Sex and Motivational Strategies

Don't get excited yet, when I refer to sex I am referring to the male/female trait, not the act itself, With more and more females engaged in all kinds of enterprises, the question of whether one's sex matters in how individuals are motivated. If so, what should we know? Which strategies work better for men and which strategies work better for women? Keep in mind these are general tendencies recognizing that humans are quite complex and there are many factors that ultimately affect what we do.

Studies reveal that men are likely to be more competitive than women. While in individual cases this may not be true, the view of competitive achievement is still different for men and women. Men tend to want to have opportunities to compare their whatever to others. While women can be competitive, they are likely to focus more on whether they are included in the contest and how others view them than whether they actually are winning.

Within the broad sex influence on how individuals view competitive situations, there exist a personality trait that captures the competitiveness of the individual regardless of sex. So a male could be high or low in competitiveness and a female can also be high or low. Thus, what we have is a 2x2 matrix with four possibilities for motivational strategies.

A male who is high in competitiveness will give high levels of effort when there is a performance context in which his performance is compared to others and rewards are individual. It would be difficult for this male to be motivated to collaborate with others for team performance.

A male who is low in competitiveness will be sensitive to the fact that his performance is being compared to others and would likely withhold his effort if there is too much focus on competition. In this case this male would be more likely to put forth effort if emphasis was on team rewards.

A female who is high in competitiveness will give high levels of effort in a performance context when individual achievement is recognized but being a part of the competition is the major focus. A highly competitive female is more likely to be motivated by an "if one wins, all wins" strategy.

A female who is low in competitiveness is not motivated much at all in a context where individual performance is emphasized. This female is largely interested in just belonging to the team and experiencing the journey together. These individuals are motivated the most by rewards for cooperation and collaboration.

These individual differences based on sex and motivational traits are what makes leading a team so interesting. It certainly informs selection of team members based on the type of strategy to be used and shows why a "one size fits all" approach to motivational strategies is problematic.

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