Effects of written self-promotion on gender bias and decision quality

Nathalie Römer and Marina Schröder

Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Abstract: Written self-promotion is crucial in numerous decision-making scenarios, including job applications, securing funds for start-ups, or academic grant proposals. In two experiments, we study the effects of written self-promotion on decision quality and gender bias. We show that, if anything, written self-promotion slightly improves decision quality. Concerning gender bias, we find that self-promotion does not induce a gender bias that harms women. While women in our sample face adverse effects of written self-promotion due to lower performance beliefs, they can compensate for this disadvantage by applying a more modest writing style and by providing more informative written self-promotion. Finally, we show that the provision of self-promotion can mitigate pre-existing gender biases.

Keywords: Gender bias; self-promotion; real-effort; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 D91 J16 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 100 pages
Date: 2025-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-lab
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-737

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