Birds of a feather flock together? Gender differences in decision-making homophily of friendships

“Homophily” – the tendency of individuals to associate with others who are similar – is considered as a key determinant of friendships in a group. Most studies focus on the homophily of friendships as measured by demographic characteristics. In this paper, we explore patterns of homophily as measured by risk preferences and social preferences, both of which are elicited from a large-scale field laboratory experiment. Our focus is on gender differences in hcoheomophily, which are examined by testing for behavioral gaps in friendship formation within a pair of same-gender friends in a series of decision-making tasks. We find significant gender differences in homophily: among males, those have similar decision-making behaviors tend to become friends, while females are more likely to become friends with those who exhibit different patterns of decision making. Our findings are consistent across various robustness checks. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.