Social incentives for gender diVerences in the propensity to ......more masculine than women of the...

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 103 (2007) 84–103

www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp

Social incentives for gender diVerences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask �

Hannah Riley Bowles a,¤, Linda Babcock b, Lei Lai b

a John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USAb H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Received 24 June 2005Available online 7 November 2006

Abstract

Four experiments show that gender diVerences in the propensity to initiate negotiations may be explained by diVerential treat-ment of men and women when they attempt to negotiate. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants evaluated written accounts of candi-dates who did or did not initiate negotiations for higher compensation. Evaluators penalized female candidates more than malecandidates for initiating negotiations. In Experiment 3, participants evaluated videotapes of candidates who accepted compensationoVers or initiated negotiations. Male evaluators penalized female candidates more than male candidates for initiating negotiations;female evaluators penalized all candidates for initiating negotiations. Perceptions of niceness and demandingness explained resis-tance to female negotiators. In Experiment 4, participants adopted the candidate’s perspective and assessed whether to initiate nego-tiations in same scenario used in Experiment 3. With male evaluators, women were less inclined than men to negotiate, andnervousness explained this eVect. There was no gender diVerence when evaluator was female.© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Ask; Compensation; Gender diVerences; Gender role; Negotiation; Prescriptive sex stereotypes; Social outcomes; Status

Introduction

“There is no form of human excellence before which webow with profounder deference than that which appearsin a delicate womanƒand there is no deformity inhuman character from which we turn with deeper loath-ing than from a woman forgetful of her nature, and

� We gratefully acknowledge support from the National ScienceFoundation SES-0213474 and the Center for Public Leadership at theKennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The authorsthank the following people for their helpful comments on this manu-script: Elaine Backman, Diane Burton, Robin Ely, Frank Flynn, AdamGalinsky, Michele Gelfand, Fiona Greig, Laura Kray, Jennifer Lerner,Kathleen McGinn, Denise Rousseau, Maureen Scully, and WilliamSimpson.

* Corresponding author. Fax: +1 617 496 3337.E-mail address: [email protected] (H.R. Bowles).

0749-5978/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.09.001

clamorous for the vocation and rights of men.” Bledsoe(1856, p. 224)1

Research on corporate managers suggests that womenare less likely than men to use negotiation in upward inXu-ence attempts (Lauterbach & Weiner, 1996). Other studiesof broader populations indicate that women are less likelythan men, in general, to initiate negotiations (Babcock,Gelfand, Small, & Stayn, 2006; Babcock & Laschever,2003). Women report greater anxiety than men aboutnegotiating and are less likely than men to perceive situa-tions as negotiable (Babcock et al., 2006).

Conventional wisdom (e.g., “it pays to ask” and “thesqueaky wheel gets the grease”) suggests that, if womenwant the same resources and opportunities as men, then

1 As quoted by Jackman (1994, p. 79), who obtained quote fromMyrdal (1994, p. 1074).

mailto: [email protected]

mailto: [email protected]

H.R. Bowles et al. / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 103 (2007) 84–103 85

they should learn to seek out, rather than shy away from,opportunities to negotiate. For instance, one study of thejob negotiations of graduating professional school stu-dents found that only 7% of female students attemptedto negotiate their initial compensation oVers as com-pared to 57% of men. Those who negotiated gained onaverage 7.4% over their initial oVers (Babcock & Lasch-ever, 2003). Even small diVerences in starting salaries canlead to substantial compensation gaps over time(Bowles, Babcock, & McGinn, 2005; Gerhart & Rynes,1991). Women’s reluctance as compared to men to initi-ate negotiations may be an important and under-explored explanation for the asymmetric distribution ofresources, such as compensation, within organizations.

So, why would women let such opportunities pass?Maybe women need more training and practice in nego-tiation to help them get over their nervous feelings andto learn how to act more like the men when opportuni-ties to negotiate arise. But, what if women’s relative hesi-tation about initiating negotiations has less to do withtheir negotiating ability than with the way they aretreated when they attempt to negotiate? “Fix thewomen” solutions to gender issues often fail to take intoconsideration the gendered social context out of whichgender diVerences in behavior emerge (Deaux & Major,1987; Ely & Meyerson, 2000; Wade, 2001; Watson,1994b).

