Which is the more predictable gender? Public good contribution and personality

Marco Perugini, Jonathan H. W. Tan, Daniel John Zizzo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

Abstract

Personality questionnaires have been used and can be used to predict behavior in economic settings. Using two sets of state-of-the-art measures from personality psychology (the Big Six) and social psychology (Social Value Orientation), we find that the behavior of men is predictable in the first half of a public good contribution experiment, whereas that of women is not. This result agrees with the reinterpretation of Carol Gilligan's (1982) view that women are more sensitive to the context in which decisions are made.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)83-110
Number of pages28
JournalEconomic Issues
Volume15
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2010

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