Do Women Have More Shame than Men? An Experiment on Self-Assessment and the Shame of Overestimating Oneself

We analyze how subjects’ self-assessment depends on whether its
accuracy is observable to others. We find that women downgrade
their selfassessment given observability while men do not. Women
avoid the shame they may have if others observe that they
overestimated themselves. Men, however, do not seem to be similarly
shame-averse. This gender difference may be due to different
societal expectations: While we find that men are expected to be
overconfident, women are not. Shame-aversion may explain recent
findings that women shy away from competition, demanding jobs and
wage negotiations, as entering these situations is a statement to
be confident of one’s ability.