The Role of Strategy in Mixed-Gender Group Interactions: A Study of the Television Show “The Weakest Link”

Abstract

This paper studies mixed-gender group interactions in a strategic game where group members are sequentially eliminated till a single winner takes all. Study 1 tests the hypothesis that female contestants are retained till final rounds where they are eliminated. Using observational data from the US television show The Weakest Link (20 shows), results show that females are finalists but not winners. In a laboratory study (Study 2, 67 Berkeley undergraduates), we show that this effect is attenuated when winnings are shared among finalists (versus one winner takes all) due to the reduction in competitive pressures in the context.

Male—Female Dynamics in Groups: A Field Study of The Weakest Link

“…This led to a pattern they called females as finalists but not winners. Valenzuela and Raghubir (2007) conjecture, and present evidence consistent with the idea, that males retained lower performing females as they were perceived to be easier to defeat in the final. Females, however, retained other lower performing females as a higher proportion of females in a group led them to perform better.…”

“…Our contribution is developing a strategic explanation of gender biases based on a variety of strategic game play because of sex. First, we replicate findings from prior research (Lirgg, 1994;Valenzuela & Raghubir, 2007) showing that female players perform better in a non-male majority setting. Second, we find that both men and women use sex in a strategic way.…”

“…This male performance differential with high competition was the overall pattern in the The Weakest Link games analyzed by Valenzuela and Raghubir (2007) who first reported this special dynamic.…”

“…This would encourage the participants to retain a player who they believe they could defeat in the final. Valenzuela and Raghubir (2007) showed that when there is a single winner in the game, higher performing group members retain a token low-performing member who is perceived to be easier to defeat at the end of the game to increase their chance of winning the endgame. In the games studied by Valenzuela and Raghubir (2007), on average, males performed better than females.…”

Negative Affect Reduces Team Awareness

“…Though the data are insuffi cient for a valid analysis, the mixedgender dyads performed noticeably worse than the all male dyads. Possible explanations may be drawn from other studies showing how college age men value and trust other men more than women in technological contexts (Joshi & Schmidt, 2006;Williams, Ogletree, Woodburn, & Raffeld, 1993) and act more competitively than cooperatively in mixedgender pairs (Valenzuela & Raghubir, 2007).…”