Cracking the Male Code of Office Behavior

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/jobs/06pre.html

by rmah • 15 years ago

29 22 15 years ago

Interesting article, but I don't understand this: "The male brain has the enviable ability to essentially switch off emotions when desired--in part because it’s hard for a man to think clearly in the face of emotion."

"For a man"? Wouldn't it be hard for, you know, anyone, man or woman, to think clearly if they're over-emotional at the moment?

sp3323• 15 years ago

Switching off emotions takes practice! It's not something that develops spontaneously. It can be a bit scary at first, but eventually you learn that turning off your emotions for a little while doesn't make them go away; you can turn them back on later and be the same person you were before.

0xEA• 15 years ago

Many women believe that their ability to "think" while emotional is what makes them the stronger sex. Of course, if you talk to them later when they are no longer emotional, they will admit they weren't thinking clearly.

The same is true for men of course. While most of us refrain from emotions at work, any man who's had a fight with his wife knows he's been just as irrational when the emotions run high.

The important take away: emotions aren't valuable at work.

gabrielroth• 15 years ago

I've read that testosterone and estrogen react differently when they mix with adrenaline or other emotion-triggered hormones—testosterone can exacerbate the cognitive difficulties whereas estrogen can soothe them. File this under 'something someone read somewhere'—i.e. don't take it too seriously—but that might be the kind of thing the author meant by "it’s hard for a man to think clearly in the face of emotion."

rlpb• 15 years ago

I get a registration required form.

cylo• 15 years ago

If you want to bypass that, always search for the title of the article via Google and then click on it from there.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Cracking+the+Male+Code+of+Off...

Udo4• 15 years ago

Clear all nytimes cookies from your browser.

hapless• 15 years ago

The article is several paragraphs of sensational hypotheses with no supporting evidence.

sp3323• 15 years ago

It's a NYT article, not a science journal article. The author claims to have spent several years studying this, and presumably the NYT checked out her credentials beforehand. Her book and email address are at the bottom of the article, if you want to know more.

sp3323• 15 years ago

"The expectation that people shut down personal feelings at work has become one of men’s subconscious, “unwritten rules.” When men see a worker taking criticism personally, seeming to push too hard for his or her ideas, or having a personality conflict, they automatically view that worker as less business-savvy and less experienced, or as someone who operates on emotion, not logic."

These rules aren't subconscious, are they? I was quite explicitly told that letting personality issues get in the way of business is bad for business (meaning everyone in the business) and that, for the sake of everyone around me, I should get over myself and work with other people. And it seems that someone pushing too hard for their own ideas has ego issues and would also be bad for the business as a whole.

Learning to not take criticism personally is a great life skill that everyone should have!

Udo4• 15 years ago

> I enter into conversations with unsuspecting men sitting next to me on airplanes, on the subway and in coffee shops and give them a chance to share their innermost thoughts anonymously.

This sounds like a wildlife researcher entering protected habitats to observe a rare species under natural conditions. It also betrays the underlying assumption that men and women are two completely different species that live in completely separate worlds. Throughout the article that assumption is never challenged.

> The male brain has the enviable ability to essentially switch off emotions when desired — in part because it’s hard for a man to think clearly in the face of emotion.

Big news: everybody does that, no matter what gender they are. It's called compartmentalization, without it people would not be able to function. Emotional reactions and analysis are pushed off to a future point in time whenever more pressing concerns are at hand. That's a basic mental triage technique and everybody can do it. There are also many people who _never_ do it, and in my experience there was no significant gender difference to that behavior.

> When men see a worker taking criticism personally, seeming to push too hard for his or her ideas, or having a personality conflict, they automatically view that worker as less business-savvy and less experienced, or as someone who operates on emotion, not logic.

Paragraphs like this make excellent statements for people who like evolutionary psychology, but they're simply not rooted in fact. In my experience, most "Type A" personalities who do like to dish out harsh personal criticism like it's a bodily function simply cannot take the same when it is directed at them. Likewise, the perception of business-savvyness is probably always linked to the perception of sameness: successful businesspeople attribute superior skills to people whom they perceive as similar to their own personality. And again, I observed no significant difference between sexes here. Regarding the unspoken assumption of public displays of male toughness: I've seen tough jock-types sitting under their desks crying just because someone had looked at them funny.

> The science is clear, for example, that although the female brain isn’t designed to compartmentalize personal feelings the same way a man’s brain does, a woman can — if she chooses — force a calm demeanor when she is starting to feel defensive.

That's a lie. This statement has nothing to do with science.

All in all this article is a standard set of misleading statements, "obvious" assumptions and outright lies. It's designed to be popular on the net while providing less than no value for readers interested in team dynamics.

