Gendered decision making in explore-exploit tasks

Many real-world scenarios involve explore-exploit decisions, balancing the pursuit of better opportunities with securing a certain but potentially suboptimal outcome. Do gendered approaches to these decisions exist? This study investigates gender differences in exploration and competition behaviour through a pre-registered lab experiment with 432 participants (50% female). Specifically, we examine behaviour in the context of the explore-exploit dilemma, both under a piece rate payment scheme and in a competitive tournament setting. Participants completed three computerized tasks: the grain game featuring the explore-exploit dilemma, which included two treatments, one allowing only gains and another incorporating both gains and losses, a risk elicitation task (BRET), and a loss aversion task. These tasks were followed by a questionnaire designed to assess various individual characteristics The results show that, contrary to the initial pre-registered hypotheses, women do not explore less than men; in fact, they explore more in environments where only gains are possible. However, no gender differences emerge in exploration when the environment entails the possibility of losses. Regarding competition, women are less likely to choose competitive settings than men in gain-only environments, but this difference disappears once individual characteristics, such as risk and loss aversion, are taken into account. These findings contribute to understanding gendered tendencies in risk-taking, exploration, and competition.