According to a recent University of Michigan study, women’s underrepresentation in certain fields may stem from their inclination towards competing in smaller groups.
The study was authored by Kathrin Hanek, a former Rackham student; Stephen Garcia, associate professor of psychology and organizational studies; and Avishalom Tor, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.
Hanek, the lead author of the study, said the study was inspired by increasing attention to the gender gap in certain fields she observed as a student.
“When I was a grad student at Michigan, I became interested in this idea of gender differences and competition,” Hanek said. “It was at a time when the book ‘Lean In’ by Sheryl Sandberg had just come out and there was a lot of talk about how women can close gaps in organizations and behave in ways that might help them advance in the workplace while still being true to themselves — being true to the social norms about what it means to be female.”
The team set out to explore how the themes of “Lean In” applied to competitive behavior. Through a series of eight studies that included both original experiments and analysis of existing data, the team found there are gender differences in preferred competition size.
One experiment involved a hand grip strength test with the top 20 percent of contestants winning a prize. The contestants could participate in one of two contests — big or small. The researchers discovered that preference for competition size was divided along gender lines with women opting for smaller groups.
“We were able to find out that women, much more so than men, would choose the smaller competition,” Hanek said. “I think that was a neat study in that it was very immediate and tangible with real consequences for people.”
The team reached the same conclusion while analyzing college admissions data. She found that the lower percentage of female students applied to larger institutions and vice versa, though the institution’s size did not affect the acceptance rate of the female students.
“If you’re looking at a small liberal arts school, percentage-wise you would have more women relative to men applying,” she said. “Whereas then as the school gets bigger … there are actually more men applying.”
Hanek said employers can use the results of the study to better attract women to certain fields.
“(This research) shows that it’s not that women are more or less competitive than men; it’s that they prefer to compete in different ways,” Hanek said. “Organizations that want to recruit more female applicants, for instance, they could advertise a particular position for themselves as smaller. Because what does ‘small’ mean anyways? It’s relative.”
Hanek added that making organizations seem smaller is important in areas where women are scarce.
“A tech company or an engineering firm, for instance, might want to recruit female job applicants,” Hanek said. “They might advertise a particular team or project rather than attracting someone to the entire organization. If you feature smaller departments and smaller applicant pools for the job, that would make women feel more comfortable and actually submit an application.”
According to Hanek, this study demonstrates how institutions can wield great influence in creating opportunities for women to compete equally with men.
“We can shape the environment or the competition to be more in line with women’s preferences,” she said.