Women are not always less competitive than men: evidence from Come Dine with Me

Abstract

Are women less competitive than men? Many experimental and nonexperimental studies have documented gender differences in competitiveness. This article presents the results from a study that examines gender differences in competitiveness in the television show Come Dine with Me. It is a cooking show in which amateur chefs compete against each other for a cash prize. The show provides an unusual opportunity to study gender differences in a high-stakes game environment. The results demonstrate that there are no gender differences in competitiveness.

Acknowledgement

The financial support from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) is appreciated.

Notes

¹The amount of SEK15 000 corresponds to $1909.

²TV4 offer subscription to their shows on the Web page http://anytime.tv4.se/webtv/

³For 1 week, there was a group of three women and one man and, for 2 weeks, there was a group of three men and one woman. In the rest of the cases, there was always a group of two men and two women.

⁴For the record, there was no significant difference in the mean points received by male and female hosts, t(df = 478, N = 480) = 0.668, p = 0.505.