Society rewards and reinforces diVerent types ofbehavior for men and women (Eagly, 1987), and it is notalways good advice for women to act more like men inorder to claim the same resources and privileges.Research on feminine modesty, for instance, shows thatwomen tend to present themselves more modestly thando men (Daubman, Heatherington, & Ahn, 1992; Gould& Slone, 1982; Heatherington, Daubman, Bates, & Ahn,1993), and that a modest self-presentation style tends toundermine perceived competence, particularly as com-pared to those who self-promote in a stereotypicallymasculine way (Rudman, 1998). However, if womenattempt to overcome this “deWciency” by behaving in amore masculine self-promoting manner, they are per-ceived as technically skilled but lacking in social compe-tence. This lack of social competence then detracts fromtheir perceived hireability (Rudman, 1998). Similarly,research on gender and leadership has found that femaleleaders who attempt to establish their authority in a tra-ditionally masculine (e.g., authoritative or directive)manner are evaluated more harshly than their male peers(Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992). Perhaps inresponse to this resistance, women have tended todevelop a more participative leadership style, which iscorrespondent with prescriptive gender roles for women(Eagly & Johnson, 1990) and more eVective for themthan traditionally male leadership styles (Eagly, Joh-annesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003; Eagly, Karau, &Makhijani, 1995).

The current research explores the question of whethergender diVerences in the propensity to initiate negotia-tions may be explained by diVerential treatment of menand women when they attempt to negotiate.2 We exam-ine whether women encounter more social resistancethan do men when they attempt to negotiate for highercompensation and whether the gender of the evaluatormoderates that resistance. We investigate furtherwhether women are less inclined than men to initiatecompensation negotiations under those circumstances inwhich they are more likely than men to encounter socialresistance. In this way, we are able to illuminate howdiVerential treatment of male and female negotiatorsmay motivate gender diVerences in the propensity to ini-tiate negotiations over resources, such as compensation.

We focus on compensation negotiations, speciWcally,because of their important economic implications andbecause they represent a domain in which gender diVer-ences in negotiated outcomes are well-documented (Bar-ron, 2003; Bowles et al., 2005; Brett & Stroh, 1997;Gerhart & Rynes, 1991; Stevens, Bavetta, & Gist, 1993).Recent developments in the study of gender in negotia-tion have made clear that gender eVects in negotiationare situational (Bowles et al., 2005; Kray, Galinsky, &Thompson, 2002; Kray, Reb, Galinsky, & Thompson,2004; Kray, Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001; Stuhlmacher& Walters, 1999; Walters, Stuhlmacher, & Meyer, 1998).By focusing narrowly on compensation negotiations, weintend from the outset to limit the potential for general-ization of our results in terms of negotiating contexts.That is to say, we would not expect women to encountermore social resistance than men across all types ofpotential negotiating contexts, nor would we expectwomen always to be more reluctant than men to negoti-ate. However, by demonstrating that women are morereluctant than men to negotiate in a context in whichthey face a greater social cost from doing so, we aim toilluminate the broader phenomenon that gender diVer-ences in the propensity to initiate negotiations may bemotivated by social incentives as opposed to individualdiVerences.

Initiation of compensation negotiations as a status violation

Prescriptive sex stereotypes stem from men’s higherstatus as compared to women within society (Conway,Pizzamiglio, & Mount, 1996; Eagly & SteVen, 1984;HoVman & Hurst, 1990; Jackman, 1994; Meeker &Weitzel-O’Neill, 1977; Ridgeway & Bourg, 2004). Socie-ties with more gender equity tend to espouse less sexist

2 We use the term “gender” throughout, because “sex” connotes sta-ble individual diVerences and we are studying the inXuence of socialsituations on men’s and women’s behavior (Deaux & LaFrance, 1998).

