Gender Differences in Performance Evaluations

Abstract

This study analyzes the gender gap in self- and peer evaluations based on a laboratoryexperiment. Five players performed a creativity task in a high-stakes winner-takes-all tournament.The treatment without validation informed all players that evaluations that they will conductdetermine who will win. The treatment with public validation additionally informed them that theycan see an objective performance measure of all players (including themselves) at the end of theexperiment which is irrelevant for winning. The results show that men give themselves better selfevaluations compared to women when there is no validation. This gender difference vanishescompletely when providing public validation.

Keywords: self-evaluation, peer evaluation, public validation, gender

JEL Classification: J16, M50