Pzuckerman,
Perhaps that's as close to a perfect response as we are going to get.
My counterpoint question is, Why do women shy away from competition, even when they can win?
I recently read the following:
As you accurately stated, male brains and female brains; different.
Perhaps that's as close to a perfect response as we are going to get.
My counterpoint question is, Why do women shy away from competition, even when they can win?
I recently read the following:
Research indicates that even at a task that women clearly perform as well as men, they are less likely to choose a competitive setting, more likely to underrate their performance when they have to guess at it, and perhaps even more likely to shy away from receiving feedback. If women shy away from competition and men compete too much, the authors wrote, this decreases the chance of women succeeding in competition for promotions and more lucrative jobs.
Their conclusions were based on a rigidly controlled experiment in which male and female subjects indicated a willingness, or lack of willingness, to have their work rated in a competitive -- in this case a tournament involving the solution of simple math problems.
Men and women performed the tasks about equally well, she and Vesterlund found, but women at all ability levels were less likely to choose a tournament setting.
There was no follow-up questioning to determine why the subjects (University of Pittsburgh undergraduates) made the choices they did.
As you accurately stated, male brains and female brains; different.