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UCSD ECON 264 - Beauty, Gender and Stereotypes

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Beaut y, G ender and Stereot ypes:Evidence from Laboratory Experim en tsJames AndreoniUn iversity of WisconsinMadison, WI 53706Ragan Petrie∗Georgia State UniversityAtlan ta, GA 30303September 2005AbstractThe existence of a beauty premium in the labor market and the male-female wage gap suggests that appearance can matter in the real world. Weexplore beauty and gender in a public goods experiment and find similar ef-fects. We find a beauty premium, even though beautiful people contribute,on average, no more or less than others. The beauty premium, however,disappears when we provide information on individual con tributions, andbecomes a beauty penalty. Players seem to expect beautiful people to bemore cooperative. Relative to these expectations, they appear more selfish,which in turn results in less cooperation by others. These appear to beclear examples of stereotyping. We also find a substantial benefittobe-ing male, especially with information. This is primarily due to men beingbetter “leaders.” Men tend to make large contributions, and people followtheir example and give more in later rounds.∗We are grateful to Terence Burnham, Marco Castillo, Rachel Croson, Daniel Hamermesh,and Bart Lipman for helpful comments. We also thank the National Science Foundation forfinancial support.1. IntroductionIt is well known from labor market studies that beaut y and gender can ha vebig effects on earning s. Ham erm esh and Biddle (1994) ha ve show n a significantpremium to beaut y, with attractive people earning more money than unattractivepeople. Th ere is also a significant and persistent male-fema le w ag e gap. Ev enwhen controlling for age and experience, men earn about 25% more than wom en(O’N eill, 2003, 1998). W h ile som e of these differen ces can be attributed to labormarket factors, mu ch of the beauty premium and wage gap remains unexplained.W ith labor market studies as inspiration, we look at the returns to beautyand gender in an economic laboratory experiment where there are benefits togroup cooperation. Typically economic experiments tak e great pains to shieldthe identities of subjects from eac h other, and as suc h ha ve nothing to sa y aboutho w appearances may affect earnings.1Instead, we reveal the identities of playersto one another b y showing their digital photos in the experiment. We find thatbeauty and gender have significant an d sometimes unexpected affects on earnings.Furthermo re, the behaviors and apparent stereot ypin g we find may provide someclues into why gender and beauty are so important in the labor market.The experimen tal setting we consider is a repeated linear public goods gam e.While not a direct test of the beauty prem ium or the w age-gap found in thelabor mar ket, a public goods game is no netheless an interesting institution forexploring how such wa ge differen ces can emerge in an employmen t setting. P e ople1An important exception to this is research by Mobius and Rosenblat (2003) who use alabor market experiment to decompose the beauty premium. In their experiment, an employerreceives a precise measure of a worker’s productivity from a practice round and decides a wage topay the worker. The interaction between the employer and worker is one shot, so the employercannot verify if a beautiful worker was as productive as originally thought.1often work in team s where shirking cannot alwa ys be perfectly m on itor ed. Thisallo w s for stereotypin g to color evaluations of and reactions to both free riding andgenerosity, and to affect the productivity of the team. A repeated public goodsgame offers a setting where stereotyping is possible (in groups of more than two)and people have an opportunit y to see if their expectations of beha vio r mesh withactual beha vior. When effort is observable, certain people can “set the tone” forthe w ork group. Gender and beaut y may affect which people in the g roup may beemulated b y others, ho w m uch retribution people take aga inst shirkers and howm uch cooperation is used to rew ard generosity. In the end, the beauty and genderof the individuals in the group will affect the cooperation and success of the groupas a whole, and the earnings of its individual mem bers.In our ex periment we show each player the digital photos of all other membersof their group eac h round. We ha ve two conditions, one in which only total groupcontributions are rev ealed, and another in whic h information on each pla yer’scontribution is revealed.Our experimen ts find evidence for a beaut y prem ium . This premium, however,disappears once people know exactly w hat eac h group m ember contribu ted to thepublic good. When only the total group contribution is observable, attractive menand w omen make more money than unattractive men and w omen, even thoughthey are no more or less cooperative, on a verage, than unattractive people. Whenindividual contributions are observable, the rew ard to being beautiful disappears.P e ople seem to expect beautiful people to be more cooperativ e than others, andwhen their beha v ior does not meet expectations, people are less cooperative withthem. There is also a difference in payoffs for men and w om en, but not alwaysfavoring men. Women mak e more money than men when only group con tributions2are known. This can be attributed primarily to the stereotype that w om en aremore helpful. Men, however, do best when individual con tributions to the groupare clearly identified. Men earn 15% more w hen individual con tribution s arekno w n , com p ared to when only group contrib utions are know n. Interestingly,women’s payoffs do not change. This effect can be attributed en tirely to menbeing better “leaders.” They contribute their full endowm ent more often, andothers follow their good example b y con tributing more in later rounds.W ith these results, w e begin to see som e of the underlying factors that couldgenerate both a beaut y premium and a wage gap, especially in team w ork en vi-ronmen ts. P eople give beautiful people the benefit of the doubt in groups andcooperate m or e with them, thereb y enha ncing group welfare. Wom en earn mor ethan men when individual con tributions to group output are unknown becausethey are stereotyped overall to be more helpful. However, once individua l con-tributions are known with certain ty, the beauty premium disappears and a malepremiu m replaces it. This appears to be du e to people being more willin g to fol-lo w the


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UCSD ECON 264 - Beauty, Gender and Stereotypes

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