Abstract
Who should you ask for advice when you're not sure about something? This is a though decision that people often face, yet little is known about how we decide on who to ask. In this paper, we examine whether adults (N=123) prefer to ask boys or girls when seeking advice from children (N=38). To answer this question, we collect data from five seasons of the Swedish Game Show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" where adult contestants choose a boy or a girl from 5th grade to help them earn large amounts of money by answering questions from the primary school curriculum. We observe that girls are 9.5 percentage points more likely to be asked first for advice than boys. This corresponds to a 18.1 percent gap in favor of girls. The favoritism is not rational since boys and girls perform equally well. Our finding has potential implications both for advice seekers, who may be biased in who they ask for help, those that are selected as advisors who may feel encouraged, and those who are not who may feel discouraged.