Teed Off

Is America’s deepening political polarization affecting worker productivity? To find out, two researchers turned to a unique job site: the PGA Tour, where groups of two to three golfers navigate the course together.

Turns out, professional golfers perform significantly worse when randomly grouped with competitors holding opposing political views—a gap that nearly triples during periods of heightened national political polarization.

The study, published in Management Science and co-authored by Haas postdoctoral researcher Tim Sels and Balázs Kovács from Yale, says this dynamic also may undermine output where workers find themselves in proximity to colleagues holding opposing political views.

“Political differences can create a more stressful and less psychologically safe environment, reducing focus and leading to reduced individual performance,” says Sels.

The researchers analyzed more than 25,000 player-tournament-rounds at more than 700 PGA Tour tournaments from 1997 to 2022. They compared how golfers fared playing alongside political allies versus opponents in the first two rounds.

Those in politically mixed groups scored 0.2 strokes worse per round, ranked about 2.5 positions poorer, and faced a 5.3% reduced probability of advancing to earn prize money. The researchers controlled for numerous attributes, including age, race, nationality, prior playing history, and more.

Performance gaps occurred only when golfers with opposing politics stood close to each other, like when driving and putting, not when they were dispersed on the course. Mind you, no heated debates erupted. “Simply being aware of politically different others in shared spaces creates psychological tension that disrupts performance,” says Sels. 

This tension fluctuated with the national political climate. During periods of high polarization (as measured by the Partisan Conflict Index), the performance gap jumped to 0.55 strokes per round. During calmer political periods, the gap virtually disappeared at just 0.02 strokes.

In work venues such as open-plan offices, trading floors, collaborative workspaces, and side-by-side sales environments, the researchers suggest performance is most likely to suffer when employees’ political views are known, when colleagues work in close proximity, and when individual performance depends on execution rather than creativity.

They caution against organizational homogeneity, however, and instead suggest giving workers more space during politically charged periods, enhancing psychological safety through inclusive practices, and offering room to work independently on tasks demanding concentration.