86 H.R. Bowles et al. / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 103 (2007) 84–103

beliefs (Glick et al., 2000). Within the U.S., as the pro-portion of women in the workplace has grown and thegender segregation of occupations has declined, womenhave come to identify more with masculine personalitytraits (Spence & Buckner, 2000; Twenge, 1997) and soci-ety has come to view women of today and tomorrow asmore masculine than women of the past (Cejka & Eagly,1999; Diekman & Eagly, 2000). Nevertheless, women arestill expected to fulWll prescriptions of feminine niceness(e.g., warmth, kindness, sensitivity to the needs of oth-ers), which are emblematic of their subordinate statusand therefore not fully compatible with all aspects of themasculine personality type (Jackman, 1994; Prentice &Carranza, 2002; Ridgeway, 2001a; Rudman & Glick,2001).

In a recent test of contemporary college students’responses to two classic gender identity scales (Bem SexRole Inventory by Bem, 1974; Personality AttributesQuestionnaire by Spence & Helmreich, 1978), Spenceand Buckner (2000) found that women identiWed morestrongly than men with all of the feminine items, but thatmen identiWed more strongly than women with only 41%of the masculine items. The majority of masculine itemswith which both men and women identiWed tended torelate to being active, independent, and expressing one’sown beliefs, whereas the items with which men identiWedmore strongly than women tended to relate to beingforceful, competitive and in charge. Rudman and Glick(2001) have argued that Spence and Buckman’s WndingsreXect two distinct dimensions of the masculine stereo-type: competence and dominance. The majority of mas-culine traits with which both men and women equallyidentify are consistent with the “competence” dimensionof the masculine stereotype. The minority of items withwhich men identify more strongly than women representthe “dominance” dimension of the masculine stereotype.While both competence and dominance are associatedwith higher status group members (Berger, Webster,Ridgeway, & Rosenholtz, 1986; Carli, LaFleur, & Loe-ber, 1995), Rudman and Glick argue that the traits andbehaviors associated with masculine “competence” pres-ent less of a contradiction with the prescriptive norms offeminine behavior than do the traits and behaviors asso-ciated with masculine “dominance.”

Warmth and competence is an attractive, non-threat-ening combination (Carli et al., 1995; Fiske, Cuddy,Glick, & Xu, 2002). While a women who projects hercompetence in a purely stereotypically masculine man-ner runs a higher risk of social resistance than a similarlyself-presented man (Carli, 1990; Carli et al., 1995; Eaglyet al., 1992; Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 1999,2001), women can eVectively convey their competenceand be as inXuential as men, if they soften their stereo-typically masculine competence with feminine niceness(Carli et al., 1995; Meeker & Weitzel-O’Neill, 1977;Ridgeway, 1982; Rudman & Glick, 2001). For instance,

research on social inXuence shows that women can haveas much social inXuence as men, by ensuring that theyappear friendly as well as task-oriented rather thanpurely task-oriented (Carli et al., 1995) or by communi-cating their concern for the collective rather than theirpersonal self-interest (Ridgeway, 1982). By employing acomplementary combination of masculine competenceand feminine niceness, women can make substantivecontributions within traditionally male domains withoutchallenging the hierarchical structure of gender relations(Carli et al., 1995; Meeker & Weitzel-O’Neill, 1977;Ridgeway, 1982).

However, whereas women may temper resistance totheir displays of masculine competence by combiningthem with stereotypically feminine behaviors, the displayof masculine dominance directly contradicts the deferen-tial and relational character of the feminine gender role(Eagly, 1987). Displays of masculine dominance bywomen pose a direct challenge to the gender status hier-archy and therefore a greater social risk than displays ofmasculine competence (Rudman & Glick, 2001).

