An Analysis of Final Tribal Performance Based on Gender

This post was written by Amanda Rabinowitz and me (Sean Falconer).

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We recently took a close look at the gender discrepancy in finding hidden immunity idols and its impact on women’s likelihood of winning Survivor. While the gender-gap in idol finding is stark and appears to coincide with poorer odds for female players, this is just one small piece of how gender can affect a complex social strategy game like Survivor. So, when Sarah Bassett reached out to us with an interest in how the gender breakdown of finalists may influence women’s success, we thought this was an excellent question!

Who gets to the end?

Sarah reached out to us proposing a thesis, “Women choosing to play the game with other women have a better shot at winning the game. Essentially, by going to the end with other women, you neutralize any implicit gender biases, and the jury is better able to fairly assess gameplay.” This is an intriguing hypothesis.

The first step in evaluating this thesis is to characterize the frequencies with which different Final Tribal Counsel (FTC) gender compositions actually occur. There are 7 distinct combinations of finalists, corresponding to the final 2 (F2) and final 3 (F3) versions of the game. A F2 can be two men (MM), two women (FF), or a man and a woman (MF). F3 can be all men (MMM), all women (FFF), two men and one woman (MMF), or two women and one man (MFF).

The chart below displays these frequencies and their expected versus observed values. By expected we mean what you would expect to see in terms of distribution assuming all things are equal.

As of S37, there have been 15 F2’s in Survivor’s history. If men and women had equal odds of making it to the finals, we would expect there to be approximately 8 F2’s with one man and one woman (MF), approximately 4 with two women (FF), and 4 with two men (MM). This is exactly what we observe– 8 MF FTCs, 4 FFs, and 3 MMs.

The F3 twist, which removed what had been the final vote-out and allowed three finalists to present their cases to the jury, was first introduced in the show’s 13th season, Survivor Cook Islands. Part of the presumed rationale for this change was to give the player “on the bubble”– often a fan-favorite who was eliminated as a threat in the F3 vote, a la Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien or Rob Cesternino– a shot at the million.

Since its introduction, most FTCs have included 3 finalists, with exceptions in Survivor Micronesia, Survivor Tocantins, and Survivor Cagayan (all F2s). As of this writing, each of the past 9 seasons have been F3s.

In the F3 format, if men and women had equal odds of becoming finalists, we would expect there to be approximately 3 FTCs of all men (MMM), 3 with all women (FFF), and approximately 8 a piece that include two players of one gender and one of the other (MMF and MFF).

What we actually observe is that the MMF combination is over-represented among F3s. In fact, the MMF FTC is the most frequent composition of finalists across both F2 and F3 formats. FTCs comprised of three finalists of the same gender, or two women and one man (MFF), occur slightly less often than we would expect.

How do women perform in each of these scenarios?

In the graphic below, we breakdown all the gender configurations for FTC along with the performance for each gender. In the following sections, we take a deep dive into each configuration to analyze the expected versus observed results.

All Female FTCs (FF and FFF):

A woman is guaranteed to win in the all-female F2 or F3.

There have been 4 all female F2s. In Season 4, Survivor Marquesas, Vecepia Towery beat out Neleh Dennis. The next all female F2 came three seasons later, in Season 7, Survivor Pearl Islands, culminating in Sandra Diaz-Twine’s first of two wins, this time over Lillian Morris. In Season 11, Survivor Guatemala, Danni Boatwright bested returnee Stephenie LaGrossa. Season 16, Survivor Micronesia, is (at the time of this writing) the most recent, and perhaps most-iconic all female F2, in which Parvati Shallow prevailed over her fellow black widow, Amanda Kimmel, to become the exemplary female Survivor winner, for at least the next several seasons.

Survivor saw its only all female F3s in Season 24, Survivor One World, and Season 29, Survivor San Juan Del Sur. Both of these seasons produced strategically dominant winners in Kim Spradlin and Natalie Anderson. Kim secured her celebrated win by deftly leading an all women’s alliance from day one all the way through to the end game; whereas Natalie hustled her way to FTC after finding her game upended by the blind side of her closest ally and future-winner Jeremy Collins.

Mixed Gender FTC:

When women face-off against men at FTC, they perform 73% as well as would be expected; performing more poorly than chance in each of the three FTC configurations featuring finalists of both genders– MF, MMF, and MFF. 76% of male finalists and 67% of female finalists have battled it out in mixed gender FTCs. Despite reaching the finals in roughly equal numbers, a woman is more than twice as likely as a man to be the lone finalist of her gender in a three-person FTC.

MF FTCs:

In the 8 MF FTCs, 3 have produced female winners, 1 fewer than would be expected by chance. All of the MF FTCs took place in the original F2 era of Survivor, before the F3 was introduced in Season 13.

These match-ups include Richard Hatch vs. Kelly Wiglesworth (S1), Tina Wesson vs. Colby Donaldson (S2), Ethan Zohn vs. Kim Johnson (S3), Jenna Morasca vs. Matt Von Ertfelda (S6), Amber Brkich vs. Rob Mariano (S8), Chris Daugherty vs. Twila Tanner (S9), Tom Westman vs. Katie Gallagher (S10), and Aras Baskauskas vs. Danielle DiLorenzo (S12).

