University of Quebec study contradicts conventional wisdom re women's co-operativeness

Submitted by fathers4fairness on Tue, 2014-03-11 17:39

Contrary to claims from feminist groups pressing for greater numbers of women on corporate boards, article here. Excerpt:

'They may lack the competitive streak of their male colleagues but women are loath to work together.

A study found two women are less likely to co-operate than two men when one is more powerful than the other.

Similarly, two females of different rank are less likely to work together than a man and a woman.

The finding contradicts the widely held belief that women’s nurturing nature makes it natural for them to help each other out, while men are too competitive to have time for each other.

Researchers said that men may be wired to put their differences aside in order to form alliances. Women, however, are most comfortable with people who are on the same level as them.

Richard Wrangham, of the University of Quebec at Montreal, said: ‘The question we wanted to examine was: Do men or women co-operate better with members of their own sex?

‘The conventional wisdom is that women co-operate more easily but when you look at how armies or sports teams function, there is evidence that men are better at co-operating in some ways.’'

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Any time I see a study claiming "women are better at..." or "men are better at...", I always take out my salt shaker. Generalizations such as these are hard to make when there are so many hard-to-control-for factors that it almost becomes mere speculation. Culture, nature of the work, office dynamics independent of the genders, individuals' personalities, etc., etc. Armies for example when morale is high can be extraordinarily cooperative to the point that there isn't a single man in a a unit who wouldn't gladly kill and die for any other. At the same time, some armies have collapsed into martial civil war (civil war among same-nation military units, not necessarily involving civilians as newly-minted combatants, as occurred in places like Vietnam). So there's a lot going on with this kind of thing.

When talking of an otherwise mundane circumstance like life in an office, what's a critical piece is always motivation. "What's in it for me to be cooperative with my boss?" Keeping your miserable job is not usually good enough. Carrot-stick has always been far more effective than stick all by itself. To paraphrase Sun Tsu: "Punish undesirable behavior, reward desirable behavior". Making it clear to everyone in a work group that cooperation will be rewarded while un-cooperativeness will be punished is a great way to make sure everyone knows the game plan. Some may not like this but that's to be expected. Who likes being told what they can and cannot do? Most of us don't. But that's why you get paid. And if you're told that cooperating with your boss is key to getting raises and promotion considerations, then that may be the trick.

Is it possible the reason it seems female workers are less happy to cooperate with female superiors is that female bosses are less likely in the name of congeniality to not make clear up front what expectations are? I don't know but maybe male bosses either due to socialization or something else are more likely to simply state up front before a project or employment term starts what his expectations are and as long as you meet/exceed, there'll be carrots for you to snack on regularly. But if you don't -- fear the stick of a bad performance review followed by no-raise-this-year, or if you really bullocks up, a kick downstairs or worse, out the door with you!

Just a theory. I have had male and female supervisors in my career and while not all male ones have done the "upfront expectations" thing, the only ones who ever did sported schmeckels. :)

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2014-03-12 04:04