Share and share alike? Gender-pairing, personality, and cognitive ability as determinants of giving

Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 581–589

www.elsevier.com/locate/joep

Share and share alike?Gender-pairing, personality, and cognitive

ability as determinants of giving

Avner Ben-Ner a,*, Fanmin Kong b, Louis Putterman c

a Industrial Relations Center, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota,

Minneapolis, MN 55455, USAb Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, Chinac Department of Economics, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA

Received 26 July 2002; received in revised form 28 November 2002; accepted 10 April 2003

Available online 22 July 2003

Abstract

We conduct dictator game experiments in which women and men are allowed to split $10

with a completely unknown person or a person of known gender. Subjects also complete per-

sonality and cognitive tests. We find that (a) gender information significantly affects giving

only in the case of women, who give systematically less to women than to men and persons

of unknown gender; (b) largely on account of this difference, women give less than men on

average, although the difference is not statistically significant; and (c) giving is significantly ex-

plained, especially for women, by personality measures and the cognition score.

� 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PsycINFO classification: 2223

JEL classification: C91; D64

Keywords: Dictator game; Gender; Altruism; Giving

* Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Ben-Ner), [email protected] (F. Kong),

[email protected] (L. Putterman).

0167-4870/$ - see front matter � 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/S0167-4870(03)00065-5

mail to: [email protected]

582 A. Ben-Ner et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 581–589

1. Introduction

In a dictator game, an individual is given some amount of money and asked to

decide how much, if any, to share with another individual. Potential determinants

of sharing in this game – especially gender – have been isolated for study (Andreoni& Vesterlund, 2001; Eckel & Grossman, 1998). The effect on sharing of information

about the identity of the recipient has also begun to be studied (Eckel & Grossman,

1996).

The present paper studies how, if at all, the decisions of men and women are af-

fected by their gender, by knowledge of the gender of the person with whom they are

paired, and by measurable dimensions of personality and cognitive ability.

The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, we introduce the themes of our anal-

ysis: gender, gender-pairing, personality, and cognitive ability. Section 3 provides adescription of our experiments. Section 4 analyzes subjects� behaviors. Section 5 con-cludes the paper.

2. Theoretical considerations

The dictator game was introduced to test if sharing of endowments, which is com-

monly observed in the related ultimatum game (Camerer & Thaler, 1995), is still ob-served if recipients have no veto power. Early experiments found that dictators still

shared an average of about three dollars in a 10-dollar endowment, but that the

amount shared declined when neither recipient nor experimenter could associate a

decision with a specific dictator (i.e., in a double-blind treatment).

This paper extends the literature on the determinants of individual differences in

sharing in a dictator game. We focus on four possible determinants of sharing. The

first is gender. Men and women may differ in their propensities to share a windfall for

a variety of reasons. Differences in reproductive and family roles may lead to thevaluing of nurturing and conciliating qualities in women and of competitive qualities

in men (Eagly & Crowley, 1986; Eckel & Grossman, forthcoming). While such dif-

ferences tend to be inculcated through socialization, some differences could have bi-

ological roots.

The second factor we study is gender-pairing. Persons of either gender may

vary their behaviors depending upon the gender of the person with whom they are

interacting. For example, women may feel greater solidarity with other women than

with men, or, on the contrary, women may view other women as competitors. Theformer could be considered an instance of in-group/out-group behavior, as studied

in many psychological experiments (Tajfel, 1981). The latter would conform to the

predictions of evolutionary psychology (Buss, 1998; Campbell, 1999; Kanazawa,

2002).

