Elif Bike Osun, University of Maryland (Job Market Seminar)

"Effect of Feedback on Beliefs About Self-Ability"

Abstract

I study the effect of different feedback structures on belief updating in an ego-relevant task using a controlled experiment. Across treatments, subjects receive feedback through a signal with either a noise component, a comparison component, or both. The first two signals are commonly used in the literature, while I develop the latter to systematically analyze the effect of noise and comparison components on belief updating. I find that the signal structure is an important determinant of how subjects update their beliefs. This is driven by men and women exhibiting different biases depending on whether the signal is noisy or comparative. Men underweight bad news when the signal has a noise component and women underweight good news when the signal has a comparison component. These findings have implications for policies aiming to reduce the well-established gender gap in self-confidence through feedback provision.

Contact person: Thomas Markussen