We studied how gendered beliefs about intellectual abilities transmit through peers and differentially impact girls’ academic performance relative to boys’. Study 1 ( N = 8,029; 208 classrooms) exploited randomly assigned variation in the proportion of a child’s middle school classmates who believe that boys are innately better than girls at learning math. An increase in exposure to peers who report this belief generated losses for girls and gains for boys in math performance. This peer exposure also increased children’s likelihood of believing the gender–math stereotype, increased the perceived difficulty of math, and reduced aspirations among girls. Study 2 ( N = 547) provided proof of concept that activating a gender–math performance gap among college students reduces women’s math performance but not verbal performance. Men’s task performance was not affected. Our findings highlight how the prevalence of stereotypical beliefs in one’s ambient and peer environment, even when readily contradictable, can shape children’s beliefs and academic ability.

This paper investigates the effect of work interruption on workers’ subsequent productivity. We employ a data set of individual productivity and machine conditions, in which each worker faces the chance, on a daily basis, that her machine will break down randomly. Our analysis finds that compared to a workday with smooth production, experiencing a machine breakdown is associated with a 3.3 percentage point decline in the worker’s productivity the following day. We discuss possible explanations for the observed effect, including negative emotions, increased cautiousness in operating the machine, and proficiency loss. Our findings shed light on the importance of understanding and managing interruptions in the workplace, and contribute to a growing literature on the determinants of productivity at the micro level. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2792 . This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.

We examine gender differences in the response to competitive pressure using data from the most competitive entrance exam—China's Gaokao. Compared to male students, females underperform on the competitive and high-stakes Gaokao, relative to their performance on the low-stakes mock examination. Moreover, women's performance suffers more than men's in response to negative performance shocks in an earlier exam on the same day. These effects are more pronounced for subgroups of students where the stakes matter more. Overall, these findings appear to be best explained by women's lower tolerance for pressure and weaker incentives to do well in high-stakes settings.