The act of attempting to negotiate competitively forgreater personal resources, such as compensation, callsfor a type of dominative masculine behavior that pre-sents two problems for women. First, it violates prescrip-tions of feminine niceness and that violation is likely toengender social resistance (Burgess & Borgida, 1999;Prentice & Carranza, 2002; Wade, 2001). Second,women’s attempts to initiate negotiations over compen-sation, in particular, may be resisted for the substance ofthe claim as well as for the behavior inherent in therequest. Men’s relatively greater economic resources ascompared to women’s are a source of status for themwithin society (Ridgeway, 2001b; Weber, 1968), and thecomplementarity of masculine and feminine gender roles(i.e., men as providers and women as caregivers) justiWesand reinforces the asymmetric distribution of resources,such as compensation, favoring men (Jackman, 1994;Jost & Kay, 2005). As lower status group members mak-ing claims to the privileges of higher status group mem-bers, women are likely to appear inappropriatelydemanding if they attempt to negotiate for higher levelsof compensation.

Hypothesis 1. The social cost of initiating negotiationsfor higher compensation will be greater for women thanfor men.

Hypothesis 2a. Perceived lack of niceness will explain thesocial resistance to women who attempt to negotiate forhigher compensation as compared to those who do not.

Hypothesis 2b. Perceived demandingness will explain thesocial resistance to women who attempt to negotiate forhigher compensation as compared to those who do not.

Because women’s initiation of negotiations forresources, such as compensation, represents the type of


dominative masculine behavior that challenges the gen-der status hierarchy, the relative social risk for women(as compared to men) may be greater when attemptingto negotiate with a man as opposed to a woman (Carli,1990; Deaux & Major, 1987; Ridgeway & Berger, 1986).Gender diVerences in status are more salient in mixed-gender than in same-gender interactions, and greatestwhen the man is in a higher status role than the woman(Berger, Fisek, Norman, & Zelditch, 1977; Deaux &Major, 1987). Therefore, within the context of a poten-tial compensation negotiation, gender diVerences in sta-tus are likely to be most inXuential when the candidate isfemale and the evaluator is male.

Research on prescriptive sex stereotypes has pro-duced mixed Wndings with regard to the inXuence of thegender of the perceiver. Some studies Wnd that femaleevaluators penalize women for gender-role violations asmuch as male evaluators (Butler & Geis, 1990; Heilman& Chen, 2005; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins,2004) and sometimes even more (Rudman, 1998). Thiswork suggests that prescriptive sex stereotypes are gen-erally held and reinforced by both men and women(Heilman & Chen, 2005). Other studies Wnd that maleevaluators are more resistant than female evaluators towomen who adopt high-status behaviors in their insocial inXuence attempts (Carli, 1990; Carli et al., 1995)or who assume counterstereotypic high-status roles(Eagly et al., 1992; Rudman & Kilianski, 2000; Schein,2001). These other studies and research on social domi-nance orientation (e.g., see Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo,1994) suggest that men may be more resistant thanwomen to violations that challenge the gender-statushierarchy.

From this broader literature, the current work drawsinspiration most directly from the theory and researchon gender, status, and social inXuence, which suggestthat women’s persuasiveness with male evaluators, inparticular, is contingent on their ability to signal theirsubordinate status (e.g., through niceness, tentativeness,and other orientation) as well as their competence (Carli,1990; Carli et al., 1995; Meeker & Weitzel-O’Neill, 1977).Following these results and the logic that gender-relatedstatus diVerences are likely to be most salient in compen-sation negotiations when women are asking for morepersonal resources from men, we propose that the gen-der of the evaluator may moderate the relative socialcost for women (as compared to men) of attempting tonegotiate for higher compensation.

Hypothesis 3. The relative social cost for women as com-pared to men of initiating negotiations for higher com-pensation will be greater with male than with femaleevaluators.

This Wrst set of hypotheses reXects the evaluator’sperspective, describing the proposed inXuence of thegender of the target and the gender of the perceiver on

evaluations of the initiation of compensation negotia-tions. If these hypotheses are correct, then job candidatesshould take these social costs into account when makingdecisions about whether to negotiate. The following sec-ond set of hypotheses reXects the candidate’s perspec-tive. We propose that gender diVerences in thepropensity to initiate compensation negotiations will begreater under those circumstances in which men andwomen tend to face diVerential treatment when theyattempt to negotiate.

Hypothesis 4. Women will be more reluctant than mento initiate compensation negotiations.

Hypothesis 5. Women’s relative reluctance (as comparedto men) to initiate compensation negotiations will begreater when the evaluator is a man as opposed to awoman.

