Women’s Propensity to Avoid High-Cost Activities Under Forced-Choice Conditions

In the current study, an online experiment was conducted to investigate whether a high-cost option was preferred or avoided when participants, paired with a hypothetical partner (either of the opposite or the same sex), were required to choose one of two specific activities. Both of the following two predictions were supported in the current study: (1) women will avoid the high-cost option more than men, and (2) if one’s partner is of the opposite sex, there will be a difference in cost preference between men and women. Furthermore, the findings showed that men were not, on average, either cost-preferring or cost-avoiding, whereas women displayed a tendency to avoid costs. There was no difference in women’s cost preference whether their partner was of the opposite sex or the same sex, whereas men were more likely to prefer costs when their partner was of the opposite sex than when their partner was of the same sex.