Feminine gamification viewpoint: like-ability
With gamification often including voting and rating of thoughts, suggestions and occasionally also people, the research done in regards to like-ability and success and how this differs for men and women is important to be aware of.
Sheryl Sandberg in her book “Lean In” quoted research carried out by psychologist which states that when a man and a women are considered equally competent and successful, the woman is often penalised more when she does what she needs to do to reach results. Research tells us that men and women in leadership roles act collaboratively, they are both liked in equal measures. When however leaders of both genders act authoritatively, then women are penalised a lot more in how they are perceived, the main reason is violating gender stereotypes.
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The typical behaviour that is expected of a woman is to be nurturing, kind and friendly but as soon as she shows up decisive, assertive, forceful and pushing her team to perform, she is judged negatively for the very behaviours to make up success for both genders.
From a feminine point of view it is a hard balancing act, you want to be perceived as feminine yet also achieve at a high level. When then there is an added element of judgement it takes that extra bit of courage and confidence to keep putting yourself out there.
When we are designing gamification solutions where voting and ranking is involved, in my view it will be important to be cognisant of these differences and make your rules and guidelines for judging transparent and clear that competence is what is looked for as opposed to like-ability.
Have you judged women different? If yes, why?
