The effects of gender interactions in the lab and in the field

An important issue with conducting economic analysis in the lab is whether or not the re-sults generalize to real-world environments where the stakes and subject pool are considerably different. We examine data from the high-stakes television game show The Weakest Link to determine whether the performance of men and women is affected by the gender of their op-ponents. We then attempt to replicate the competitive structure of the game show in the lab with an undergraduate subject pool. The results from our lab experiment only match the game show results when we both employ high stakes in the lab ( ≥ $50) and limit our analysis to the behavior of young contestants in the game show (age< 33). These results suggest that gender interactions are influenced by both age and stakes and that care must be taken when translat