Inertia in partnerships: The role of gender

摘要

Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we provide rigorous evidence regarding inertia in partnerships. We find people maintain partnerships even when doing so is costly to themselves and brings neither benefits nor costs to their partners. Moreover, we find this effect to be much more pronounced for males than females, suggesting that males incur greater psychological costs of switching partners than do females. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.