Page 12 - Harvard Business Review (November-December, 2017)

IDEA WATCH

DEFEND YOUR RESEARCH

the score is, say, 1–1, 3–1, or 5–0—affects
the probability of winning the match.
We looked at only first sets because
we thought asymmetry, fatigue, and
momentum might become factors in later
In analyzing more than 8,200 games from Grand ones. Also, winning the initial set provides
a huge advantage: In our data, 85% of
Slam tennis matches, Alex Krumer of the University women and 77% of men who won the first
of St. Gallen and his colleagues found that the male set also won the match. And we focused
on Grand Slams because their monetary
players’ performance showed a larger drop in high- incentives and ranking points are the
stakes games (relative to low-stakes games) than the largest, and they’re the only tournaments
and women. Men do play more sets in
that give the same prize money to men
female players’ performance did. Their conclusion:
those matches—five, compared with three
WOMEN RESPOND BETTER for women—but if anything, that makes it
even more important for women to take
that first set.
THAN MEN TO COMPETITIVE So Grand Slam–level money and

points increase the pressure even
PRESSURE further? There’s a lot of research
on the inverse relationship
MEN ARE MORE
incentive-induced pressure.
AFFECTED BY between performance and
PSYCHOLOGICAL Dan Ariely at Duke University
MOMENTUM THAN and his colleagues published
DR. KRUMER, experiments with villagers in India
WOMEN ARE.
a paper called “Large Stakes,
Big Mistakes,” which described
DEFEND YOUR RESEARCH and college students. In them, subjects
who were given very large performance-
related incentives did worse on tasks than
subjects given relatively small incentives.
Other studies have shown that Australian
basketball players sink more free throws
in practice than in games, and that
professional golfers are more likely to
miss a shot on the final hole of a high-
stakes tournament.

KRUMER: We looked at the performance counterparts. So my coauthors—Danny Did you expect to find differences
of servers—who normally have an Cohen-Zada and Mosi Rosenboim from between the sexes? We weren’t sure,
advantage—in every first set played at Ben-Gurion University and Offer Moshe because the evidence on gender, pressure,
the 2010 French, U.S., and Australian Shapir from NYU Shanghai—and I feel and performance is limited and mixed.
Opens and at Wimbledon, and we found we can confidently say that in the world Some studies have found no difference
that the men’s performance deteriorated of elite tennis, women are better under between men and women. Some have
more than the women’s when the game pressure than men are. They choke found that men do better when the heat
was at a critical juncture. For example, less. Whether that translates to other is on; others have found that women
in sets that went to 4–4, the number competitive settings remains to be seen. outshine men in certain environments.
of men’s serves that were broken rose M. Daniele Paserman at Boston University
more than seven percentage points after HBR: Why look at only tennis, and actually looked at this Grand Slam data
the players had reached the tie. Among only first sets, and only Grand before we did and found that both sexes
women, we saw barely any difference Slams? Tennis is a sport in which it’s play more conservatively on key points,
between pre- and post-tie performance. very easy to measure performance and making fewer unforced errors and hitting
And even when female athletes’ play competitive pressure. There’s a clear fewer winning shots. But he didn’t directly
did deteriorate as pressure increased, winner of every point, game, set, and assess the effect of competitive pressure
the drop in performance was about 50% match, and you can assess the extent to on the likelihood of winning. We thought
less, on average, than that of their male which victory in a particular game—when it would be interesting to look at those

34 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2017