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It is self-reported and relative to others.

> "The questionnaire asks how often students are willing to travel for work, the number of hours per week they are willing to work, and their desired compensation. They were also asked to rate their ambition relative to their most recent work colleagues and their tendency to lead in day-to-day interactions on a 1-to-5 scale."

So it's about ambitions in the workplace.

I'd rephrase that to Perhaps women have different ambitions than men. On average, with large individual variation, of course.

To me "ambitious" is about both how big your ambitions are and how hard you pursue them.

Ambitious in this context seems to mean materialistic.