That men are more competitive than women is one of those rules of thumb that scarcely needs examining, but that hasn’t stopped researchers from Karlsruhe and Bonn, who in a new study set out to examine competitiveness at work.
The study found that in competitive situations at work, men typically invest more time and effort into reducing the effectiveness of their rivals than women do. They also have a more distrustful nature, and often over-estimate the desire to sabotage their own efforts from their rivals, thus rapidly creating a dog-eat-dog environment.
These behaviors are especially common when the stakes are high, such as when a big project is underway or a promotion is on the line. In such circumstances, employees can often try and make their colleagues look worse by depriving them of key information, such as important meetings or data about their work.
Gender differences
In any competition, it’s largely relative performance that matters rather than absolute performance levels, and in such an environment, you can obviously take one of two strategies: improve your own performance or reduce the performance of your rival.
The research saw volunteers asked to encode words via a sequence of numbers. Every time they got the coding correct, they earned points, with the person with the most points getting a bonus. The results showed a similar level of performance between men and women, but this changed when sabotage was introduced.
When the participants were given the option of reducing the scores of their rivals, this turned out to be a strategy deployed by men far more frequently than women, which resulted in them winning more often.
“We found that the factor relevant to one’s own sabotage behavior is the uncertainty about the sabotage level of the competitors,” the researchers say. “Men systematically overestimate the sabotage level directed against them. For this reason, their own sabotage level also is higher. Women, by contrast, realistically assess the sabotage level. Women and men do not have different moral values, but men more strongly perceive their environment as competitive.”
It should be said that when men were informed that the level of competition and potential sabotage was nowhere near as bad as they thought, they tended to adjust their behaviors accordingly, and conducted themselves more akin to their female peers.
The researchers believe their findings underline the importance of providing such signalling, even if it’s done on a very soft level to ensure that it’s employee’s true ability that stands out rather than any back stabbing and sabotage that underpins success.
“It is the goal to promote the best. If the “wrong” person is promoted systematically, this is disadvantageous for both the losers and the company,” the authors conclude.
