From Gender Threat to Farsightedness: How Women’s Perceived Intergroup Threat Shapes Their Long-Term Orientation

Abstract

Women experience realistic and symbolic gender intergroup threats across diverse social contexts, which can profoundly influence their decision-making processes. Drawing on intergroup threat theory, this research investigated how perceived gender intergroup threats affect women’s intertemporal choice behavior and examined cognitive appraisal as a potential mediating mechanism. Study 1 (N = 281) found a negative correlation between gender intergroup threat perception and delay discounting through questionnaires. Study 2 (N = 154) experimentally manipulated threat perception and demonstrated that both realistic and symbolic gender threats enhanced consideration of future consequences, with cognitive appraisal serving as a complete mediator of these effects. Study 3 (N = 120) employed a recall paradigm, providing convergent evidence that heightened realistic threat perception and associated threat appraisal increased preferences for delayed, long-term outcomes. These findings suggest that perceived gender intergroup threats promote future-oriented decision-making among women, potentially as an adaptive strategy to manage threat-related risks, and the mediating role of cognitive appraisal further elucidates the psychological mechanisms underlying this behavioral shift. This research advances the theoretical understanding of how intergroup threat dynamics shape women’s economic behavior and extends knowledge of gender threat interactions in decision-making contexts.