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Does Gender Composition Affect Group Decision Outcomes? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

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Abstract

There are good reasons to expect that greater proportions of women in decision making bodies shape decision making in important ways that are not fully considered in the current literature. In the present study, a conceptual framework is presented that differs significantly from other explanations for gendered group decision making. Data from an original laboratory experiment offers support for the hypothesis that group outcomes will vary based on gender composition due to differing process strategies used by men and women. These data illuminate how gender diversity in decision making bodies is likely to shape policy making, as well as enhance our understanding of how policymaking is itself gendered.

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Notes

  1. Recent studies show that although men and women have identical volumes of amygdala, hippocampus, and dorsal prefrontal cortices, women have larger orbital frontal cortices than men. The larger volume devoted to emotional modulation likely relates to behavioral evidence for differences in emotion processing (Gur et al. 2002; see also Cahill 2003, 2006). In other words, there is evidence from cognitive neuroscience that suggests women’s greater propensity for pro-sociality has a physiological basis (see also Hannagan 2008).

  2. A uniform extra credit point payoff was negotiated with instructors ahead of time for the students who wished to participate. For the students, participation was entirely voluntary, not participating had no impact on an individual’s grade, and those who did not wish to participate could gain the extra points in some other way through their class instructor. At the end of the experiment all students, regardless of the divisions made in the games, received the same, maximal extra credit payoff. This research design was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the participating university.

  3. The individual question was asked following the group interaction to eliminate the possibility of contaminating the group decision making process. We acknowledge that this may limit the claims we can make regarding individual preferences. In the future we will randomize the individual question before and after group interaction, but did not do so for logistic and methodological reasons in this experiment.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Kevin B. Smith and three anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments on previous drafts of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Political Science, Northern Illinois University, 415 Zulauf Hall, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

    Rebecca J. Hannagan

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA

    Christopher W. Larimer

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Correspondence to Rebecca J. Hannagan.

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This research was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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Hannagan, R.J., Larimer, C.W. Does Gender Composition Affect Group Decision Outcomes? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment. Polit Behav 32, 51–67 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-009-9087-z

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