Demand for information by gender: An experimental study

Abstract

We study preferences for seeking information about one's own ability within a male-typed task. Using a lab experiment, we study how women and men might differ in their preferences for information and how these preferences are affected by features of the information environment. We consider a setting where men and women solve a male-typed task, and then choose to receive information about their performance from less or more informative feedback structures. We then vary the costs and benefits of seeking the more informative feedback. In a between-subjects experiment, we make the informative feedback i) private to the subject ii) public iii) subjectively judgemental, and iv) strategic. We find that women are less likely to opt for more informative feedback than men by about 20 p.p. in the first three treatments but this gap vanishes in the strategic treatment. Interestingly, however, this is driven entirely by men who change their behaviour due to strategic incentives. Our results have implications for how men and women learn differently in male-typed domains.