Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

According to gender role congruity theory, women, compared to men, underperform in masculine negotiations because these negotiations are incongruent with women’s gender role. Based on this framework, we developed two gender-relevant primes—a masculine-supplement prime and a feminine-complement prime—that address role incongruity and should improve women’s economic performance by either supplementing masculinity or complementing femininity. In Study 1, physicians (N = 78; 50% women) in an executive education program engaged in a masculine-supplement prime, which involved recalling agentic behavior; in Study 2, undergraduate students (N = 112; 50% women) completed a feminine-complement prime, which involved imagining negotiating for a friend. In Study 3, a community sample (N = 996; 46% women) completed an online experiment with the primes. Results from the three studies showed that these primes improved women’s economic performance and eliminated the gender gap in negotiation. Perception of fit partially explained the efficacy of the masculine-supplement prime for women, though not the feminine-complement prime. We build on past research concerning situational moderators by investigating gender role congruity from an intrapsychic perspective. We also make a practical contribution; these primes can be used by women to improve economic performance in gender role incongruent negotiations. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index.

Keywords

gender negotiations gender gap gender role congruity primes

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Amanatullah

E. T.

Morris

M. W.

(2010). Negotiating gender roles: Gender differences in assertive negotiating are mediated by women’s fear of backlash and attenuated when negotiating on behalf of others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 256–267. doi:10.1037/a0017094

Amanatullah

E. T.

Tinsley

C. H.

(2013). Punishing female negotiators for asserting too much…or not enough: Exploring why advocacy moderates backlash against assertive female negotiators. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 120, 110–122. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.03.006

Babcock

Laschever

(2003). Women don’t ask: Negotiation and the gender divide. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Bargh

J. A.

(2006). What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 147–168. doi:10.1002/ejsp.336

Bear

(2011). “Passing the buck”: Incongruence between gender role and topic leads to avoidance of negotiation. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 4, 47–72. doi:10.1111/j.1750-4716.2010.00072.x

Bear

J. B.

Babcock

(2012). Negotiation topic as a moderator of gender differences in negotiation. Psychological Science, 23, 743–744. doi:10.1177/0956797612442393

Bear

J. B.

Babcock

(in press). Gender differences in negotiation. In Honeyman

Kupfer-Schneider

(Eds.), Negotiator’s desk reference.

Bem

S. L.

(1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155–162. doi:10.1037/h0036215

Bertrand

Goldin

Katz

L. F.

(2010). Dynamics of the gender gap for young professionals in the financial and corporate sectors. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2, 228–255. doi:10.1257/app.2.3.228

10.

Bowles

H. R.

Babcock

(2013). How can women escape the compensation negotiation dilemma? Relational accounts are one answer. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 37, 80–96. doi:10.1177/0361684312455524

11.

Bowles

H. R.

Babcock

Lai

(2007). Social incentives for gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103, 84–103. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.09.001

12.

Bowles

H. R.

Babcock

McGinn

K. L.

(2005). Constraints and triggers: Situational mechanics of gender in negotiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 951–965. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.951

13.

Burgess

Borgida

(1999). Who women are, who women should be: Descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotyping in sex discrimination. Psychology Public Policy and Law, 5, 665–692. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.5.3.665

14.

Catalyst. (2016). Catalyst quick take: Women’s earnings and income. New York, NY: Author.

15.

Cohen

West

S. G.

Aiken

L. S.

(2013). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

16.

Eagly

A. H.

(1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

17.

Eagly

A. H.

Karau

S. J.

(2002) Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 573–598. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.109.3.573

18.

Eagly

A. H.

Wood

(2012). Social role theory. In van Lange

Kruglanski

Higgins

E. T.

(Eds.), Handbook of theories in social psychology (pp. 458–476). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

19.

Eagly

A. H.

Wood

(2013). The nature–nurture debates: 25 years of challenges in understanding the psychology of gender. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 340–357. doi:10.1177/1745691613484767

20.

