Linking Beliefs to Willingness to Compete

URL des Documents de travail : http://ces.univ-paris1.fr/cesdp/cesdp2012.htmlDocuments de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 2012.75 - ISSN : 1955-611XMen are known to have a higher taste for competition than women. This paper presents an experiment that analyses the different determinants of the choice to enter a competition : beliefs and the competition level. As far as entry in the competition is concerned, low-performing subjects adapt their decision entry to the level of the competition, whereas high-performers do no. However, the behaviors leading to these results are quite different for men and women : women mainly react to the information on their own performance while men seem to respond more to their beliefs concerning the level of the competition they will be evolving in. Finally, both men and women deviate from their bayesian beliefs and become too pessimistic (optimistic) after a negative (positive) feedback.Les travaux récents montrent que les hommes ont un goût pour la compétition plus prononcé que les femmes. Cet article présente un protocole expérimental mettant en évidence les différents déterminants du choix d'entrer en compétition : les croyances et le niveau de la compétition. Nous trouvons que les sujets peu performants s'adaptent au niveau de la compétition, ce qui n'est pas le cas des sujets performants. Notre expérience permet aussi de montrer que l'information n'est pas traitée de la même façon par les hommes et par les femmes : les femmes donnent plus de poids à l'information reçue, tandis que les hommes tiennent plus compte du niveau de la compétition auquel ils vont faire face. De manière générale, les hommes et les femmes dévient des croyances bayésiennes et l'information sur leur performance les rend trop pessimistes si cette information est négative (trop optimiste dans le cas contraire)

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