Women compete better when they are in teams, research finds

[alp227]

Source: The Observer

"There is no 'I' in team, but there is in win," the basketball star Michael Jordan famously observed. But now it appears that such an emphasis on the role of the individual is a very male approach when it comes to competing. Indeed, a study suggests that women are much more willing than men to compete as part of a team.

Nearly two-thirds of the "gender competition gap" – the gap between the likelihood of men or women to enter a competition – disappears when people are offered the chance to compete in two-person teams rather than as individuals.Academics Andrew Healy and Jennifer Pate claim that their findings, published in the Economic Journal, have important implications for the design of competitive environments, such as elections and corporate career ladders.

The pair believe their research reveals that competing in teams "levels the playing field" by encouraging a higher number of qualified women to take part and discouraging unqualified men. They argue that this insight should help organisations to select the best-qualified leaders.

The economists conducted an experiment in which the participants had to answer maths problems as quickly as possible. Participants in teams decided whether they wanted to be paid according to the number of problems their two-person team answered correctly or whether they wanted to enter a competition against three other teams. Individual participants decided whether they wanted to compete against three other individuals.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/11/women-equality-competition-gender

[polly7]

1. I think women do get more strength from each other. I don't mean

to sound cliche or biased, but personally, when I worked in the ambulance with a woman. everything just seemed to go more smoothly, we weren't afraid to ask what we weren't sure of, and things just seemed to go better. The men I worked with were wonderful, but the communication wasn't just quite the same for some reason. There were fewer questions asked, it seemed we were supposed to know what was happening (and most times we did), and that was that.

But, they probably thought the same about us.

[Igel]

3. That's not the conclusion at all.

You'd be right, minus the sexism you're reading into the OP.

Nowhere does it say "same sex teams." Just "teams." Perhaps you're right--perhaps women work better with women and men work better with men so we should make sure teams are single sex. I've seen that argument made for clubs, for offices, for teams, for classrooms.

Then again, for most meaningful clubs, for offices, for teams in which brains are the focus instead of just athleticism, for classrooms if you see one that's all male you probably should be on the lookout for litigation. (It's less clear if it's all female. I've heard progressives try to justify all female offices when they'd go ballistic over an all male office. The girl on the Little League team is a brave feminist, the boy on the girl's softball team is being disruptive. Whatever.)

In any event ...

The paper says that there's a greater preference on the part of women to compete on a team--and they took pains to make sure that any man or woman competing on a team was just as likely to be paired with a man as with a woman.

The paper's here:

http://myweb.lmu.edu/ahealy/papers/healy_pate_gender_teams_070810.pdf

[polly7]

4. It was my conclusion, based

on my own experience, and certainly doesn't apply to everyone. In no way was I suggesting segregation for ANYTHING based upon sex. Merely what I've learnt from my own circumstances. BTW, I played on a boy's hockey team for 6 years before I knew the meaning of the word feminist. All I meant was that women who DO work in a team often seem to relate better. Maybe I'm wrong, but don't let it burn ya, it's just an opinion.

[lunatica]

2. I work with 6 women and our department gets consistent great grades

because we work as a team. I totally agree

[No Elephants]

5. Suspicious of this.