Competition doesn’t always produce better performance
An interesting test results show that humans perform better when competing against teams/individuals of a lower class. i.e. A good developer would work faster when competing against a newbie or a worse-performing developer.
This could mean a lot, and perhaps explain why some places cannot manage simpler tasks they did manage before bringing in some heavy duty expert.
Quote from the article:
Another light in which it might be informative to view this study is with respect to research into what’s called “stereotype threat.” This is a well-known effect in which stigmatized groups — such as African-Americans or women — perform worse when prompted to focus on negative stereotypes about their group. Thus, African-Americans taking the SAT, if asked to check a box listing their race before the test, will perform worse than if they were not promoted to do so. Conversely, Asian students asked to mark their race tend to perform better, because of positive stereotypes about academic achievement.
Or, take the case of a female, Asian student — prompted to think about her Asian identity, she is likely to perform better; prompted to think about her female identity, she is likely to do worse.
