RAPID: Collaborative Research: Gender Composition and Decision Making: The Impact of HF243

University Of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls IA

Investigators

Abstract

This project assesses the impact of gender composition on decision making in groups. The investigators expect that group outcomes will vary based on gender composition, not just because of differing individual-level preferences, but because males and females use different strategies in the decision making process. Their framework predicts that female dominant groups are more likely to encourage individuals to prefer a median outcome, and that the typically female process strategies do a better job of locating and adopting this median preference. These results have been confirmed in a series of laboratory experiments. Real-world, empirical confirmation of their conceptual framework would suggest that greater gender diversity in decision making groups, like boards, commissions, and legislatures, is likely to result in more democratic outcomes, i.e., that increasing female representation means decision making groups are more likely to authoritatively allocate the values of the median individual rather than those in the tails of a preference distribution. The Iowa General Assembly recently passed legislation requiring gender balance on loacl boards and commissions by January 1, 2012, presenting an immediate opportunity for a large-scale field experiment testing this framework. This research has several potentially important payoffs. The project contributes to understanding how gender balance within decision making bodies shapes the processes and outcomes of such bodies. If the investigators are correct, a clear implication is that increasing gender equity with decision making bodies is likely to result in more collaborative and democratic decision making processes, and produce outcomes closer to the universal median preferences. This finding would challenge the prevailing theoretical framework that argues that women make a difference in policy makeing processes because they have distinctly different policy preferences from males. This project will help provide a conceptually clearer understanding of why gender matters to policy making by illustrating that human preferences are sensitive to the gender composition of groups, and because the strategies used to make decisions differ by group gender composition. There are implications beyond the theoretical contributions to political behavior and the policy implications for gender balancing decision making bodies. As political scientists, their focus is primarily oriented towards public policy making bodies but the implications go beyond disciplinary boundaries. The research is not limited to public sector generalizations. Any decision making body, be it corporate, non-profit, or public, is included in their hypotheses. As such, this research could have implications for a wide range of decision making situations.