Gender differences in private and public goal setting

Jordi Brandts; Sabrine El Baroudi; Stefanie J. Huber; Christina Rott

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.012

Gender differences in private and public goal setting

Jordi Brandts
, Sabrine El Baroudi
, Stefanie J. Huber
, Christina Rott^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Management and Organisation

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We conduct a field and an online classroom experiment to study gender differences in self-set performance goals and their effects on performance in a real-effort task. We distinguish between public and private goals, performance being public and identifiable in both cases. Participants set significantly more ambitious goals when these are public. Women choose lower goals than men in both treatments. Men perform better than women under private and public goals as well as in the absence of goal setting, consistent with the identifiability of performance causing gender differences, as found in other studies. Compared to private goal setting, public goal setting does not affect men's performance at all but it leads to women's performance being significantly lower. Comparing self-set goals with actual performance we find that under private goal setting women's performance is on average 67% of goals, whereas for men it is 57%. Under public goal setting the corresponding percentages are 43% and 39%, respectively.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	222-247
Number of pages	26
Journal	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume	192
Early online date	29 Oct 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.012
Publication status	Published - Dec 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support.

Funding Information:
Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci?n (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigaci?n (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021

Funding

Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support. Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci?n (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigaci?n (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 5 Gender Equality

Keywords

Experiment
Gender differences
Goal setting
Public observability

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.012

Persistent URL (handle)

Persistent link

Cite this

@article{b03314281dcd4ff78934368e5b9a2f4e,

title = "Gender differences in private and public goal setting",

abstract = "We conduct a field and an online classroom experiment to study gender differences in self-set performance goals and their effects on performance in a real-effort task. We distinguish between public and private goals, performance being public and identifiable in both cases. Participants set significantly more ambitious goals when these are public. Women choose lower goals than men in both treatments. Men perform better than women under private and public goals as well as in the absence of goal setting, consistent with the identifiability of performance causing gender differences, as found in other studies. Compared to private goal setting, public goal setting does not affect men's performance at all but it leads to women's performance being significantly lower. Comparing self-set goals with actual performance we find that under private goal setting women's performance is on average 67\% of goals, whereas for men it is 57\%. Under public goal setting the corresponding percentages are 43\% and 39\%, respectively.",

keywords = "Experiment, Gender differences, Goal setting, Public observability",

author = "Jordi Brandts and \{El Baroudi\}, Sabrine and Huber, \{Stefanie J.\} and Christina Rott",

note = "Funding Information: Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci{\'o}n (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigaci{\'o}n (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R\&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support. Funding Information: Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci?n (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigaci?n (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R\&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021",

year = "2021",

month = dec,

doi = "10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.012",

language = "English",

volume = "192",

pages = "222--247",

journal = "Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization",

issn = "0167-2681",

publisher = "Elsevier B.V.",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Gender differences in private and public goal setting

AU - Brandts, Jordi

AU - El Baroudi, Sabrine

AU - Huber, Stefanie J.

AU - Rott, Christina

N1 - Funding Information: Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support. Funding Information: Brandts thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci?n (Grant number PID2020-114251GB-I00), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigaci?n (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2017 SGR 1136) for financial support. Publisher Copyright: © 2021

PY - 2021/12

Y1 - 2021/12

N2 - We conduct a field and an online classroom experiment to study gender differences in self-set performance goals and their effects on performance in a real-effort task. We distinguish between public and private goals, performance being public and identifiable in both cases. Participants set significantly more ambitious goals when these are public. Women choose lower goals than men in both treatments. Men perform better than women under private and public goals as well as in the absence of goal setting, consistent with the identifiability of performance causing gender differences, as found in other studies. Compared to private goal setting, public goal setting does not affect men's performance at all but it leads to women's performance being significantly lower. Comparing self-set goals with actual performance we find that under private goal setting women's performance is on average 67% of goals, whereas for men it is 57%. Under public goal setting the corresponding percentages are 43% and 39%, respectively.

AB - We conduct a field and an online classroom experiment to study gender differences in self-set performance goals and their effects on performance in a real-effort task. We distinguish between public and private goals, performance being public and identifiable in both cases. Participants set significantly more ambitious goals when these are public. Women choose lower goals than men in both treatments. Men perform better than women under private and public goals as well as in the absence of goal setting, consistent with the identifiability of performance causing gender differences, as found in other studies. Compared to private goal setting, public goal setting does not affect men's performance at all but it leads to women's performance being significantly lower. Comparing self-set goals with actual performance we find that under private goal setting women's performance is on average 67% of goals, whereas for men it is 57%. Under public goal setting the corresponding percentages are 43% and 39%, respectively.

KW - Experiment

KW - Gender differences

KW - Goal setting

KW - Public observability

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85118127095

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85118127095#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.012

DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.012

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85118127095

SN - 0167-2681

VL - 192

SP - 222

EP - 247

JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

ER -

Gender differences in private and public goal setting

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

Persistent URL (handle)

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this