Abstract
When it comes to financial decision-making, women may be more risk averse than men, and mothers are more risk-averse than non-mothers on average (Charness & Gneezy, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 83, 50–58, 2012; Ross, 2021). This pattern of responding is attributed as one reason for gender-based pay differences that negatively impact women in the workforce and risks placing blame on women when not considering the broader social context operating around womanhood and motherhood. The present study is an exploratory experimental analysis of the influence of motherhood as a context variable affecting probability discounting rates of women across two experiments. In the first experiment, a college student sample of non-mothers completed a standard probability discounting task and an additive discounting task where they imagined having a hypothetical child while completing the task. Results showed steeper probability discounting in the hypothetical motherhood condition (t(28) = –2.30, p < 0.05). In the second experiment, a sample of mothers recruited using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk completed the standard probability discounting task and a subtractive discounting task where they imagined that they had chosen not to have children and completed the task. Results showed lower probability discounting rates in the hypothetical non-motherhood condition (t(50) = –5.29, p < 0.01). Taken together, these results suggest that motherhood may be a broad context variable that influences discounting rates and further research is needed to pinpoint specific components within the social experiences of mothers that contribute to financial disadvantages for women within oppressive social systems.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
“American” is used here to appreciate the context within which this form of pragmatism emerged, including credited pragmatic scholars like Pierce and James, generally uncredited earlier versions of embodiment of thought in place (i.e., context) adopted by early indigenous philosophers (Deloria Jr., 1972), and the evolution of thought through events like the civil rights and woman’s suffrage movements in the Americas (Spencer, 2020).
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Funding was obtained through the LOTUS Project [B02743-132022-73004-011] as part of an effort to infuse applied behavior analytic research within applied settings and dismantle systems of oppression.
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Venegoni, J., Adler, M., Belisle, J. et al. Exploratory Analysis of the Contextual Influence of Motherhood on Probability Discounting in Women. Behav. Soc. Iss. 32, 396–418 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-023-00137-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-023-00137-2