Trying harder for different reasons - Conjunctivity and sex composition asbases for motivation gains in performing groups

Past investigations of performance on a conjunctive physical persistence ta sk have yielded consistent evidence of motivation gains in the less able wo rker - a pattern first seen in data collected over 70 years ago (Kohler, 19 26, 1927). Moreover, recent work indicates that these gains are due to the increased instrumentality of the weaker participant's efforts. The present study sought to demonstrate that another potential factor in the work conte xt - the sex composition of the group, which is known to moderate self-pres entation concerns - could also affect such motivation gains. Male and femal e members of work teams performed a physical persistence task. In one condi tion they performed work trials as individuals. In others, they first worke d on the task alone and then were paired with a more capable same- or other -sexed teammate to perform the task conjunctively - i.e., this trial was ov er as soon as either person stopped. As expected, these less capable partic ipants worked significantly harder under conjunctive task demands, irrespec tive of coworker sex. However, also as predicted, males tended to show even greater motivation gain when paired with a more capable female, while fema les' efforts tended to vary the most when they were paired with a male. Res ults are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the pot entially multifaceted bases for motivation gains in collective work context s.