Download This PaperExposure to Half-Dressed Women and Economic Behavior
53 Pages Posted: 10 May 2018 Last revised: 6 Sep 2019
Date Written: April 24, 2019
Abstract
Images of half-dressed women are ubiquitous in advertising and popular culture. Yet little is known about the potential impacts of such images on economic decision making. We randomize 648 participants of both genders to advertising images including either women in bikini or underwear, fully dressed women, or no women, and examine the effects on risk taking, willingness to compete and math performance in a lab experiment. We find no treatment effects on any outcome measure for women. For men, our results indicate that men take more risk after having been exposed to images of half-dressed women compared to no women.
Keywords: economic decision making, risk preferences, willingness to compete, altruism, experiment
JEL Classification: D03, C91
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation