Do males differ from females in the way they set and meet goals? An analysis of marathon runners

Abstract

We examine strategies adopted by people completing a well-defined but difficult task: running a marathon. We find strong evidence that males relative to females focus on, and care more about, beating a round number time (e.g., 4:00 hours). Our evidence suggests that setting a round number goal helps males perform better in the race. We find that these males are more likely to run at constant pace (the optimal way to run a marathon) and have more energy to speed up (“kick”) towards the end of the race. In contrast, females are less likely to set round number times as goals, and run more conservatively at the start, pace themselves better throughout the race, and finish with a stronger kick, irrespective of whether their finish time is close to a round number. Our results also suggest that males benefit more from planning than do females, since we find that less experienced males are more likely to start the race too aggressively and slow down considerably (“bonk”) towards the end of the race. Our results have implications for organizations because they suggest that the sexes can subconsciously differ in the strategies they adopt to complete a task and the goals they use to evaluate their performance.