Akinola, M;
Page-Gould, E;
Mehta, PH;
Liu, Z;
(2018)
Hormone-diversity fit: Collective testosterone moderates the effect of diversity on group performance.
Psychological Science
10.1177/0956797617744282.
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Abstract
Prior research has found inconsistent effects of diversity on group performance. Past moderators of the diversity-performance connection have primarily focused on psychological factors and group dynamics, however hormonal moderators related to status attainment motivation have been overlooked. Integrating the diversity, status and hormone literatures, we predicted that groups collectively high in testosterone, which is associated with heightened status drive, would perform optimally when group diversity was low. In contrast, we predicted that groups collectively low in testosterone, which should be less oriented towards status competitions and more oriented toward cooperation, would take advantage of group diversity. Analysis of 74 groups engaged in a group decision-making exercise provided support for our hypotheses. The findings suggest that diversity is beneficial for performance only if group-level testosterone is low but has a negative performance effect if group-level testosterone is high. Too much collective testosterone maximizes the pains and minimizes the gains from diversity.
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