I'll take gender differences for $800, Alex

A: This popular game show presents an elegant environment for studying the effects of gender on competition.

Q: What is Jeopardy?

Scores of studies have examined the differences between men and women when it comes to competition, but a recent paper called "Girls will be Girls – Especially among Boys" (pdf) takes a clever approach and yields some intriguing results.

In an attempt to understand why men outnumber women in intensely competitive, high-risk fields, two Swedish scientists, Jenny Säve-Söderbergh and Gabriella Sjögren Lindquist, analyzed data from the 2002 season of their native land's version of Jeopardy!.

The rules of Swedish Jeopardy! are very similar to those of the American version: three contestants gaze up at a big board of categories, select clues that are rendered as answers, and respond in the form of a question. Each correct answer earns the contestant money; each incorrect answer has the opposite effect.

Säve-Söderbergh and Lindquist focused on how men and women play the Daily Double. As you may know, three Daily Doubles pop up randomly in each game. Only the contestant who uncovers the Daily Double gets to answer it, and he or she can wager on the answer any amount of their winnings. Säve-Söderbergh and Lindquist wondered if the gender of the Daily Double contestant or the gender of his or her opponents made any difference in how much a person bet.

Their findings: Yes, gender mattered — though not quite in the way the researchers expected.

First, Säve-Söderbergh and Lindquist found that overall women played more conservatively than men regardless of their opponents. On average, they wagered about 40% of their winnings on Daily Doubles, while men wagered about 60%.

Second, women took smaller risks when playing against two men than they did against a woman and a man or against two women. Women wagered about 22% less in male-dominated settings than they did in female-dominated ones.  Men's wagers were not affected by the gender of their opponents.

Third and perhaps most interesting, "Although women decrease their wagers when competing in a male-dominated environment, women do not differ from men in their performance in these games."

In other words, women took smaller risks — especially when competing against men — but did just as well as men in their total results.

Of course, as Säve-Söderbergh and Lindquist themselves acknowledge, it's tricky to extrapolate from a game show to real life. But the research does raise some interesting questions — and seems consonant with other analyses showing that women manage their money more conservatively but more effectively than men.

Please add your thoughts below if you'd like — but remember to do so in the form of a question.