
Sakshi Upadhyay
Affiliation
Skidmore College
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Joe Ballard
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-09-25
End date
2027-08-30
Keywords
Behavior, Gender, Lab
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
D91, J16, C91
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Despite educational and career advancements among women, substantial gender differences persist in labor market outcomes, particularly in leadership roles. Advice giving and decision making are integral components of effective leadership. While much of the economic literature on advice has focused on how receiving advice may impact individual performance, there is limited research examining gender differences in advice giving and, to our knowledge, no prior work on the additional impact of feedback structure on the advice-giving behavior of men and women.

This study explores gender differences in advice giving on a gender-neutral task. Through implementation of a controlled, virtual laboratory experiment, we aim to investigate how feedback structure affects individuals' beliefs about their own performance and their willingness to give advice and examine whether this feedback structure further influences gender disparities in both performance and advice-giving behavior. In real-world settings, feedback can vary considerably in accuracy and informativeness. In this experiment, we manipulate feedback structure to determine whether the type of feedback generates gender differences in the willingness to give advice (specifically through the impact of feedback on individuals' self-evaluation).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Ballard, Joe and Sakshi Upadhyay. 2026. "Gender Differences in Giving Advice and Role of Feedback ." AEA RCT Registry. September 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18774-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2026-09-26
Intervention End Date
2027-03-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Primary Hypothesis
1. Performance: Do men and women differ in performance on the task?
2. Self-evaluation: Do men and women differ in their beliefs about their own performance — and does this diverge from actual performance (differential over/underconfidence)?

3. Advice-giving:
3a. Propensity — Are men and women differentially likely to send advice, controlling for own performance?
3b. Assertiveness — Conditional on giving advice, do men and women differ in how assertively they deliver it?

Treatment-Effect Hypotheses (what the feedback manipulation does)

4. Main effect of feedback type: Does receiving absolute vs. relative performance feedback change self-evaluation and the propensity to give advice?
5. Gender × feedback-type interaction: Do the gender differences in performance and advice-giving (H1, H3) vary across the absolute vs. relative feedback treatments — i.e., does relative feedback attenuate or amplify gender gaps?

Mechanism / Mediation Hypothesis (why the differences exist)

6. Self-evaluation as mediator: Does belief about own performance account for gender differences in (a) performance-relevant outcomes and (b) advice-giving — e.g., does controlling for self-evaluation shrink the gender coefficient in H1 and H3?

7. Advice following: Are men and women differentially likely to follow advice, controlling for own performance?
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Subjects complete three blocks of a real-effort counting task (10 questions per block), in which they count the number of 0s in a matrix of 0s and 1s. This task is widely used in the literature to elicit real effort, since performance reflects genuine cognitive work rather than guessing, and has been validated in prior studies as gender-neutral, minimizing the risk that stereotype-driven beliefs about task-domain ability confound the results.

Subjects are randomly assigned to one of two roles: advisor or advisee. Both roles complete the identical task. In each block, every advisor is randomly re-matched with a different advisee, so no advisor-advisee pair repeats across blocks. At the end of each block, each advisor has the option to give advice to their advisee, in the form of their answers to all 10 questions as well as their confidence level in their answers.

Prior to choosing whether to give advice, subjects who are in "advisor" treatment also receive feedback on their performance — which is either absolute (for example, you answered 8/10 questions correctly) or relative (for example, you scored above the average score). Subjects in the advisee treatment are only provided with absolute feedback.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
400
Sample size: planned number of observations
400
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
200
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Skidmore College
IRB Approval Date
2026-03-02
IRB Approval Number
2602-1268
Analysis Plan