Surviving Racism and Sexism: What Votes in the Television Program Survivor Reveal About Discrimination

We examined whether there is evidence for racial and gender bias in the voting patterns of contestants on Survivor, a reality-television zero-sum game in which contestants compete for up to 39 days to win $1 million. Among 731 contestants across 40 seasons, we find evidence of racial and gender bias at multiple stages of Survivor. Compared to men, women are more likely to be voted out of their tribe first and are less likely to make it to the individual-competition stage of the game (i.e., the merge). They also are less likely to win Survivor. Compared to White contestants, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) contestants are more likely to be voted out of their tribe first and are less likely to make it to the individual-competition stage of the game. These findings suggest a systemic bias in favor of White men, and against women of color.