Exposure to half-dressed women and economic behavior: Men take more risk, no effect on willingness to compete & math performance; very little effect on economic decision making

Exposure to half-dressed women and economic behavior. Evelina Bonnier et al. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 168, December 2019, Pages 393-418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.10.017

Highlights
•    We randomize 648 participants of both genders in the lab to advertising images.
•    The images contain either half-dressed women, fully dressed women, or no women.
•    We study the effects on risk taking, willingness to compete and math performance.
•    We find no treatment effects on any outcome measure for women.
•    There is some evidence of men taking more risk after viewing half-dressed women.

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.