Performance In Competitive Environments: Gender Differences - Critical Thinking on the Article

Give one sentence describing the main purpose of the research reported in the paper.

The experimental article to be analyzed in this case is PERFORMANCE IN COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENTS: GENDER DIFFERENCES by URI GNEEZY MURIEL NIEDERLE ALDO RUSTICHINI.

The sentence describing the main purpose of the research is:

In this paper, we propose and experimentally test an additional explanation: women may be less effective than men in competitive environments.

What type of design was used in the research reported in this paper?

(Observational/Correlational/Experimental)

The design applied in this research was experimental where the authors were determined to establish the fact whether men perform better in the competitive environment compared to the men. As such, they will want to determine the relationship that exists between men, women, and performance in a fixed and competitive environment.

Describe the sample that was used and note any specific characteristics that you think might affect the ability to generalize their results.

The sample was designed by coming up with a specific task that was to be tackled by all the participants. The performance of all the participants would then be measured. Instead of assuming the competitive environment being fixed, the study considered other factors of motivation such as incentives, promotions among others thus the possibility of the results being affected.

What was the behavior(s) that was under study? How was the dependent

variable(s) operationally defined?

The behavior under study was performance under competitive environment based on the two genders, that is, male and female. The authors defined the dependent variable as being the performance of the workers. The performance was dependent on the gender when the environment was kept fixed and very competitive.

What did they specifically do in this study to learn about this behavior?

The researchers came up with a task where the participants were to solve a maze. The maze game was composed of five levels which were rated from 1 to 5 with 1 being easy and 5 being hard. The participants were then allowed to solve level 2 of the maze so that they familiarize with the tasks. After which, instructions were distributed, and then they were allowed to solve the maze with another party taking the scores.

What did the author(s) conclude about the results of the study?

The conclusion by the authors was that the results never explained the driving factor that leads to the difference in performance between the gender gap under study. The results also show that men perform better than women under the competitive environment. According to the researchers, the results give an inference that women do not engage in competition at all. Furthermore, the results explain that there is a possibility that women may not be motivated to compete.

Do you agree or disagree with the conclusions? Why or why not?

I completely agree with the fact that men perform better as compared to women in a competitive environment. I support the conclusion since women become fear competition and are very hard to be motivated to engage in competition.

Briefly, describe a future study that could address either a limitation of the current research or provide further evidence for the conclusions discussed.

From this study, further research can be conducted to establish the reasons as to why women do not like to be motivated to perform better than men in a competitive environment. Also, a detailed research can be conduct to establish a theoretical explanation as to why men do better than women under the competitive environment.