Science Says Teams Work Better When They’re Mostly Women

The Powerpuff Girls already proved this by being so awesome, but thanks, science.

Most jobs in life—blogger, garbage collector, Avenger, or what-have-you—require that you work together with other people. According to a study published last month on PLOS One, you’d be better off if that group of people were mostly made up of women. As the sole male staff editor at The Mary Sue, I can confirm that this is 100% true, because my coworkers are the absolute best.

But you don’t have to take my sample-size-one opinion on it. A group of Researchers at MIT broke 272 test subjects into groups of four and gave them tasks to complete, and they found that the groups that displayed the best ability to understand their coworkers’ thoughts and feelings (as based on a test done beforehand) also performed the best overall on their assignments. The proportion of women was found to be a strong predictor of any given group’s “collective intelligence.”

This difference showed itself whether the groups met face-to-face or in text-based communication online, where it can be tougher to discern what everyone is thinking. So, if you needed a(nother) reason the gender gap is such a huge problem in the workforce, there is now scientific evidence that we’d all actually be better at our jobs just from having more female coworkers.

(via Marie Claire, image via Wikipedia)

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