Going it alone: Competition increases the attractiveness of minority status

When faced with competitive workplaces, women and African Americans are less likely to join teams that include other women or African Americans than when faced with non-competitive workplaces.

• Overall, African Americans and women preferred teams that included other African Americans or women.
• However, when faced with a competitive workplace (in which employees would have to compete for a promotion, an award, a hypothetical cash bonus, or a real cash bonus and these rewards would be given to the best performer(s) on the team), women were more likely to join all-male teams and African Americans were more likely to join all-White teams.
  • African Americans are 16.7 percentage points more likely to join an all-White group when competing for a promotion than when faced with a non-competitive workplace.
  • Women are between 9.5 and 28.6 percentage points more likely to join an all-male group when competing for a promotion, recognition, or bonus than when faced with a non-competitive workplace.
• The strategy of joining an all-male group was motivated by competition rather than scarcity. In workplaces where a scarce bonus was distributed through a lottery (rather than through a merit-based competition), there was no significant difference in women’s likelihood to join an all-male group compared to non-competitive workplaces where everyone on the team received a bonus (9.1% vs. 12.7%).
• The strategy of joining an all-male group is driven by women’s belief that their contributions would stand out more if they were a minority. It is not driven by a belief that women could benefit from implicit quotas (i.e., the belief that a company must promote a certain number of women per team) or a belief that competition against other women could hurt their workplace relationships
• As members of the dominant group, men were not more likely to join an all-female group when competing for a bonus (28.6% vs. 24.1%)

This study shows that competition can shape underrepresented populations’ choice of which teams to work with. In particular, women and racial minorities’ preference for homophily is significantly weakened when they believe it may benefit the competitiveness of their performance to “stand out” as a token woman or racial minority on a team. This research opens up questions about how women and racial minorities weigh the long-term benefits (a strategic edge in competitive contexts) and the costs (declining performance, organizational commitment, psychological well-being, and feelings of belonging) of being a token.

In six experiments, female and African American participants were randomly assigned to a competitive condition, in which they were told to anticipate competing against other group members for scarce resources, or to a non-competitive control condition, in which they were told that those resources were not scarce and would instead be given to the entire group. Then, participants were asked to choose between joining a work group in which they would be a minority or a work group with equal representation of women and men (for female participants) or African Americans and Caucasians (for African American participants).

• Study 1A tested whether 491 female participants were more likely to join an all-male group when asked to imagine they had been offered a summer internship and would be competing against fellow group members for a full-time job offer at the end of the internship, relative to those who were asked to imagine that everyone would get a full-time job at the end of the internship.
• Study 1B tested whether 278 African American participants were more likely to join an all-White group when asked to imagine they had been offered a summer internship and would be competing against fellow group members for a full-time job offer at the end of the internship, relative to those who were asked to imagine that everyone would get a full-time job at the end of the internship.
• Study 2 disentangled whether preferences for all-male groups were affected by competition or scarcity by asking 592 female participants to imagine competing for a bonus and company recognition, or to imagine that bonuses and company recognition would be selected by lottery, or to imagine that nearly everyone would be granted a bonus and company recognition.
• Study 3 used the same design as Study 1A, followed by asking 396 female participants questions that measured whether their preferences were mediated by a perception that it would be easier to differentiate themselves as a token, a sense that they could benefit from implicit quotas, or a belief that competition against other women could hurt their workplace relationships.
• Study 4 used an incentive-compatible design to test whether 202 student participants (72% women) were more likely to join an in-person brainstorming group in which they would be the only woman (or man for male participants) when told that they would compete against the other members of their brainstorming group for a (real) cash bonus and recognition based on their individual idea, compared to those who were told that nearly all ideas would be chosen and nearly everyone would receive a (real) cash bonus.
• Study 5 used an incentive-compatible, non-deceptive design to test whether 583 female participants were more likely to join an online all-male work group to review websites when told that they would compete against the members of their group to receive (real) cash bonuses based on their reviews, compared to women who were told that all reviews would be chosen and everyone would receive a bonus.