Why North Korean Refugees are Reluctant to Compete: The Roles of Cognitive Ability

TL;DR

This paper investigates why North Korean refugees are less willing to compete, finding that lower cognitive ability and pessimistic beliefs significantly contribute to their reluctance, based on laboratory experiments and choice modeling.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the psychological and cognitive factors affecting competitiveness among North Korean refugees, highlighting the role of cognitive ability.

Findings

North Korean refugees are less likely to participate in competitive settings.

Lower cognitive ability correlates with increased aversion to competition.

Pessimistic beliefs about performance influence competitive behavior.

Abstract

The study compares the competitiveness of three Korean groups raised in different institutional environments: South Korea, North Korea, and China. Laboratory experiments reveal that North Korean refugees are less likely to participate in competitive tournaments than South Koreans and Korean-Chinese immigrants. Analysis using a choice model with probability weighting suggests that lower cognitive ability may lead to lower expected performance, more pessimistic beliefs, and greater aversion to competition.