Consistent with the expectation of greater social costsfrom initiating compensation negotiations, we hypothe-size that nervous feelings and anticipated negative socialconsequences (backlash) will mediate gender diVerencesin the propensity to initiate negotiations.

Hypothesis 6a. Nervousness about attempting to negoti-ate will explain gender diVerences in the propensity toinitiate compensation negotiations.

Hypothesis 6b. Anticipated backlash will explain genderdiVerences in the propensity to initiate compensationnegotiations.

In sum, as illustrated vividly by the opening quote, ifwomen are perceived to be “clamoring” for the sameresources as men, they may lose the grace of their ideal-ized feminine niceness and be rejected for demandingthat which is not due to them. We argue that genderdiVerences in the social costs of attempting to negotiatefor resources, such as compensation, may help to explaingender diVerences in the propensity to initiate negotia-tions. In the following experiments, we examine the judg-ments that male and female evaluators make when menand women attempt to negotiate and the role of the gen-der of the evaluator in shaping the decision to negotiate.

Overview of experiments

In Experiment 1, we conducted a preliminary test ofthe hypothesis that there would be a higher social costfor women than for men from initiating negotiations.We then conducted a complementary set of experimentsthat tested for gender eVects on both the likelihood ofsocial resistance to negotiation attempts and on the pro-pensity to initiate negotiations. In Experiments 2 and 3,participants adopted the role of senior manager in a cor-poration and evaluated an internal candidate basedupon a transcribed (Experiment 2) or a videotaped(Experiment 3) job placement interview. Across the


negotiation conditions, the candidates either acceptedtheir compensation oVers without comment (no ask) orinitiated negotiations (ask). In Experiment 4, we reversedthe participants’ perspectives. Using the same interviewscenario, participants adopted the role of the job candi-date and evaluated whether to initiate negotiations. Bycoupling these two perspectives on the same situation,we were able to test whether gender diVerences in thepropensity to initiate negotiations (Experiment 4) wouldreXect diVerential treatment (Experiments 2 and 3), sug-gesting a social motivation for gender diVerences in theinitiation of negotiations.

Experiment 1

In Experiment 1, we conducted a preliminary test ofHypotheses 1 and 3 in a 2 (gender of candidate)£2 (ini-tiate negotiations: no ask vs. ask)£ 2 (gender of evalua-tor) between-subjects design. Participants evaluated ajob candidate based on a resume and interview notes.The interview notes indicated whether the candidate wasmale or female and whether (or not) the candidate hadattempted to negotiate for extra compensation and jobbeneWts.

Methods

ParticipantsThe participants were 119 North American university

students (66 men, 53 women) recruited from variouspoints on a university campus (e.g., Xyers, dining halls)to participate in a Hiring Decision Study. The medianage was 20 years (MD20.27, MinD 18, MaxD27). Fifty-four percent of the participants were White, 26% wereAsian, 13% were African American, 5% were Hispanic,and 2% reported “Other.” Participants received $5 forcompleting the survey.

ProcedureAfter obtaining the participants’ consent to partici-

pate in the study, the experimenter distributed paperpackets containing background information on the

hiring decision, the candidate’s resume, and a set ofnotes from an interview with the candidate. The back-ground information instructed participants to adopt therole of a commercial bank manager hiring a college stu-dent for a summer internship and to review the resumeand interview notes. The candidate’s resume was identi-cal across conditions. We gave the candidate a gender-neutral Wrst name and then referred to the candidate inthe interview notes as either a man or a woman and withgender-appropriate pronouns. Participants in the NoAsk condition read interview notes indicating a positiveevaluation of the candidate’s personal qualities andexperience (e.g., “[he/she] could deWnitely hit the groundrunning”). Participants in the Ask condition read thesame set of general interview notes, and one additionalnote indicating that the candidate had asked for morecompensation and had inquired about other additionaljob beneWts (i.e., gym membership, access to a notebookcomputer and metro-pass). The experimenter distributedthe four versions of the interview notes randomly amongparticipants. Participants responded on a 1–7 scale(1Dnot at all, 7D extremely) to two questions abouthow likely they thought it was they or someone else atthe bank would hire this person for a summer internship.After submitting their assessment of the candidate’shireability, the participants Wlled out an exit survey thatcontained demographic questions, manipulation checks,and a debrieWng form.