The third factor we look at is personality type. Psychologists note that people dif-

fer in various attributes of personality, probably due to a combination of genetic and

environmental differences. One leading psychological scoring system is the NEO five-

factor inventory (Briggs, 1992), which generates measures of personality dimensions

A. Ben-Ner et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 581–589 583

called ‘‘neuroticism,’’ ‘‘extraversion,’’ ‘‘openness to experience,’’ ‘‘agreeableness,’’

and ‘‘conscientiousness.’’ How the propensities towards selfishness versus altruism,

generosity, or rule-based behavior play out in a particular individual may be signif-

icantly linked to such personality variables, as shown recently by Boone, De Bra-

bander, and van Witteloostuijn (1999), Koole, Jager, van den Berg, Vlek, andHofstee (2001), and LePine and Van Dyne (2001). It is of interest to know whether

not-otherwise-explained differences in sharing behavior are purely random, or

whether they in fact correlate with measurable personality indicators.

The fourth and last factor that we consider is cognitive ability. Decision-making

errors and misunderstanding of instructions are often suggested as explanations of

experimental outcomes seemingly at odds with those of neoclassical economics.

Since the neoclassical prediction in the dictator game, assuming strictly self-inter-

ested agents, is sending zero, while only positive amounts or zero can be sent, errorscannot center on the predicted value but are of necessity positive. Thus to the extent

that errors play an important role in explaining sending and that errors are less likely

to be made by subjects with stronger cognitive abilities, there should be a significant

negative relationship between amounts sent and a reliable measure of cognitive abil-

ity. A related possibility is that cognitive ability is systematically related to generosity

for reasons other than proclivity to error: for instance, perhaps Machiavellians are

right that ‘‘only fools are kind when there is nothing in it for them.’’ Although

our experimental design does not permit us to distinguish between these two inter-pretations, both make it interesting to look for correlations between cognitive ability

and sharing in a dictator game. Accordingly, we administered a test of cognitive abil-

ity, the Wonderlic. 1

3. The experiment

The experiment was conducted by a team of researchers from the University ofMinnesota, first at that university, and subsequently at Brown University. It in-

volved 224 first semester undergraduate students at Minnesota, of whom 112 were

assigned the role of dictator, and 84 first semester undergraduates at Brown, of

whom 42 were assigned that role. The Minnesota subjects responded to an e-mail in-

vitation to the university�s entire freshman class (which numbered about 5000), whilethe Brown subjects responded by e-mail to a flyer distributed to all freshmen (about

1600). The e-mail invitations were issued individually (the identities of other recipi-

ents were not shown on the invitation), and both these and the flyers at Brown askedfor participation in an economics/psychology experiment that would last up to 2

1 The Wonderlic personnel test is a timed, 50-item cognitive ability measure commonly used in the pre-

employment selection context. Wonderlic scores are highly consistent with other well-recognized measures

such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the General Aptitude Test Battery, and the Stanford

Achievement Test (see, e.g., Hawkins, Faraone, Pepple, & Seidman, 1990; McKelvie, 1989). The

Wonderlic is also used as a cognitive ability measure in LePine and Van Dyne, cited above.


hours, that would require no physical effort, that would assure subjects� anonymity,and that would earn them a $15 participation fee and possibly additional earnings. 2

Subjects who subsequently learned of their roles as dictators, and those as-

signed the recipient role, entered different rooms in separate buildings and were

assured explicitly of their anonymity. At both campuses, all rooms in which dicta-tors sat contained similar number of male and female subjects seated without regard

to gender, so there were no general cues about the salience of gender in the experi-

ment.

In addition to the $15 fee for participation, each participant in the sender rooms

was given $10 in 1 dollar bills that he or she was asked to keep or divide with an

anonymous recipient. The experiments were fashioned in a manner that closely fol-

lows the double-blind design of Hoffman, McCabe, Shachat, and Smith (1994) and

Eckel and Grossman (1996) so as to assure anonymity both among subjects and be-tween subjects and experimenters. However, the instructions follow more closely the

‘‘divide an endowment’’ language used by Forsythe, Horowitz, Savin, and Sefton

(1994) rather than the ‘‘set a price’’ language used by Hoffman et al. (1994) (see Bol-

ton, Katok, & Zwick, 1998 for a discussion of a possible difference in framing

effects).

