eprintid: 13121
rev_number: 5
eprint_status: archive
userid: 1
dir: disk0/00/01/31/21
datestamp: 2012-02-17 09:35:52
lastmod: 2015-04-22 15:16:26
status_changed: 2012-08-15 09:04:39
type: workingPaper
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Sproten, Alec N.
creators_name: Schwieren, Christiane
title: Age differences in the reaction to incentives – do older people avoid competition?
ispublished: pub
subjects: ddc-330
divisions: i-181000
keywords: aging , competition , social production functions , experiment , incentives
abstract: The “aging employee” has recently become a hot topic in many fields of behavioural research. With the aim to determine the effects of different incentive schemes (competition, social or increased monetary incentives) on performance of young and older subjects, we look at behaviour of a group of younger and older adults on a well-established real effort task. We show that older adults differ from younger adults in their performance in all conditions, but not in the improvement between conditions. The age difference in performance is however driven by women. While we replicate the gender difference in competitiveness found in the literature, we do not find a significant age difference in competitiveness. Social incentives have an at least as strong or even stronger effect on performance than increased monetary incentives. This effect is driven by men; women do not show an increase in performance with social incentives.
abstract_translated_lang: eng
class_scheme: jel
class_labels: C72, C91, J10, J33
date: 2012
date_type: published
id_scheme: DOI
id_number: 10.11588/heidok.00013121
schriftenreihe_cluster_id: sr-3
schriftenreihe_order: 0522
ppn_swb: 1651290415
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-opus-131218
language: eng
bibsort: SPROTENALEAGEDIFFERE2012
full_text_status: public
citation:   Sproten, Alec N. ; Schwieren, Christiane  (2012) Age differences in the reaction to incentives – do older people avoid competition?  [Working paper]     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/13121/1/Sproten_Schwieren_2012_dp522.pdf