Work Matters

Tag: women

  • Adding Women Makes Your Group Smarter — The Evidence Keeps Growing

    I was intrigued to see the new study that shows companies perform better when they have women on their boards.  Check out this story and video at CNBC.   Here is the upshot: "Credit Suisse analyzed more than 2,500 companies and found that companies with more than one woman on the board have outperformed those with no women on the board by 26 percent since 2005."

    This result becomes even more compelling when you pair it with a rigorous study done a couple years ago.  It showed that groups that have a higher percentage of women have higher "collective intelligence" — they perform better across an array of difficult tasks "that ranged from visual puzzles to negotiations, brainstorming, games and complex rule-based design assignments," as this summary from Science News reports. In that research, the explanation was pretty interesting, as the authors set out to study collective intelligence, not gender.  As Science News reported:

    Only when analyzing the data did the co-authors suspect that the number of women in a group had significant predictive power. "We didn't design this study to focus on the gender effect," Malone says. "That was a surprise to us." However, further analysis revealed that the effect seemed to be explained by the higher social sensitivity exhibited by females, on average. "So having group members with higher social sensitivity is better regardless of whether they are male or female,"

    Yet, despite all this, there is still massive sexism out there, especially in the upper reaches of many corporations. Note this report from the Women's Forum: "While women comprise 51% of the population, they make up only 15.7% of Fortune 500 boards of directors, less than 10% of California tech company boards, and 9.1% of Silicon Valley boards." 

    Pathetic huh?  And it is pretty good evidence that all those sexist boys who love going to board meetings and retreats unfettered by those pesky women are just hurting themselves — and their shareholders — in the end.  But perhaps there is justice in the world, as this just may be a case where "times wounds all heels."

    Indeed, I wonder when we will see the first shareholders' suit where a company that has no women on the board, and suffers financial setbacks, is sued.  Their failure to do so could be construed as a violation of their fiduciary responsibility.  I know this sounds silly, it does to me.   But lawyers and shareholders have sued — and won — over far more absurd things, as this would at least be an evidence-based claim (albeit one that stretches the evidence a bit too far for my tastes).

  • The Roar of Sports Car Engines: 100% of Women — But Only 50% of Men –Respond to a Maserati With Increased Testosterone Levels

    I put up what I thought was an amusing and not especially original post on Wednesday afternoon that described a study showing that men who drove a new Porsche — but not an old Camry — responded with increased testosterone levels.  It got picked up by something called Hacker News and was on the top of their list of hot items for hours (I don't really understand how this thing works). The result was that it drove 5000 or 6000 hits to my blog and generated 35 comments there. By now, after some four years of blogging, I have learned that it is impossible to know what will take off.  And although it is fun when it happens, I have learned that when I stick to what feels interesting and authentic to me, I have the most fun and learn the most.  But based on reactions to my two testosterone posts, this is clearly something people seem to be interested in and I confess the research on it intrigues and bewilders me.

    So, to add to my posts here and here, I have one more study about cars and T levels to add to the mix. Following a link that appeared in one of the Hacker news comments, there was a related study described over Telegraph.com in the UK, headlined Sound of a sports care engine arouses women.  Here is how the study is described "The 40 participants listened to the recordings of a Maserati, a Lamborghini
    and a Ferrari, along with a Volkswagon Polo, before having a saliva specimen
    collected."     I have much less information about the nuances of this research than the other two studies, but on the face of it, the evidence seems to be that women respond more strongly than men to the sound of cars and to different cars. Note this excerpt:

    The results found 100 per cent of female participants had a significant
    increase in testosterone secretion after listening to the Maserati, compared
    to only half for men.Men fared better at the sound of a Lamborghini, with 60 per cent showing a
    testosterone increase. Psychologist David Moxon, who conducted the study commissioned by motor
    insurer Hiscox, said: "We saw significant peaks, particularly in women."

    "The roar of a luxury car engine does cause a primeval physiological
    response." He added the sound of an average car engine actually led to a decreased level
    of testosterone.

    I promise this is my last post on T levels for a long time.  I just couldn't resist this one.

    P.S. Check out Ellie's comment. She raises excellent points about the legitimacy of this research. I am trying to contact the David Moxon to see if he can share the original data and research report with us, l hope he answers. Once again, to be clear, the other two testosterone studies were published in a top peer-reviewed journal, and while they are imperfect, they are carefully done, the authors are careful not to overstate claims, and they acknowledge flaws and alternative explanations for their findings.