Gender Effects in Dictator Game Giving: Under Voluntary Choice, Women Favour Female Recipients

Allowing for a voluntary choice of the recipient's gender in a dictator game (N = 508), we find that women show a substantial gender biase towards females. Adding a charity recipient to the possible choices, the charity becomes the primary recipient and overall transfers increase; yet, conditioning on transfers to fellow students the gender bias of women remains. The literature on cognitive dissonance (the feeling of distress once we act against our internalised values) emphasises the importance of voluntary choice for dissonance effects to take hold. Accordingly, we interpret our results as hinting at an important detail regarding the ongoing debate about gender differences in altruistic giving: primary differences may not be found in the amount of transfers made but rather in the choice of the beneficiary’s gender.
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