Eagly

A. H.

Wood

Diekman

A. H.

(2000). Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal. In Eckes

Trautner

H. M.

(Eds.), The developmental social psychology of gender (pp. 123–174). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

21.

Galinsky

A. D.

Gruenfeld

D. H.

Magee

J. C.

(2003). From power to action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 453–466. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.3.453

22.

Galinsky

A. D.

Mussweiler

(2001). First offers as anchors: The role of perspective-taking and negotiator focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 657–669. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.4.657

23.

Gross

J. J.

(1998). Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 224–237. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.224

24.

Haines

E. L.

Deaux

Lofaro

(2016). The times they are a-changing…or are they not? A comparison of gender stereotypes, 1983–2014. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40, 353–363. doi:10.1177/0361684316634081

25.

Hayes

A. F.

(2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: Guilford.

26.

Kennedy

J. A.

Kray

L. J.

(2015). A pawn in someone else’s game?: The cognitive, motivational, and paradigmatic barriers to women’s excelling in negotiation. Research in Organizational Behavior, 35, 3–28. doi:10.1016/j.riob.2015.09.002

27.

Kray

Babcock

(2006). Gender in negotiations: A motivated social cognitive analysis. Frontiers of Negotiation: Theory and Research, 11, 203–224.

28.

Kray

L. J.

Haselhuhn

M. P.

(2007). Implicit negotiation beliefs and performance: Experimental and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 49–64. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.93.1.49

29.

Kray

L. J.

Thompson

(2004). Gender stereotypes and negotiation performance: An examination of theory and research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 26, 103–182. doi:10.1016/S0191-3085(04)26004-X

30.

Kulik

C. T.

Olekalns

(2012). Negotiating the gender divide: Lessons from the negotiation and organizational behavior literatures. Journal of Management, 38, 1387–1415. doi:10.1177/ 0149206311431307

31.

Lazarus

R. S.

Alfert

(1964). Short-circuiting of threat by experimentally altering cognitive appraisal. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 69, 195–205. doi:10.1037/h0044635

32.

Magee

J. C.

Galinsky

A. D.

Gruenfeld

D. H.

(2007). Power, propensity to negotiate, and moving first in competitive interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 200–212. doi:10.1177/0146167206294413

33.

Mazei

Hüffmeier

Freund

P. A.

Stuhlmacher

A. F.

Bilke

Hertel

(2015). A meta-analysis on gender differences in negotiation outcomes and their moderators. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 85–106. doi:10.1037/a0038184

34.

Miles

E. W.

LaSalle

M. M.

(2008). Asymmetrical contextual ambiguity, negotiation self-efficacy, and negotiation performance. International Journal of Conflict Management, 19, 36–56. doi:10.1108/10444060810849173

35.

Rudman

L. A.

Fairchild

(2004). Reactions to counterstereotypic behavior: The role of backlash in cultural stereotype maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 157–176. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.157

36.

Small

D. A.

Gelfand

Babcock

Gettman

(2007). Who goes to the bargaining table? The influence of gender and framing on the initiation of negotiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 600–613. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.93.4.600

37.

Stevens

C. K.

Bavetta

A. G.

Gist

M. E.

(1993). Gender differences in the acquisition of salary negotiation skills: The role of goals, self-efficacy, and perceived control. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 723–735. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.78.5.723

38.

Stuhlmacher

A. C.

Linaberry

(2013). Gender and negotiation: A social role analysis. In Olekalns

Adair

(Eds.), Handbook of negotiation research (pp. 221–248). London, England: Edward Elgar.

39.

Stuhlmacher

A. F.

Walters

(1999). Gender differences in negotiation outcome: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 52, 653–677. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1999.tb00175.x

40.

Van Poucke

Buelens

(2002). Predicting the outcome of a two-party price negotiation: Contribution of reservation price, aspiration price and opening offer. Journal of Economic Psychology, 23, 67–76. doi:10.1016/S0167-4870(01)00068-X

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

3.45 MB

Negotiating Femininity

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material