In a departure from more basic dictator games, the written instructions given to

roughly 70% of dictators included information about their potential recipient. At

Minnesota, 23 subjects were given no information about the person with whom theywere dividing their $10, 20 subjects were told that this person was a female, 26 were

told that this person was a male, and 43 subjects, whose decisions are not analyzed

here, were given information about their recipient�s place of origin. At Brown,21 subjects were given no information about the person with whom they were divid-

ing their $10 and 21 subjects were told that this person was a female. Limitations on

the number and genders of subjects who showed up for the experiment at Brown

meant that both the sending-to-male condition and conditions with information

about the place of origin of the recipient could not be included there. Our focus ison the sending-to-person (no information), sending-to-female, and sending-to-male

conditions, to which a total of 111 subjects, 69 at Minnesota and 42 at Brown, were

assigned. Because subjects were told nothing about whether information was being

given to other subjects, or if so, what kind of information, the absence of certain con-

ditions at one of the two schools cannot have affected the understanding or framing

of the task facing the subjects whose decisions we analyze. 3 Recipients of the gender

2 The relatively high participation fee, which could have some bearing upon the amounts sent, was

deemed necessary due to the time required by participants to complete the NEO and Wonderlic

instruments and an additional survey and tasks not pertinent to the present paper (but discussed in Ben-

Ner, Putterman, Kong, & Magan, forthcoming).3 The complete instructions given to participants are available upon request.


indicated (or of either gender, in the ‘‘sending-to-person’’ condition), who were

seated in other rooms, received the bills sent to them, as promised by the experi-

menter. 4

4. Experimental results and analysis

4.1. Description and analysis of variance

Table 1 displays definitions of the variables, and means of the continuous vari-

ables, included in our analysis. Table 2 shows the average amount sent by dictators

overall, and a breakdown of sending by males and females to recipients of unknown

gender and recipients known to be male or female. The most important finding isthat female subjects sent less to known female recipients than they did to known

male recipients and to persons about whom no information was provided. That in-

formation on recipient�s gender mattered to female subjects is partially supported byan analysis of variance. The results of a one-way ANOVA indicate that knowing the

receiver�s gender significantly influenced female dictators� giving, F ð2; 67Þ ¼ 3:13,p < 0:05, g2 ¼ 0:085. A similar effect did not obtain for male subjects, F ð2; 38Þ ¼0:05, p < 0:95, g2 ¼ 0:003. We also conducted a two-way ANOVA, with the dollaramount sent as the dependent variable. Results do not suggest a significant main ef-fect of dictator�s gender, F ð1; 105Þ ¼ 0:85, p < 0:36, g2 ¼ 0:007, on sharing. Nor dothe results suggest a main effect of receiver�s gender, F ð2; 105Þ ¼ 0:68, p < 0:51,g2 ¼ 0:011, on sharing. The interaction effect, F ð2; 105Þ ¼ 1:34, p < 0:27, g2 ¼0:024, on sharing is not significant either. A Mann–Whitney test of the combined

Minnesota and Brown sample shows that women sent less to women than to men

and to persons (both differences are significant at the 5% level). 5 Mann–Whitney

tests confirm these differences at the 10% level in the Minnesota subsample, al-

though not in the Brown subsample. 6 A Mann–Whitney test on the combined sam-ple also shows that women sent less to women than men did, significant at the 10%

level.

4 Recipients also received show-up fees, completed tests and a survey, and carried out other tasks not

pertinent to this paper (see again Ben-Ner et al., forthcoming).5 The OLS regression on which the two-way ANOVA is based also provides evidence of the gender

difference. In this regression, amount sent is the dependent variable, and the gender-pairing dummy

variables female-to-female, female-to-male, female-to-person, male-to-female and male-to-male are the

explanatory variables. The coefficient on the female-to-female dummy variable is negative and significant

at the 10% level.6 This may be partly a function of sample size. Average behaviors by gender are remarkably similar at

the two schools. Both a Mann–Whitney test and a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test show no significant

differences between overall sending at Minnesota and at Brown, no significant difference between sending

by women at Minnesota and by women at Brown, and no significant difference between sending by men at

Minnesota and by men at Brown.