CodeMage2• 15 years ago

That's a lie. This statement has nothing to do with science.

Can you point in the direction of something that proves or disproves that statement? I've witnessed a lot of anecdotal evidence that women don't do as well at compartmentalization as men. I didn't make much of it until I also read a book that points it out ("Viva La Diferencia" by Pilar Sordo) as one of the differences between typical male and typical female behavior.

All in all, it seems that the typical behavioral patterns are different enough between males and females, so I'm interested in evidence both for and against it. Your categorical statement makes it look like you can produce some of that evidence.

Udo4• 15 years ago

> I've witnessed a lot of anecdotal evidence that women don't do as well at compartmentalization as men. I didn't make much of it until I also read a book that points it out ("Viva La Diferencia" by Pilar Sordo) as one of the differences between typical male and typical female behavior.

Like I said, that's a _very_ popular opinion and it sells a lot of books. It's also something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> The science is clear, for example, that although the female brain isn’t designed to compartmentalize personal feelings the same way a man’s brain does

You ask me to prove my assertion that this is not based science, and of course I can mostly point to the fact that the supposed science the article is talking about was itself not cited anywhere. So I have to prove a negative, but the article gets a pass with disguising a blanket statement as science just because it resonates better with popular world views?

There is no actual biological or medical evidence supporting the article's claims. Pop psychology studies of this matter are hampered by the simple fact that they're unable to distinguish cultural from biological mechanisms. Evolutionary psychology is also considered a pseudoscience because it's based on starting with equating popular assumptions to self-evident truths and then going out to find evidence to support these arbitrary claims, while ignoring everything else.

zdw• 15 years ago

"I was shocked to discover that most men view negative emotion as a signal that logic has ceased."

Yes, that's pretty spot on, for me at least. (I'm male)

At times I know I can be overly blunt and appear insensitive - in the vast majority of cases I'm not trying to make a value judgement, just calling it how I see it. Thus, getting an emotional response back is somewhat shocking - to exaggerate for effect:

    A: "Two plus Two is Four"
    B: "OMG really!?!  You're a horrible person for thinking that!"
    A: "Um, I'm confused... what's wrong with you?"

I wonder where this puts me on the aspergers spectrum...

mcritz• 15 years ago

I notice emotional attachment at work from both genders.

Those that create subjective work, like designers and musicians, often latch onto their solutions with an emotional vigor. It’s as if they view their work as some part of themselves.

eftpotrm• 15 years ago

It’s as if they view their work as some part of themselves.

If you're a good artistic / creative person with that sort of mind, it pretty much is.

gaius• 15 years ago

It's a tactic on their part. For every man in the workplace that does business on the golf course, there's a woman who uses "fear of a crying female" to gain power.

If you find yourself being manoeuvred against like that, find a female cow-orker to deal with it for you. Real women will destroy those who stoop to that tactic like a guided missile.

julius_geezer• 15 years ago

"The science is clear, for example, that although the female brain isn’t designed to compartmentalize personal feelings the same way a man’s brain does, a woman can--if she chooses--force a calm demeanor when she is starting to feel defensive."

Is that clearly science?

makmanalp• 15 years ago

I like that there is supposed to be a contrast between these:

> The expectation that people shut down personal feelings at work has become one of men’s subconscious, “unwritten rules.” When men see a worker taking criticism personally, seeming to push too hard for his or her ideas, or having a personality conflict, they automatically view that worker as less business-savvy and less experienced, or as someone who operates on emotion, not logic. (I was shocked to discover that most men view negative emotion as a signal that logic has ceased.)

and this:

> So when we raise our hand in a meeting and ask directly, “Bob, why did you choose that pricing?” we are just asking for information. Bob, on the other hand, may be angrily thinking, “I can’t believe she is challenging my judgment in front of my team.”

How come when women take criticism personally and respond emotionally and men don't get it (as in example 1) it's a problem, but when women are blunt about their questions and men respond emotionally (as in example 2) it's not the exact same problem? Looks like a double standard that plays on the "women are emotional, men are not" myth to me.

angdis• 15 years ago

I don't know if I buy into everything in the article, but she is right that women and men have different behaviors and that it helps to have some understanding of the differences.

One example that comes to mind is that some women will actually cry at work. For males that aren't used it, this can be a major WTF moment and they'll take it as a major sign of instability or irrationality. In fact, it is just a coping mechanism and it does not have the same meaning or weight as it would for a man to cry.

In other words, if a woman cries at work, the equivalent behavior for man would be an aggressive retort or a temporary withdrawl from the situation. For women, this might seem like the man is a being a jerk-- but, like crying, it is coping mechanism.

Cracking the Male Code of Office Behavior

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