Women in teams over three-quarters male report less comfort admitting mistakes

The survey asked each respondent about a mistake at work ^[5]. It measured how comfortable they would be admitting it, how likely a penalty seemed, and whether they would treat it as a chance to learn ^[5]. Only the penalty question came back level. In comparable roles, women did not expect to be punished more than men, whether their workplace was female-heavy or male-heavy ^[15]. "On paper, a mistake carries the same consequences whoever makes it, and that is exactly what we found. But formal rules aren't culture," Lordan said ^[17].

"On paper" here means what respondents expected, because the survey asked about expectations ^[5]. The authors suspect the word "penalization" called up formal consequences, such as a note on the record or a career setback ^[16]. Lordan argued the comfort and learning scores pick up something else. "Comfort and learning tap informal, cultural dimensions, which is where bias tends to show up: being seen as less competent, having the mistake held against you in unwritten ways," she said. "Women may feel on 'thinner ice' psychologically even with the same consequences on paper." ^[19]

Now the size of the effect. In teams more than three-quarters male, women's comfort score trailed men's by 0.48 points on the seven-point scale, and their learning score trailed by 0.34 ^[12][13]. The published account does not include standard deviations or the number of respondents in those teams, so neither gap can be set against the spread of answers. One side of the comparison is also thin. With women at 81% of more than 1,400 respondents ^[3][4], men number roughly 270 in all ^[14], and the men in the most male-heavy teams are a fraction of that.

These are associations from one survey ^[5]. Lordan offered a reason the male-heavy setting itself might matter. "Extremely male-heavy, high-pressure teams may foster a general climate of fear or perfectionism and a 'no mistakes' norm," she said ^[18]. Men's own answers moved very little with team composition ^[9], so most of the change linked to team mix is in women's answers. A survey of this design cannot pull gender mix apart from other things that differ between male-heavy and mixed teams, including the pressure Lordan describes ^[18].

I think the evidence supports a narrow form of the claim that equal rules leave a gap. In the most male-heavy teams, women expected the same formal punishment as men and still reported less comfort ^[15][6]. The survey's evidence is stated comfort with an imagined mistake ^[5]. Whether women in these teams disclose fewer real errors would take a study that counts actual reports.

The authors expect the results to apply mostly to high-pressure, low-tolerance fields, and point to other research suggesting tech, engineering and some medical specialties may be similar ^[10]. Lordan proposed a remedy. "The fix isn't expensive. Leaders, and especially men leading male-heavy teams, can change the climate simply by being open about their own mistakes," she said ^[20]. The authors also suggest peer groups where women can discuss mistakes, inside and outside their immediate teams ^[21].