Table 2

Amounts sent, by gender-pairing

Receiver�s gender Total

Male Female Person

Dictator’s GenderMale 3.50a 3.71a 3.41a 3.54a

(2.99)b (2.89)b (2.24)b (2.60)b

10c 14c 17c 41c

Female 3.81a 2.19a 3.30a 2.99a

(2.26)b (2.34)b (2.07)b (2.29)b

16c 27c 27c 70c

Total 3.69a 3.71a 3.34a 3.19a

(2.51)b (2.61)b (2.11)b (2.41)b

26c 41c 44c 111c

aMean.b Standard deviation.cNumber of observations.

Table 1

Variable definitions, and means of continuous variables

Variable Definition Mean

Dependent variable

Send Dollar amount sent ð$0; $1; $2; . . . ; $10Þ 3.19

Independent variables

Agreeable Raw score dictator earned on NEO agreeableness scale 32.51

Conscientious Raw score dictator earned on NEO conscientiousness scale 30.76

Extraversion Raw score dictator earned on NEO extraversion scale 30.68

Neurotic Raw score dictator earned on NEO neuroticism scale 22.95

Open Raw score dictator earned on NEO openness scale 32.29

Cognition Raw score dictator earned on Wonderlic personnel test on problem-

solving ability

29.18

Female-to-female Gender pairing dummy, 1 if a female dictator was informed that her

paired recipient is also a female; 0 otherwise

Female-to-male Gender pairing dummy, 1 if a female dictator was informed that her

paired recipient is a male; 0 otherwise

Female-to-person Gender pairing dummy, 1 if a female dictator was NOT informed

any gender or origin information of her paired recipient; 0 otherwise

Male-to-male Gender pairing dummy, 1 if a male dictator was informed that his

paired recipient is also a male; 0 otherwise

Male-to-female Gender pairing dummy, 1 if a male dictator was informed that his

paired recipient is a female; 0 otherwise

Male-to-person Gender pairing dummy, 1 if a male dictator was NOT informed of

any gender or origin information of his paired recipient; 0 otherwise


4.2. Regression analysis

We study the effects of cognitive ability and personality jointly with those of gen-

der and gender-pairing by estimating multivariate regressions. Table 3 presents OLS

Table 3

Determinants of sending: Gender and no information conditions

Variable OLS Ordered logit

All Males Females All Males Females

Agreeable 0.12�� 0.16� 0.12� 0.10�� 0.17�� 0.11��

(0.05) (0.08) (0.06) (0.04) (0.07) (0.05)

Conscientious 0.02 0.09 )0.08� 0.01 0.07� )0.08��

(0.04) (0.06) (0.04) (0.03) (0.04) (0.04)

Extraversion )0.07�� )0.16�� 0.005 ) 0.06� )0.14�� 0.01

(0.04) (0.07) (0.04) (0.03) (0.06) (0.04)

Neurotic )0.03 0.03 )0.08�� )0.02 0.02 )0.07��

(0.03) (0.06) (0.03) (0.02) (0.04) (0.03)

Open 0.06 0.06 0.03 0.05 0.03 0.04

(0.04) (0.07) (0.04) (0.03) (0.05) (0.04)

Cognition )0.09� )0.03 )0.11�� )0.06� )0.01 )0.10�

(0.05) (0.08) (0.05) (0.04) (0.06) (0.05)

Female-to-female )1.19 )1.16�� )1.34�� )1.30��

(0.76) (0.56) (0.61) (0.55)

Female-to-male 0.65 0.55 0.05 0.21

(0.86) (0.67) (0.65) (0.59)

Female-to-person )0.10 )0.24(0.74) (0.58)

Male-to-male 1.27 1.73 0.47 1.32

(1.03) (1.25) (0.82) (0.95)

Male-to-female 0.67 0.62 0.39 0.56

(0.85) (0.96) (0.69) (0.71)

