An increased willingness to compete among men relative to women is thought to contribute  to the overrepresentation of men in positions of leadership. One possible explanation for this increased competitiveness among men is that it is caused by the stress of high-stakes environments. In this paper we present evidence against this hypothesis. We exposed 434 men to a standard laboratory stress task in which they submerged their hand in cold water, and then measured their preferences for entering a competition relative to a piece-rate payment scheme.
We find an 8 percentage point decrease in their willingness to enter the competition under stress relative to a control condition. The effect is a change in pure taste for competition, and cannot be explained by changes in beliefs about the choices of others, social preferences, risk preferences, overconfidence, or productivity.