Women are just as competitive as men, according to a study, that found they enter competitions at the same rate as men, but are more likely to share their winnings.
Putting volunteers in groups and asking them to complete a series of maths problems in return for a reward helped researchers from the University of Arizona in Tucson to study gender differences in relation to competition.
The 238 participants were evenly split between men and women, and had the option of choosing a guaranteed prize for a correct result, a larger prize if they were a top performer, or a larger prize with the option to share the winnings with the losers.
If given the chance to share their winnings, 60 per cent of women opted for competition, whereas only 35 per cent decided to compete if they won the lot.
In contrast, 51 per cent of men opted for the winner-take-all option, compared to 52.5 per cent of men going for gold if they got to share their reward with the losers.
Researchers say that female participants may be more interested in controlling the way the winnings are dived up among the other participants than the men.
Women are just as competitive as men, according to a study, that found they enter competitions at the same rate as men, but are more likely to share their winnings. Stock image
Mary Rigdon, associate director of the Arizona Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, wanted to explore the ‘relatively new theory’ that women are less competitive and less willing to take risks than men.
It was part of a wider series of work into how market structure, information and incentives impact behaviour, particularly around gender.
Rigdon, alongside colleague Alessandra Cassar, a Professor of economics at the University of San Francisco, have been examining the gender pay gap.
Professor Rigdon said: ‘If we’re finally going to close the gender pay gap, then we have to understand the sources of it – and also solutions and remedies for it.
‘In 2021, women will earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, meaning women work nearly three months extra to receive the same amount of pay.
‘This statistic does not account for certain characteristics, such as an employee’s age, experience or level of education.
‘But even when considering those characteristics, women are still paid about 98 cents for every dollar earned by men.
‘In other words, a woman is paid two percent less than a man with the same qualifications.’
There are a number of theories that attempt to explain this gap, including the ‘human capital explanation’ that suggests there are gender differences in certain skills, leading women to careers that pay less.
Other theories include basic discrimination against women in the workforce, and a relatively recent idea, that women are less competitive than men.
Professor Rigdon worked with Professor Cassar to zero in on this idea, that also posits that women are less willing to take risks than men.
Professor Rigdon explained: ‘But if women were more reluctant to compete, then they would occupy fewer high-ranking positions at the tops of major companies, and that’s not the trend that’s taken shape over the last several years.
‘Women make up about eight per cent of the CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies. While that number is low overall, it’s a record high.
‘We thought it must be the case that women are as competitive as men, but they just exhibit it differently, so we wanted to try to get at that story and demonstrate that that is the case.
‘Because that’s then a very different story about the gender wage gap.’
To demonstrate this, the researchers randomly assigned 238 men and women and split them into two groups, according to their gender.
Participants in each group were then randomly assigned to four-person subgroups.
For all participants, the first round of the study was the same: Each individual was asked to look at tables of 12 three-digit with two decimal places and find the two numbers that add to ten.
The participants were then asked to solve as many tables as possible – up to 20 – in two minutes. Each participant was paid two dollars for every table they solved in the first round.
In the second round, the participants were asked to do the same task, but the two groups were incentivised differently.
Researchers at the University of Arizona in Tucson were able to study gender differences in competition by putting volunteers in groups and asking them for help with math problems. Stock image
In the first group, the two participants in each four-person team who solved the most tables earned four dollars per table solved, while their other two team members were given nothing.
In the other group, the top two performers of each four-person team also earned four dollars per table, but they had the right to decide how much of the prize money to share with one of the lower performing participants.
In the third round, all the participants were allowed to choose which payment scheme they preferred from the two previous rounds.
For half the study participants, this meant a choice between a guaranteed two dollars per correct table, or potentially four dollars per correct table, if they became one of the top two performers in their four-person subgroup.
For the other half of the participants, the choice was two dollars per correct table or four dollars per correct table for the top-two performers with the option to share the winnings with one of the losing participants.
The number of women who chose the competitive option nearly doubled when given the option to share their winnings.
The researchers found that about 60 percent chose to compete under that option, while only about 35 percent of women chose to compete in the winner-take-all version of the tournament.
Whereas just over half of the men in the study chose the winner-take-all option, and 52.5 per cent chose the format that allowed them to share with the losers.
Professor Rigdon said that she and her colleague, Professor Cassar, have a few theories about why women are more inclined to compete when they can share the winnings.
One theory suggests that female participants are simply interested in controlling the way the winnings are divided up among the other participants.
Professor Rigdon explained that another theory, which has emerged among evolutionary psychologists, suggests that female participants may be inclined to smooth over bad feelings with losers of the competition.
She said: ‘We really have to ask what it is about this social incentive that drives women to compete.
‘We think it’s recognising the different costs and benefits that come from your different biological and cultural constraints.
‘But at the end of the day, I think we still have this question.’
The 238 participants were evenly divided between men and women. Participants had the choice of a guaranteed prize if they got a correct result, a larger award if they were a top performer or a larger cash prize with the option to split the winnings. Stock image
Researchers are now working on an experiment to get to the bottom of this question.
Although they did not propose any policies for corporate America, based on their research that still has many unanswered questions, the latest findings by the researchers suggest that corporations might benefit from more socially responsible activity.
Professor Rigdon concluded, “Maybe you’ll attract another set of applicants for your CEO positions or board of directors positions.
“Women might be more attracted by positions that have this social component than in incentive-based companies where it’s all CEO bonuses.
The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.