Social Identity and Competitiveness

Women are widely under-represented in top-level social positions. While several potential reasons may explain this fact (Goldin and Rouse, 2000, Altonji and Blank, 1999), recent findings have emphasised one specific cause as particularly relevant: women are less likely to self-select into competitions (Gupta et al., 2005, Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007, Niederle et al., 2008). Dargnies (2009) shows that many men stay out of competition when it is team-based so that there is no gender gap in team tournament entry. This result is mainly due to high-performing men being repelled by the idea of helping a probably less able participant increase her payoffs. Indeed, high-performing men are willing to enter the team tournament, but only provided that they will be matched with a teammate of level close to their own. While high-performing men have an obvious interest in being matched with another highly efficient teammate, this may also suggest that they gain utility from performing with a teammate they share characteristics with. In other words, being in the same team sometimes means something more than a change in expected payoffs. If such is the case, performing at a similar level may act as an implicit common identity. It is then interesting to study whether ∗Paris School of Economics, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, CES 106-112 boulevard de l’Hopital 75013 Paris. Tel:(0033) 1 44 07 82 13. Fax: (0033) 1 44 07 82 31. E-mail: [email protected]