TY - BOOK AU - Exley, Christine L TI - Gender gap in confidence: Expected but not accounted for PY - 2024/// PB - American Economic Review KW - Economics KW - Labor market KW - Female-dominated KW - Gender difference N2 - We investigate how the gender gap in confidence affects the views that evaluators (e.g., employers) hold about men and women. We find the confidence gap is contagious, causing evaluators to form overly pessimistic beliefs about women. This result arises even though the confidence gap is expected and even though the confidence gap shouldn't be contagious if evaluators are Bayesian. Only an intervention that facilitates Bayesian updating proves (somewhat) effective. Additional results highlight how similar findings follow even when there is no room for discriminatory motives or differences in priors because evaluators are asked about arbitrary, rather than gender-specific, groups UR - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20221413 ER -