Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Poll Results - women versus men in scripophily - part 2 Preferences

In part 2 of the poll's review we will have a look at the preferences that men and women have when they collect old bonds and shares. Do men and women show different preferences, or are these rather similar ?

original size of detail : about 1 cm x 1 cm
scan resolution : 300 dpi
no scaling

In part 1 you could read that 36 persons, including 33 men and 3 women, have answered more than twenty questions. Ten questions queried the participants about their preferences. The following five preferences were compared in pairs :
  • Scarcity
  • Beauty
  • A Good Bargain
  • Collection Completeness
  • Historical Significance

This resulted into ten possible combinations : scarcity-beauty, scarcity-a good bargain, et cetera . For each combination the participant was asked to choose between one of both, in other words which one he preferred. Let us no longer beat around the bush and have a quick look at their answers.



Scarcity versus Beauty
If you had to choose between Scarcity or Beauty, what would you choose ? Apparently the men prefer Scarcity above Beauty. Two of our three female participants prefer Beauty. But with a difference of only one female vote, on a total of three, it is not obvious to decide that the women in general prefer Beauty over Scarcity. So no clear conclusion can be made that applies to both genders.

double-click to enlarge images



Beauty versus A Good Bargain
If you are looking for a good bargain, then you will make a better investment. At least that is what you think.  Results :
  • men : Needless to say, this is a difficult choice. Men equally prefer both. 
  • women : There is no clear outcome; two of our three female participants prefer Beauty, unfortunately the number of participants is too small to decide that Beauty is preferred over A Good Bargain.


Collection Completeness versus Beauty
Not much doubt here, men mostly prefer Collection Completeness over Beauty. No clear and unambiguous outcome here as well for the women.




Beauty versus Historical Significance
Does a collector doubt between Historical Significance and Beauty ? Certainly not ! Here are the results :
  • men : Most men prefer Historical Significance.
  • women : This time, no doubt about it. All female participants also prefer Historical Significance over Beauty
  • general conclusion : Historical Significance wins against Beauty



Scarcity versus A Good Bargain 
We already saw that the men preferred Scarcity over Beauty, but that they equally preferred Beauty or A Good Bargain. What if they had to choose between Scarcity and A Good Bargain ? The results :
  • men : Yes, you are right. Also here Scarcity wins against A Good Bargain.
  • women : No clear outcome.


Collection Completeness versus Scarcity
So far, Scarcity seems to be an important preference for the men. How will it stand against Collection Completeness ? Well, Scarcity looses slightly from Collection Completeness. This would have surprised me in former times, but not anymore. Apparently, my collecting behavior has changed over the years. Also here, no clear outcome for the women.



Historical Significance versus Scarcity
Earlier we saw that both genders prefer Historical Significance over Beauty. How will the former stand against Scarcity? The results :
  • men : Historical Significance wins slightly against Scarcity.
  • women : Also the female participants clearly prefer Historical Significance.
  • general conclusion : Historical Significance wins against Scarcity



Collection completeness versus A Good Bargain
A similar story applies to Collection Completeness versus A Good Bargain. Results :
  • men : Collection completeness wins against A Good Bargain
  • women : No doubt for the female participants here, Collection completeness wins.
  • general conclusion : Collection Completeness wins from A Good Bargain


Historical Significance versus A Good Bargain
As you might suspect, the preference A Good Bargain is no match for Historical Significance . Both men and women prefer Historical Significance over A Good Bargain.


Historical Significance versus Collection Completeness
Correct, this is a true clash of the Titans. An almost equal score in both genders. I'd say the result is undetermined, or otherwise put: Historical Significance and Collection Completeness seem the be equally important preferences.


A first summary 
Based on the above results, I could say that
  • men prefer Scarcity over Beauty
  • men prefer Collection Completeness over Beauty
  • men prefer Scarcity over A Good Bargain 
  • men prefer Collection Completeness over Scarcity

For the preference comparisons in the previous list, I could not derive any conclusions for the women because the outcomes were undetermined. Maybe, if there had been more female participants, then you might have seen similar or even different preference behavior for the above combinations.

However, for other preference comparisons, all women chose the same answers, and these were similar to the men's choices. Therefore, I also add the following conclusions :
  • men and women prefer Historical Significance over Beauty
  • men and women prefer Historical Significance over Scarcity
  • men and women prefer Collection Completeness over A Good Bargain
  • men and women prefer Historical Significance over A Good Bargain

double-click image to enlarge

Historical Significance takes the lead, Beauty comes last
In a second exercise, I checked out for each participant which one of the preferences was the most chosen one in all comparisons. You can see the results in the table below and here are some findings :
  • For one male participant Beauty was the most chosen preference in all of his ten pair-wise comparisons.
  • Ten men and one woman chose Collection Completeness the most in their pair-wise comparisons of preferences. The second best result in this ranking.
  • The preference that has been chosen the most is Historical Significance. Eleven men and two women favored this preference mostly in all of their comparisons.
  • For five male participants it was not possible to pick out one single preference that won most pair-wise comparisons. These cases have been grouped in the entry "undetermined". 



I hope you have enjoyed this overview as much as I did. The poll's review of part three 'Influences and areas of interest' is scheduled for next month, so stay tuned.

F.L.

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N.B. :
The images shown in this article are details from the 1857 share of La Salvadora, a Spanish insurance company. The share, engraved by Antonio Roca y Sallent, shows four scenes of a man and a woman in a rather dramatic situation. You should have a look at the entire certificate here .

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