Results

All of the participants correctly identiWed whether thecandidate was male or female. For all studies we usedanalysis of variance (ANOVA) to test the eVects of gen-der of candidate, the ask manipulation, and gender ofevaluator on the dependent measure. We combined thetwo hireability measures into one mean compositedependent measure (�D .83). As shown in Table 1, therewas a signiWcant main eVect for ask (F[1, 111]D 29.97,p < .001) and a signiWcant interaction of Gender ofCandidate£Ask (F[1, 111]D4.80, pD .03). None of theother eVects were signiWcant (ps > .31). As indicated bythe means in Table 2, while the ask manipulation had a

Table 1Experiment 1: ANOVA of hireability by gender of candidate, ask condition and gender of evaluator (N D 119)

¤ p < .05.¤¤¤ p < .001.

Source df MS F �2

Gender of candidate 1 1.19 1.02 .01Ask 1 34.84 29.97¤¤¤ .07Gender of evaluator 1 0.28 0.24 .002Gender of candidate £Ask 1 5.58 4.80¤ .04Gender of candidate £Gender of evaluator 1 0.13 0.11 .001Ask £ Gender of evaluator 1 0.82 0.71 .01Gender of evaluator £Ask £Gender of candidate 1 0.02 0.02 .0001Error 111


signiWcant negative eVect on the hireability of both maleand female candidates, the negative eVect for womenwas more than twice as large as that for men.3

Discussion

The results of Experiment 1 supported our predictionthat evaluators would penalize a female candidate morethan a male candidate for initiating negotiations(Hypothesis 1). Contrary to Hypothesis 3, the degree ofresistance to female relative to male candidates was thesame for male and female evaluators. It is noteworthythat evaluators were less inclined, in general, to hire thecandidate who initiated negotiations. This suggested thatour ask manipulation may have been too strong, partic-ularly for a candidate who had yet to receive a job oVer.In Experiment 2, we adjusted the scenario to make thepotential negotiator an internal job candidate who hadalready received an oVer for a new position, so thatnegotiating for higher compensation would be generallyacceptable practice (Pinkley & Northcraft, 2000;Thompson, 2005). We also tested two alternative scriptsfor the initiation of negotiations that varied in terms ofthe strength of argumentation that the candidate used tomake the case for higher compensation.

Experiment 2

In Experiment 2, we tested Hypotheses 1–3 in a 2(gender of candidate)£3 (initiate negotiations: no askvs. moderate ask vs. strong ask)£ 2 (gender of evaluator)

3 We ran a second preliminary study using the same basic proceduredescribed in Experiment 1. Participants were 176 adults recruited fromthe website of a university-based experimental research laboratory.The interview notes in the Ask condition said that the candidate hadasked to be paid at the top of the salary range. We observed a signiW-cant interaction between Gender of Candidate £ Ask, such that evalu-ators penalized female candidates more than the male candidates forattempting to negotiate (F [1, 172]D 4.62, p < .04). There were no sig-niWcant eVects of gender of evaluator (ps > .71).

Table 2Experiment 1: Means of hireability by gender of candidate and askcondition

Note: We report standard deviations in parentheses below the means.DiVerent superscripts between ask conditions indicate signiWcant meandiVerences, a,b at the level of p < .05 and a,c at the level of p < .001.

Male candidate Female candidate

No ask Ask EVect of ask No ask Ask EVect of ask

M M d M M d

5.94a 5.26b 0.65 6.19a 4.63c 1.44(0.97) (1.10) (0.86) (1.26)

n n n n26 33 29 31

between-subjects design. Participants evaluated a candi-date based on a transcript of a job placement interview.We ran two versions of the ask manipulation in order toexplore whether the manner in which the candidate initi-ated negotiations would moderate the predicted interac-tion eVect of Gender of Candidate£Ask on thewillingness to work with the candidate.

