Recent research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence that racial and ethnic differences in certain behaviors are as large as the widely known differences between men and women. This research suggests that generalizations about human behavior are often flawed because they rely on samples comprised primarily of Caucasians. As a result, broad assumptions about how gender affects competitiveness and risk tolerance hold true for all demographic groups.
Behavioral scientists frequently face criticism for relying on research participants who represent a very narrow segment of human experience. Historically, researchers have recruited large numbers of people from Western, educated, industrialized, wealthy, and democratic societies (known as WEIRD samples). These samples are primarily comprised of college students from North America and Western Europe, so they do not reflect the global population and create significant gaps in scientific understanding of how behavior varies within a single country.
Much of the behavioral economics literature examines how men and women differ in their willingness to take risks and compete, which helps economists explain differences in key life outcomes such as career choices and total income. However, these studies rarely report participants’ racial and ethnic backgrounds. A review of major economic journals from 2020 to 2024 found that only a minority of behavioral studies conducted in the United States reported the race or ethnicity of their subjects.
“Behavioral research over the past 15 years has focused extensively on comparing the behavior of men and women, even within the United States, using primarily Caucasian samples. As a result, while we know a lot about gender differences in competitiveness and risk tolerance, we find that patterns in “We still don’t know whether it differs between species or ethnic groups, or whether our findings based on a predominantly Caucasian sample generalize more broadly. We wanted to address that disparity,” said corresponding author Nikos Nikiforakis. Behavioral System Design, Professor of Economics, New York University Abu Dhabi.
To investigate these behavioral differences, scientists assembled a large sample of 2,468 U.S. adults between the ages of 25 and 54. They worked with an international research and analysis firm to evenly balance the sample across six specific groups. These different demographic groups include black men, black women, Hispanic men, Hispanic women, white men, and white women.
The researchers used mathematical weighting techniques to ensure that participants in each group accurately reflected the broader national population. Specifically, we adjusted the data to reflect national averages for age, education level, and political orientation based on the 2016 presidential election.
“Methodologically, we invested heavily in sampling,” Nikiforakis said. “We collected a large stratified sample of U.S. adults to ensure national representativeness within each racial, ethnic, and gender group. If we want action research to inform policy, representativeness within each country is just as important as diversity across countries.”
To measure competitiveness, the scientists asked participants to complete a timed task of counting the number of ones in a grid of numbers. In the first round, participants received a guaranteed payment for every correct answer they provided. Economists call this the piecework method. In the second round, participants played against randomly selected opponents from a broader population. In this tournament-style setting, you only win money if you outperform that person.
In the third round, participants had to choose a payment method to use again in the final task. If participants actively chose a competitive winner-take-all payment method, the scientists classified the method as competitive. To measure risk tolerance, scientists used a standard psychological task involving a financial lottery.
Participants considered a menu of nine different lotteries that gradually increased in both the potential financial gain and the level of risk involved. The least risky option offers guaranteed equal payouts no matter what happens. By observing which lottery tickets each participant chose, the scientists were able to determine exactly how comfortable they felt with financial insecurity.
The data suggests that race and ethnicity play a large role in shaping these economic behaviors. Black and Hispanic participants chose competitive payment methods at roughly equal rates, 56 percent and 58 percent, respectively. White participants chose the competitive option only 47% of the time, making them significantly less competitive than Black and Hispanic participants.
When it comes to economic uncertainty, scientists have found a different pattern. The data provides evidence that white participants are approximately 9% more willing to take risks than black or Hispanic participants. These gaps remained consistent even after researchers took into account individual differences in income and education level.
To understand the practical magnitude of these differences, researchers compared them to differences between men and women within the exact same sample. Across all demographic categories, men were 16% more likely than women to choose competitive payment options and had nearly 10% higher risk tolerance. This shows that the behavioral gap between whites and black or Hispanic people is about as large as the overall behavioral gap between men and women.
“Racial and ethnic differences in competitiveness and risk tolerance in the United States are substantial, similar in magnitude to the well-known gender gap,” Nikiforakis told SciPost.
For decades, scientists have believed that gender differences in risk and competitiveness are critical to shaping economic and career outcomes. The researchers also found that traditional gender differences don’t actually look the same across all racial and ethnic groups. White and Hispanic men showed significantly higher levels of competitiveness and risk tolerance than white and Hispanic women.
However, this well-documented pattern did not emerge for Black participants. This data proves that black women do not avoid competition or are less willing to take financial risks than black men. This suggests that the broad behavioral generalizations that scientists have long made about men and women are heavily skewed by primarily white study samples.
“What was most striking was that the gender gap did not generalize across racial and ethnic groups,” Nikiforakis said. “Notably, we do not observe typical gender differences in competitiveness or risk tolerance among Black participants. That pattern was striking, given how well-documented gender differences are in the literature.”
Although these findings provide new perspectives on human behavior, readers should be careful in how they interpret the data. Scientists point out that the legal and administrative categories used for race and ethnicity in the United States have conceptual limitations. These broad categories rely entirely on self-identification and group people with widely different cultural backgrounds and ancestry.
“An important caveat is that we use the same racial and ethnic categories used in the U.S. Census,” Nikiforakis noted. “These categories group people from broad, diverse backgrounds. And while we document differences, we make no claims about their causes. This finding should not be interpreted as an essential or biological explanation, but as evidence that generalizations from narrow samples can be misleading.”
Future studies should extend these findings by consistently including and reporting diverse demographic groups. The scientists recommend that future experimental designs avoid relying strictly on convenience samples of college students. By moving away from predominantly white samples, researchers can build a more accurate understanding of how human behavior affects economic and social outcomes across all communities.
“We have some follow-up surveys that we will be distributing soon,” Nikiforakis said. “The first study investigates how behavioral indicators such as competitiveness and risk tolerance help explain racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in income in the United States. The second study examines racial misconceptions about these behavioral differences and determines where the misconceptions lie. More broadly, we hope that this line of research will encourage scholars to regularly examine racial and ethnic differences within countries, rather than assuming that findings based on primarily white samples are universally applicable.”
The study, “Racial and ethnic disparities in behavioral indicators are comparable to gender disparities in the United States,” was authored by Aurélie Dariel, John C. Hamm, Nikos Nikiforakis, and Jean Stoops.
