Stress is an ever present in the modern workplace, but does it affect the sexes equally?  That was the question posed by a recent study from the Max Planck Institute, which saw a few hundred volunteers exposed to various stressful situations to assess how they responded.

Half of the group were placed into a scenario that was designed to induce psychosocial stress.  They were first asked to speak about their various strengths and weaknesses, before completing a challenging mental task, with both performed in front of a panel who would evaluate their performance.  The panel were instructed not to give any feedback or show any emotion.

A second, control, group were instructed to read a short article out loud before also completing a mental task, albeit a considerably easier one than the other group.  The heart rate and cortisol level of participants were measured throughout.

Competitive environment

A second experiment was then undertaken to introduce competition to the equation.  Volunteers were paid to solve some relatively straightforward maths problems.  Sometimes their pay was a piece rate for each successful answer, sometimes they had to compete against an anonymous opponent whereby the reward varied depending on how they fared against their rival.

The data reveals that men and women appear to respond differently to stress and the need to compete with others.  For men, competition seemed to enhance performance levels in both the control and the stress induced group.

For women however, the introduction of competition had a very different effect.  In the control group where no real stress was present, competition seemed to boost their performance, similarly to the men.  When stress and competition were both present however, performance plummeted.

When competition was absent, women performed similarly in both the stress and non-stress scenarios, thus it appears clear that it is only the combination of stress and competition that seemed to induce the fall in performance.

“Our findings can help understanding gender differences on the labor market. When hiring procedures involve both competition and stress, the results can undervalue women’s true skill level. This is especially relevant if the interviews or evaluations involve higher levels of competition and stress than the job itself, because then the selection process might not reveal the best candidate” the researchers say.