Methods

ParticipantsThe participants were 299 college-educated adults

(152 men, 147 women) recruited by a market researchWrm to participate in an online survey. The median agewas 37 years (MD 39.2, MinD 21, MaxD64). Ninety-one percent of the participants self-identiWed as White,3% as Asian, 2% as Hispanic, 1% as African American/Black, and 3% as “Other.” The median work experiencewas 17 years (MD 18.30, MinD 0, MaxD50). Eightypercent were currently employed. Sixty-nine percent ofthe participants had management experience. Those withmanagement experience reported an average of 9.7 yearsof management experience. In exchange for completingthe survey, the participants received points redeemablefor prizes from the market research Wrm.

ProcedureParticipants accessed the survey remotely by respond-

ing to an email from the market research Wrm and clickingon a link to the Evaluation Survey website. After indicat-ing their consent to participate in the study, the websitedirected the participants to a page of Background Infor-mation with links to a transcript from a job placementinterview and an Evaluation Survey. The BackgroundInformation instructed participants to imagine they weresenior managers in a corporation, and informed them thattheir task was to evaluate an internal candidate for a man-agement position in their department. The BackgroundInformation continued on to explain that the candidatewas in the process of completing a management trainingprogram before being assigned to a more senior manage-ment position within the company and that the candidate(like all those oVered management positions) had gradu-ated from a top school and performed well in the trainingprogram. The participant (as senior manager) wantedpeople in the department who were good team playersand who worked well with other people.

After reviewing the Background Information, thewebsite randomly assigned participants to read one ofsix interview transcripts (2 [candidate: male, female]£ 3[ask: no, moderate, strong]). We gave the candidate agender neutral Wrst name, and manipulated the gender ofthe candidate by referring to the candidate as Mr. or Ms.and with gender-appropriate pronouns. The Wrst twointerview questions and responses were identical acrossconditions. The questions related to the candidate’s


management training and work experience, and theresponses indicated that the candidate had enjoyed andlearned a lot in the training program and had some man-agement experience running a school newspaper in col-lege (431 words). In order to signal that the candidatewas a good team player and worked well with other peo-ple, the response to the second question included state-ments such as, “I built a really strong team of peopleworking together” and “I learnedƒ how to get peoplemotivated to do a good job.” We embedded the askmanipulation in the candidate’s response to the thirdquestion about whether they had received their salaryand beneWts oVer. Appendix A contains the wording ofthe third question and the scripts for the no ask, moder-ate ask and strong ask conditions.

After reviewing the transcript, the participants clickedon a link to the Evaluation Survey. The Wrst step of theEvaluation Survey contained a list of characteristics,which we used to create our potential mediators (i.e.,perceived niceness and demandingness). To create ameasure of feminine niceness, we used seven of the tenitems from Rudman and Glick (1999) Social Skills Index(good listener, helpful, kind, likeable, sensitive to theneeds of others, supportive, and warm). We removedthree (friendly, popular, and sincere) that seemed morerelevant to social skills in general than prescriptions offeminine niceness, and added four more stereotypicallyfeminine characteristics (agreeable, cooperative, modest,and nurturing). We included another set of twelve wordsassociated with demandingness (arrogant, cocky,demanding, dominating, obnoxious, overbearing, over-conWdent, presumptuous, pushy, self-centered, ungrate-ful, and unreasonable). Participants rated on a scale of1–7 (1Dnot at all, 7Dperfectly) how much each of thewords characterized their impression of the candidate.Finally, to create our dependent measure of willingnessto work with the candidate, participants rated how bene-Wcial it would be for them to have this person workingfor them, how much they would enjoy having this personworking for them, and how likely it was that they wouldhire this person (1Dnot at all, 7D extremely).

After the participants submitted their responses to theEvaluation Survey, the website directed them to an exitsurvey that contained manipulation checks, demo-graphic questions, and debrieWng materials. The manip-ulation checks tested whether the participants knew thegender of the candidate and how the candidate hadresponded to the third question (e.g., asked for high sal-ary, asked for bonus). The debrieWng materials includeda question about what the participants thought the studywas about while they were participating in it.

