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Beauty queens and battling knights: Risk taking and attractiveness in chess

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  • Dreber, Anna
  • Gerdes, Christer
  • Gränsmark, Patrik

Abstract

We explore the relationship between attractiveness and risk taking in chess. We use a large international panel dataset on high-level chess competitions which includes a control for the players’ skill in chess. This data is combined with results from a survey on an online labor market where participants were asked to rate the photos of 626 expert chess players according to attractiveness. Our results suggest that male chess players choose significantly riskier strategies when playing against an attractive female opponent, even though this does not improve their performance. Women's strategies are not affected by the attractiveness of the opponent.

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  • Dreber, Anna & Gerdes, Christer & Gränsmark, Patrik, 2013. "Beauty queens and battling knights: Risk taking and attractiveness in chess," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-18.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:90:y:2013:i:c:p:1-18
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2013.03.006
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    Cited by:

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    3. Bar-Eli, Michael & Krumer, Alex & Morgulev, Elia, 2020. "Ask not what economics can do for sports - Ask what sports can do for economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Zegners, Dainis & Sunde, Uwe & Strittmatter, Anthony, 2020. "Decisions and Performance Under Bounded Rationality: A Computational Benchmarking Approach," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 263, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    5. Islam, Asad & Lee, Wang-Sheng & Nicholas, Aaron, 2021. "The Effects of Chess Instruction on Academic and Non-cognitive Outcomes: Field Experimental Evidence from a Developing Country," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    6. Bonnier, Evelina & Dreber, Anna & Hederos, Karin & Sandberg, Anna, 2018. "Undressed for Success? The Effects of Half-Naked Women on Economic Behavior," Working Paper Series 6/2018, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    7. Bonnier, Evelina & Dreber, Anna & Hederos, Karin & Sandberg, Anna, 2019. "Exposure to half-dressed women and economic behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 393-418.
    8. José De Sousa & Guillaume Hollard, 2023. "From Micro to Macro Gender Differences: Evidence from Field Tournaments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3358-3399, June.
    9. Niclas Berggren & Henrik Jordahl & Panu Poutvaara, 2010. "The Right Look: Conservative Politicians Look Better and their Voters Reward it," CESifo Working Paper Series 3310, CESifo.
    10. Frank, Björn & Krabel, Stefan, 2013. "Gens una sumus?!—Or does political ideology affect experts’ esthetic judgment of chess games?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 66-78.
    11. Eiji Yamamura & Ryohei Hayashi & Yoshiro Tsutsui & Fumio Ohtake, 2022. "Racers’ attractive looks, popularity, and performance: how do speedboat racers react to fans’ expectations?," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(4), pages 597-623, October.
    12. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2021. "The gender gap in competitive chess across countries: Commanding queens in command economies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 425-441.
    13. Linnemer, Laurent & Visser, Michael, 2016. "Self-selection in tournaments: The case of chess players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 213-234.
    14. Jahedi, Salar & Deck, Cary & Ariely, Dan, 2017. "Arousal and economic decision making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 165-189.
    15. Agnieszka Szczepańska & Rafał Kaźmierczak, 2022. "The Theoretical Model of Decision-Making Behaviour Geospatial Analysis Using Data Obtained from the Games of Chess," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-25, September.
    16. Peter Backus & Maria Cubel & Matej Guid & Santiago Sánchez‐Pagés & Enrique López Mañas, 2023. "Gender, competition, and performance: Evidence from chess players," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), pages 349-380, January.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5msrbb0rie9sjq3c4ejgb2v91o is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2022. "Chess girls don’t cry: Gender composition of games and effort in competitions among the super-elite," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    19. Andrea Fazio, 2021. "Beautiful inequality: Are beautiful people more willing to redistribute?," Working Papers in Public Economics 194, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    20. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2020. "Gender differences in performance under time constraint: Evidence from chess tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    21. Fazio, Andrea, 2022. "Attractiveness and preferences for redistribution," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    22. Jose De Sousa, "undated". "Peer competition: Evidence from 5- to 95-year-olds," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2022 03, Stata Users Group.
    23. de Sousa, José & Hollard, Guillaume, 2015. "Gender differences: evidence from field tournaments," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1506, CEPREMAP.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk taking; Attractiveness; Chess; Gender differences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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