Working Paper: NBER ID: w22972
Authors: Pedro Bordalo; Katherine B. Coffman; Nicola Gennaioli; Andrei Shleifer
Abstract: We conduct a laboratory experiment on the determinants of beliefs about own and others’ ability across different domains. A preliminary look at the data points to two distinct forces: miscalibration in estimating performance depending on the difficulty of tasks and gender stereotypes. We develop a theoretical model that separates these forces and apply it to analyze a large laboratory dataset in which participants estimate their own and a partner’s performance on questions across six subjects: arts and literature, emotion recognition, business, verbal reasoning, mathematics, and sports. We find that participants greatly overestimate not only their own ability but also that of others, suggesting that miscalibration is a substantial, first order factor in stated beliefs. Women are better calibrated than men, providing more accurate estimates of ability both for themselves and for others. Gender stereotypes also have strong predictive power for beliefs, particularly for men’s beliefs about themselves and others’ beliefs about the ability of men. Our findings help interpret evidence on gender gaps in self-confidence.
Keywords: gender; beliefs; ability; miscalibration; stereotypes
JEL Codes: C91; D01; J16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| difficulty influenced miscalibration (DIM) (D91) | beliefs about performance (D29) |
| gender stereotypes (J16) | beliefs about performance (D29) |
| difficulty influenced miscalibration (DIM) and gender stereotypes (J16) | beliefs about performance (D29) |
| gender stereotypes (J16) | men's self-assessments (D91) |
| gender stereotypes (J16) | men's assessments of other men's abilities (C92) |
| difficulty influenced miscalibration (DIM) (D91) | gender gap in self-confidence (J16) |
| gender stereotypes (J16) | gender gap in self-confidence (J16) |
| difficulty influenced miscalibration (DIM) and gender stereotypes (J16) | gender gap in self-confidence (J16) |
| difficulty influenced miscalibration (DIM) (D91) | overestimation of abilities (C53) |
| gender stereotypes (J16) | overestimation of abilities (C53) |