Female winners from this group are a diverse bunch. Tina Wesson was the first ever woman to win Survivor in its second season. Likable and loyal with a competitive edge, Tina generally gets less credit for her win than Colby gets the blame– for choosing to sit next to her rather than the less well-liked rice-ruining chef, Keith Famie. Jenna Morasca recovered from a rocky start in the Amazon, where cliquiness and cattiness earned her and best-bud Heidi their distinction as “evil step-sisters.” But with a string of well-timed immunity wins and the strategic savvy to identify and eliminate her biggest threats, she was able to level a decisive victory against Matt Von Eldfelder. Amber and Rob Mariano teamed up in the show’s first all-star season, both benefiting from their relatively less-impressive finishes in their debuts. Rob was, indisputably, the dominant strategic player in their twosome, but with his still-rough edges and the merkiness of managing existing friendships in the first-ever returnee season, there was too much blood on his hands to win over the all-stars jury. Interestingly, all three of these women have been criticized as disappointing winners who were overshadowed by seemingly more deserving male players in Colby, Rob Cesternino, and Rob Mariano.

MMF FTCs:

The most frequent FTC configuration with a total of 13 occurrences, MMF, has resulted in three female winners. Again, this is one fewer female winner than would be expected by chance. We’ve seen MMF FTCs in Season 13, Survivor Cook Islands, Season 14, Survivor Fiji, Season 19, Survivor Samoa, Season 22, Survivor Redemption Island, Season 23, Survivor South Pacific, Season 27, Survivor Blood vs. Water, Season 30, Survivor Worlds Apart, Season 31, Survivor Second Chance, and every one of the past 5 seasons!

The female winners from this group are Natalie White, Sophie Clarke, and Sarah Lacina. Natalie and Sophie both went to the end as part of a loyal alliance, competing for the win against abrasive alpha-male figure-heads, both lacking the self-awareness and social finesse to impress their respective juries. By contrast, Sarah, played her winning game “as a criminal,” excelling in a season of swaps, voting blocs, and advantages, to leverage and discard social relationships as it suited her interests.

MFF FTCs:

The MFF FTC has occurred 6 times (less than half as many as its inverse, MMF), and women have won 3 of these contests as opposed to their expected 4. This scenario is the one in which women find themselves proportionally the most disadvantaged, with the lone man in the finals winning 17% more of the time than would be expected. The MFF FTC matchups include Season 16, Survivor China, Season 20, Survivor HVV, Season 25, Survivor Caramoan, Season 26, Survivor Philippines, and Season 32, Survivor Kaoh Rong. The female winners from this group are Sandra 2.0, Denise Stapley, and Michele Fitzgerald. Interestingly, all three of these winners represent the last-woman-standing from an early-game alliance, each fighting their way to the end by virtue of strong social bonds and impressive adaptability.

Do women have better odds facing off against other women or men in FTC?

This is a difficult question to answer. A female winner is guaranteed in an all female FTC, but does a given woman actually improve her odds by sitting next to women as opposed to men?

We don’t have data that speak directly to this question, which would require us to control for all of the unique strengths and weaknesses of each individual female player by observing her performance in multiple seasons. However, we do have some evidence to support that women win slightly less often than would be expected by chance alone whenever they compete against at least one man in the FTC, suggesting that juries may be more inclined to give the million dollar prize to a man.

There’s an important caveat to note here– women’s slight disadvantage is not what we folks in the biz would call statistically significant. If I flip a coin 4 times, with even odds of obtaining heads or tails on each flip, I could end up with 50% heads (2 flips) and 50% tails (2 flips). But if I end up flipping 3 heads and 1 tails (75% heads and 25% tails), I wouldn’t call the US Treasury Department and complain of a defective coin. That’s because it is not uncommon for a small number of events with even odds to produce an outcome that appears to favor one of the options. If I flip that coin 100 times, or better yet, 1,000 times, and observe 75% heads, then I’d have cause for concern. You might have noted that in each of the FTC scenarios, adding just one female winner would bring the total of female wins to the expected level.

It is unlikely that we will get to see 1,000 or even 100 Survivor winners, so slight biases in the game that favor men winning will probably fall short of the threshold for statistical significance. (This is one of the reasons that we focused on idol finds- which are more common events than wins- as an initial foray into the topic of gender on Survivor.)

But there are a couple of reasons why we suspect that this gender bias might be real, and not just an accident of chance. Firstly, women face the same disadvantage in each of the FTCs scenarios. Hence, the evidence converges in the same direction, making a stronger case. Secondly, jurors may be able to better appreciate the gameplay of finalists of their own gender, which could be reflected in their votes. As noted in our prior article, men make up more of the post-merge players; hence, jury composition tends to skew male.

Final thoughts

With only 37 seasons worth of data, it’s difficult to say definitively that women perform better or worse under different configurations. We do know that fewer women make the final 3, as MMF is the most common FTC configuration, which reduces the overall likelihood of a female winner.

Furthermore, even if women’s FTC underperformance reflects a true phenomenon that holds up in future seasons (i.e., survives replication) it would be difficult to know whether gender bias from individual jurors is indeed what is driving the effect. For example, it could be the case that the women who get to FTC have less compelling cases than men who do the same, possibly due to other variables that differ by gender like challenge wins or immunity idol finds.

Do you think, as Sarah suggests, that Survivor juries are biased against female players? Should future female players consider this in their strategy; and if so what, if anything, should they do to improve their odds?