[quote]A new study suggests that when it comes to risky situations in the workplace, women are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety than men, which can negatively impact their performance. Women experience higher anxiety when in risky situations at work, according to researchers, which may impair their performance. The research team, including Susan R. Fisk, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Stanford University, CA, recently presented their findings at the American Sociological Association's 109th Annual Meeting. Fisk defines a risky situation as being any environment that may offer an uncertain outcome - a circumstance in which a mix of skill and chance can induce either a positive or negative result. She notes that a risky situation is commonly associated with physical or financial liabilities but says that many of us are frequently involved in precarious circumstances. Putting forward an idea at a work meeting in front of colleagues can be a risky situation, for example, or volunteering for a challenging assignment in the workplace. In their study, Fisk and colleagues investigated how risky situations in the workplace affected anxiety in both men and women. Women more anxious than men in risky situations Firstly, the team conducted an online experiment involving American adults aged between 18 and 81 years.Participants were presented with a set of workplace scenarios that were either risky or non-risky. In one scenario, for example, participants were asked to imagine they were in a group meeting at work. If you say tl;dr I'll know you agree with this post. Some participants were told that other colleagues understood that bad ideas put forward are part of the brain-storming process, while other participants were told that colleagues would be very judgmental of bad ideas.The subjects were then asked to describe what they would do in each scenario, how they would act and how the scenario would make them feel, before undergoing an anxiety test.The researchers found that women who were given the risky scenarios scored 13.6% higher on the anxiety tests, compared with women who were given the non-risky scenarios. Furthermore, no significant difference was found in anxiety levels between men presented with risky or non-risky scenarios. Explaining a potential reason behind this finding, Fisk says that these type of scenarios in the workplace are generally riskier for women. She notes that past research indicates that even if a woman performs the same as a man, others are likely to judge her as being worse and put the failure down to incompetence rather than bad luck.[/quote] The evidence is here people