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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Power Of Stereotyping And Confirmation Bias To Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case Of Economics, Gender, And Risk Aversion, Julie A. Nelson
The Power Of Stereotyping And Confirmation Bias To Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case Of Economics, Gender, And Risk Aversion, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Behavioral research has revealed how normal human cognitive processes can tend to lead us astray. But do these affect economic researchers, ourselves? This article explores the consequences of stereotyping and confirmation bias using a sample of published articles from the economics literature on gender and risk aversion. The results demonstrate that the supposedly “robust” claim that “women are more risk averse than men” is far less empirically supported than has been claimed. The questions of how these cognitive biases arise and why they have such power are discussed, and methodological practices that may help to attenuate these biases are outlined.
Teaching Ecological And Feminist Economics In The Principles Course, Julie A. Nelson
Teaching Ecological And Feminist Economics In The Principles Course, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
It can be difficult to incorporate ecological and feminist concerns into introductory courses, when one is also obliged to teach neoclassical analysis. In this essay we briefly describe how one might extend existing “multi-paradigmatic” approaches to feminist and ecological concerns, and then present an new alternative approach that may be more suitable for some students. This “broader questions and bigger toolbox” approach can be applied in both microeconomics and macroeconomics introductory classrooms.