Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
7244062 Journal of Economic Psychology 2018 17 Pages PDF
Abstract
We show that performance curiosity - the desire to know one's own (relative) performance - can trump inequality aversion. In two experiments (combined N=450), participants chose between an equal allocation and a performance-based one after generating surplus in a real-effort task. In the experimental treatment, choosing an equal allocation came at the cost of not knowing the own performance, which led to a substantial increase of performance-based choices in comparison with the control treatment. The effect seems especially pronounced for women, but the gender effect is due to a difference in expectations regarding performance. Interestingly, the manipulation equalized the proportion of equal allocation choices between males and females compensating for their difference in expectations.
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