Women Prefer To Compete in Teams
According to a new article in The Guardian, women are far more interested in competing when they are on a team than when they are solo. Considering that existing research shows men are much more willing to compete than women on an individual level, even when both are equally qualified for the task, this is an intriguing revelation that may have an impact in the corporate world.
Academics Jennifer Pate and Andrew Healy, who have published their findings in Economics Journal, conducted a study which shows that the “gender competition gap” (i.e. the gap between the likelihood of women or men to take part in a competition) shrinks by nearly 2/3 when women are allowed to compete in two-person teams.
In an experiment where participants (some as two-person teams, others as individuals) had to quickly answer math problems, Healy and Pate had them choose whether or not they wanted to compete against others. The results showed that:
- Men and women performed equally well on the task
- 81% of men and only 28% of women chose to compete as individuals
- When participants competed in teams, the gender competition gap shrank by 31 percentage points
“It appears to be the case that women often opt out of entering these competitive environments. Importantly, while qualified women opt out, unqualified men opt in. As a result, the gender competition gap may result in organizations failing to select the most qualified leaders.”— Jennifer Pate, researcher
Pate and Healy believe that their findings have implications in many environments, including corporate careers and elections. For instance, women are more likely to participate in politics in nations with party lists than in those where individuals are elected. In New Zealand and Germany, where both methods are used, women are three times more likely to get elected from a team-based competition than an individual one.
In the corporate world, Pate and Healy feel companies might find that using competing teams is a good way to level the playing field, encouraging more qualified women to participate while discouraging unqualified men.
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Comments
Sara wrote on 02.03.2012 04:32:54:
I find all of these cnetmoms very interesting. As a woman of the Christian faith who loves Jewish men (and have Jewish blood myself), I have been fascinated by this entire subject for many reasons. The main reason is because the most intensely loving and romantic relationship that I had ever had was destroyed in part because of his family\'s bigotry against me because of my religion. He was torn between our love, and the insistence from his mother and female relatives that insisted he find and marry a Jewish woman. We carried on for as long as we could, stealing days and nights of love and joy whenever we could. Despite the fact that he never married or had kids, and I did have the experience of marriage and children, and that he is approaching the age of fifty, his family is more concerned about the religious and cultural heritage of his girlfriend instead of his love for her.He has told me that he never dated a jewish woman, and that he isn\'t attracted to jewish women. I don\'t understand that at all, because I can\'t imagine anyone eliminating a significant segment of their sphere of influence from the dating pool based on race, culture, or religion. I just don\'t get it. I have noticed that a larger percentage of jewish men are bachelors/never married/no kids, than I have from the population at large. I think there are real reasons for this, and I am saddened by it for their sake. I would challenge my family if they ever pressured me to avoid dating jewish men, but they wouldn\'t dare. I wouldn\'t tolerate it. I am actually disinvited to their family events because of my religion! Ultimately, this wonderful man is the one who will suffer from a lonelier existence, never having the joy of a family and children of his own because he is trying to have it both ways appease his family and carry on with his own life. I think it is so sad, and I would encourage everyone to elevate love and happiness over all else, and doing so in a way that is compassionate and understanding.
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