Competition and subsequent risk-taking behaviour: Heterogeneity across gender and outcomes

This paper studies if competition affects subsequent risk-taking behaviour by means of a laboratory experiment that manipulates the degree of competitiveness of the environment under equivalent monetary incentives. We find that competition increases risk aversion, especially for males, but not in a significant manner. When conditioning on the outcome, we find that males become significantly more risk averse after losing the tournament than after randomly earning the same low payoff. In contrast, males do not become more risk-seeking after winning the tournament, while females’ average risk-taking behaviour is unaffected by tournament participation and outcomes. Our findings can be rationalized using the results of the literature on self-serving attribution.