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Gender and generosity: does degree of anonymity or group gender composition matter?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

C. Bram Cadsby ,
Maroš Servátka  and
Fei Song
C. Bram Cadsby*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Maroš Servátka
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Finance, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Fei Song
Affiliation:
Ted Rogers School of Business Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
*
e-mail: bcadsby@uoguelph.ca
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Abstract

Employing a two-by-two factorial design that manipulates whether dictator groups are single or mixed-sex and whether procedures are single or double-blind, we examine gender effects in a standard dictator game. No gender effects were found in any of the experimental treatments for the mean or median levels of giving, or for the propensity to give nothing. However, females chose to give away half of their endowments with greater frequency than males in the pooled single-sex treatments.

Keywords

Other-regardingSelfishAltruismGenderDictatorAnonymityExperimentPriming

JEL classification

D64: Altruism • Philanthropy • Intergenerational Transfers C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 299 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © Economic Science Association 2010

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: 10.1007/s10683-010-9242-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Experimental Materials Experiment Instructions - Double-Blind Procedure
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