Revealing side effects of quota rules on group cooperation
Quota rule is perceived as an effective legal tool for introducing gender
equality in professions and positions where women are underrepresented.
Policymakers claim that gender diversity achieved through quotas has
positive effects on team performance. In an experimental, fully incentivized
study (N=188) we challenged this belief by testing the impact of quotas on
group cooperation using a real-effort-task. We compared quota with merit
based selection procedure. To test whether these results are specific for
quota rules applied to gender criteria, we manipulated group
characteristics: Initial assignment to lower status group and quota rule
were based either on gender or on an arbitrary randomly assigned feature
(i.e. color). We found that group cooperation was negatively influenced by
quota rules: cooperation increased after merit-based selection but not with
a quota rule. In addition, a gender quota was perceived as the most unfair
procedure.