Constant 2.40 1.60 5.70�

(2.69) (5.01) (2.99)

N 111 41 70 111 41 70

Prob: > F =v2 0.05 0.26 0.002 0.03 0.14 0.001

Adjusted R2 0.08 0.06 0.23

Note: Standard errors of parameter estimates are reported in parentheses. Significance levels are marked

with � for p6 0:10, and �� for p6 0:05. For ordered logit, the estimates for ancillary parameters are notreported here.


and ordered logit estimates for the combined Minnesota and Brown samples, with

both genders combined, and for male and female dictators separately. The regression

equations include dummy variables for each sender-recipient gender pair, sending-

to-person by males being the excluded gender-pairing condition in the combined re-

gressions. Chow tests fail to reject at the 10% level the null hypothesis that male and

female behaviors conform to the same parameters; the tests fail to reject at the 10%


level the null hypotheses that behaviors at Brown and those at Minnesota are de-

scribed by the same parameters. 7

Among females, the amount sent to another female is significantly less, consistent

with the Mann–Whitney tests above, and three of the personality factors and cogni-

tion are also significant predictors of sending. In particular, more ‘‘agreeable’’ femaledictators shared more with their recipients, while more ‘‘conscientious,’’ ‘‘neurotic,’’

and cognitively high-scoring female dictators shared less. 8

The estimates for males predicts behavior less well, with no significant effects ap-

parent for gender-pairing condition and cognitive score. However, two of the five

personality factors do have predictive power for male sending. Of these one, extra-

version, was not a significant predictor for female dictators. The sign and magnitude

of the coefficient on agreeableness are quite similar for the two genders, by contrast.

5. Conclusions

Our dictator game experiment suggests that personality, cognitive ability, and the

gender of sender and recipient affect how much is sent to an anonymous recipient in

a one-shot dictator game. Interestingly, all of these factors have a more pronounced

effect for women than for men. In separate sessions at two universities, female sub-

jects on average shared less of their endowments than did males, mainly because wo-men paired with other women sent less than those paired with men or with persons

about whom no information was provided. Women with lower cognitive scores sent

more, and four of five personality factors were also significant predictors of sending,

although only one of these was predictive in both the male and female subsamples.

The model is more successful at explaining female than male sending.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank John Dickhaut for his help in designing the experiment,

and Dan Magan and Shu-yi Oei for their help in carrying out the experiment, which

was funded by the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

7 For OLS, the test statistic for pooling men of both schools with women of both schools is F ¼ 0:205,

which falls far short of the critical value at 5%, F �0:05;6;99 ¼ 2:192. A Chow test of whether Brown and

Minnesota observations can be pooled, disregarding gender differences, also fails to reject the null

hypothesis even at the 10% level, with F ¼ 0:001 < F �0:1;8;95 ¼ 1:736. The test statistic for pooling males of

the two schools is F ¼ 0:514 < F �0:1;6;29 ¼ 1:99. The test statistic for pooling females of the two schools is

F ¼ 0:10 < F �0:1;6;58 ¼ 1:88. A Chow-type test, calculated for the ordered logit regressions, gives similar

results.8 In terms of magnitudes, the OLS estimate for female dictators implies that a one standard deviation

increase in the cognitive score would decrease the amount shared by a female sender by about 56 cents, or

by about 19%. A one standard deviation increase in ‘‘agreeableness’’ would increase female sending by 58

and a one standard increase in ‘‘neuroticism’’ or ‘‘conscientiousness’’would decrease female sending by 70

and 50 cents, respectively. (These calculations use the standard deviations in the 70 female observations.)


An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Economics Associa-

tion panel on Economics, Values and Organization, Allied Social Sciences Associa-

tion meetings, Chicago, January 1998. We thank many readers, seminar and

conference participants for useful comments, and the editor and referees of this jour-

nal for help in focusing the paper.

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Share and share alike? Gender-pairing, personality, and cognitive ability as determinants of giving