Games and discrimination: Lessons from the weakest link

We use data from the television game show, The Weakest Link, to determine whether contestants discriminate on the basis of race and gender and, if so, which theory of discrimination best explains their behavior. Our results suggest no evidence of discriminatory voting patterns by males against females or by whites against blacks. In contrast, we find that in the early rounds of the game women appear to discriminate against men. We test three theories for the voting behavior of women: preference-based discrimination, statistical discrimination, and strategic discrimination. We find only preference-based discrimination to be consistent with the observed voting patterns. © 2005 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Duke Scholars

Author Peter S. Arcidiacono Economics