Fast Company | Business + Innovation: It's a study of rare quality that can aggravate chauvinists and feminists equally.
But the work of Peter J. Kuhn and Marie-Claire Villeval for the National Bureau of Economic Research may be able to do just that.
In their new paper, "Are Women More Attracted to Cooperation Than Men?," the economists found that, yes, women are--and it has to do with relative competence, the degree to which you think your ability matches up against that of your colleagues. In short, men tend to overestimate their abilities and downplay those of their coworkers, while women shortchange their skills and defer to their peers.
8 comments:
I must be the exception to the rule in this case. I am a woman who prefers to work alone rather than work in a group. I know, this is very strange for someone who loves collaborative theater, but look at it from my point of view: as a stage manager, I get to determine when I do my work, and I'm the one who is responsible for it and needs to accomplish it in the end. In theater there is a clear distinction of what job falls to what person. The scene designer designs the set. The technical director makes it physical, the lighting designer puts light on it, and the stage manager calls the cues. Now, if someone were to tell me that I would get a 10% higher return (whether money, feedback, appreciation, future job offers, whatever) I still would rather work alone than work in a group. This must make me weird in today's society. The way I see it, I would rather have less stress and anxiety about working in a group and depending on other people for the success of my project than worry about those things and get a higher return. My peace of mind is more valuable to me. Perhaps this isn't more valuable to men, which is why they're more willing to work in groups when given an incentive? An interesting study, but I think there are a lot of exceptions to that rule.
This article is frustratingly lacking in evidence and statistics to back up its premise. The assertion it makes is quite interesting - looking around, it might seem that women cluster in groups more than men do, but the discrepancy is not large and often depends on the situation. Where did the study this article is based on take place? Women are also known for being more talkative than men are, so is it possible that they are more dissatisfied with their pay simply because more of them know what their coworkers make? And what was the project that these employees were assigned that they were given a choice of completion options on? There are so many factors that could contribute to this study, but none of them are mentioned here. It would be nice to see a more extensive article on this topic with more information to illuminate the findings.
This totally makes sense to me based on experiences so far. I did a study back in high school comparing brain structure of males vs females and broad ideas definitely match up-women are more inclined to collaborate, men are more likely to assert themselves and overestimate their abilities. Women are already marginalized in society, so one might say it correlates that women are both more inclined to object to inequal treatment, and that they might understate their pwn abilities for fear of being seen as overly aggressive or ungrateful. I personally love collaborating, and I've worked with men who are great team players. But on the whole, it's a different kind of competition that each of us is in; women to be more recognized and treated equally, men to outdo each other and be the one alpha.
It's too bad that the article almost completely neglects the information from the study. The way it elementarily summarizes the study without even including the investigators names except for the quote of another journalist is disappointing. Fortunately a link to the study is included. I skimmed through it is interesting to see how they developed the tests and I enjoyed recognizing a few thinks such as p-value analysis and such from statistics but admittedly some of it was a little too dense for me. It would be interesting to test this finding in another setting to see how it applies otherwise.
I think this article is so interesting! It is somewhat funny to look back at experiences and see the correlation with this study. At the same time though I have met girls who preferred to work alone. it definitely would be more interesting if this article had other examples or statistics to back up its claim. Ultimately though, I can see the correlation.
I'll echo others and say that I wish this article had given more information and statistical analysis about the study conducted. I also had a slight "Am Not!" reaction to the working in groups vs. working alone thing, which in and of itself is an interesting piece of psychology (what's wrong with being associated with the womanly collaborator side?).
I'm currently reading Sheryl Sandburg's book, Lean In, and she talks a lot about how women tend to underestimate their own abilities and appropriateness for higher roles. For instance, she cites a statistic that typically (obviously not in every case), a woman will only go for a promotion when she meets 100% of the qualifications, while a man would (again, typically) go for it when he only meets 60%. Looking at it in those terms, it would make sense that some (statistically significant margin of) women would prefer to pool resources and achieve that 100%, whereas men would want to box each other out and outshine the competition alone. That's obviously not to say that all women or all men are a certain way, but it's an interesting hypothesis to investigate in these terms.
I find this too be so true. Many if not all of the women that I interact with on a day to day basis, short change themselves. Also I find that men build themselves up all the time. This happens in class, at work, and it happens socially. It comes down to the fact that women have to work to prove themselves worthy of being accepted by other people and men just have the inherent privilege to not have to worry about this and only when they screw up will they be penalized for it.
I love reading these psychological articles about workplace dynamics.
The finding of the research that I find most interesting is: "In short, men tend to overestimate their abilities and downplay those of their coworkers, while women shortchange their skills and defer to their peers."
I wonder why this is. I wonder if it has to do with genetics or if it is more of a developmental thing and has to do with the way society treats women as opposed to men.
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