Performance on two attention tasks as a function of sex and competition.

Effects of sex and competition on receptive attention and Stroop task performance of 59 college students were investigated, 33 participants in a competitive condition were informed that performance would be ranked by sex; 36 in a noncompetitive condition were given no information regarding competition. Consistent with previous research, no significant main effects or interactions were found for scores on the receptive attention task. Contrary to previous findings, though, the Stroop task also yielded no significant main effects; however, a significant interaction was found. Men experienced more interference in the competitive condition, whereas women showed no significant effects of competition. Women did experience more interference than men in the Noncompetitive condition. Conclusions suggest that men may be more sensitive to sex-based performance comparisons.