A New Study Finds Competitive Motivation Differs by Gender

Sure, you’ve been taught that competition is good. It’s the reason why we don’t allow monopolies on businesses and why we love those ridiculous Road Rules Vs. Real World shows that are still somehow going on. But a new study out of Washington University in St. Louis shows that competition in the workplace may be a hindrance rather than a benefit, depending on the gender of who the competition is between.

According to the study, women work well in teams, but pitting them against each other is detrimental to the creativity of those teams, whereas teams of men are afforded a creative advantage when told to compete against each other.

In the study, groups of same-sex and mixed gender teams were told to compete with each other with a cash prize going to the top team as incentive. What the professors leading the studies found was that men got along better with each other and started coming up with better ideas when they were competing against others. For women, the competition made working together to be innovative more difficult.

But women are known to compete amongst themselves. Womanly competition is the basis of several television shows and movies, spurring the creation of a new word — “frenemy” — to describe that love-hate relationship that women know so well. So, why can’t they function creatively when they need to be competitive for work?

For one thing, studies find that women and men are driven by different things: Men want to measure progress, while women are more concerned with life events. For another, women tend to take their work more personally and more emotionally. If the incentive is monetary, it may not be as motivating as, say, working towards charity.

The study is great news for office managers — once you know what makes people work more effectively, it’s easy to start implementing work strategies that cater to those needs. So go ahead and suggest it to HR the next time you feel like competition in the workplace is making you feel like you’re not doing your best.

And go ahead and turn on the TV the next time you need a healthy dose of competition — Dating Naked is probably on.

[Pic via Flickr - Kheel Center]