Results

We removed 63 cases because the participantsfailed to correctly identify the gender of the candidate

or whether the candidate asked for a higher salary.4

None of the participants reported that they suspectedthat it was a gender-related study. The sample of dataanalyzed included 236 participants (121 men, 115women).

Dependent measure: willingness to work with the candidate

We combined the three measures of the evaluators’willingness to work with the candidate to create onemean composite dependent measure (�D .91). Prelimi-nary analyses of the data showed that how the candi-date attempted to negotiate for higher compensation(i.e., moderate ask vs. strong ask) had no signiWcanteVect on the inXuence of the gender of the candidate orthe gender of the evaluator on the willingness to workwith the candidate. In an ANOVA that restricted theanalysis to the moderate ask and strong ask conditions,there was no signiWcant interaction between of Genderof Candidate £Type of Ask (F[1, 150]D 0.44, pD .51),Gender of Evaluator £Type of Ask (F[1, 150]D 2.10,pD .15), or Gender of Candidate£Gender ofEvaluator £Type of Ask (F[1, 150]D 0.21, pD .65). Thisindicates that the eVects of gender of candidate andgender of evaluator on the willingness to work with thecandidate did not diVer by whether the ask manipula-tion was moderate or strong. Therefore, for the sake ofparsimony, we collapsed the moderate ask and thestrong ask conditions into one ask condition and pre-sented our tests of the hypothesized interactions com-paring the no ask condition to the combined askcondition.

Table 3 displays the results of the ANOVA of thewillingness to work with the candidate by gender of can-didate, ask condition and gender of evaluator. Weobserved a signiWcant main eVect for ask(F[1, 228]D16.38, p < .001) and a signiWcant interactionof Gender of Candidate£Ask (F[1,228]D6.74, p < .02).None of the other eVects were signiWcant (ps > .15). Ascan be seen from the means displayed in Table 4,attempting to negotiate for higher compensation had nosigniWcant eVect on the evaluators’ willingness to workwith a male candidate, t(116)D0.92, pD .92. In contrast,attempting to negotiate signiWcantly reduced the evalua-tors’ willingness to work with a female candidate,t(116)D 4.72, p < . 001.

4 Using these criteria, we excluded more than twice as many cases inthe ask as in the no ask condition. We suspect that this was due to thephrasing of the manipulation check questions, which tested the partici-pants’ memory of what the candidate had asked for during the inter-view. If participants did not read the full script, then they were morelikely to get these questions wrong in the ask vs. no ask condition.There was no other discernable pattern in the cases excluded. Exclu-sion of these cases had no eVect on the results.


Potential mediators: niceness and demandingnessWe conducted a principal components factor analy-

sis of the impression items with promax rotation. Asanticipated, this analysis revealed two factors, whichwe combined into composite indicators of perceivedniceness (eigenvalue D 11.41; �D .92) and perceiveddemandingness (eigenvalueD 2.18; �D .95). Table 5 dis-plays means by condition for perceived niceness anddemandingness. Niceness and demandingness were sig-niWcantly correlated rD¡.66, p < .001. The correlationbetween niceness and willingness to work was rD .75

Table 4Experiment 2: Means of willingness to work with candidate by genderof candidate and ask condition

Note: We report standard deviations in parentheses beside the means.DiVerent superscripts (a,b) between ask conditions indicate signiWcantmean diVerences at the level of p < .001.


No ask Ask EVect of ask

No ask Ask EVect of ask

M M d M M d

3.24a (1.39) 3.02a (1.24) .17 3.94a (1.16) 2.80b (1.22) .95

n n n n45 73 40 78

Table 5Experiment 2: Means of potential mediators, perceived niceness andperceived demandingness, by gender of candidate and ask condition

Note: We report standard deviations in parentheses beside the means.DiVerent superscripts (a,b) between ask conditions indicate signiWcantmean diVerences at the level of p < .001.


No ask Ask No ask Ask

M M M M

Niceness4.14a (0.83) 3.54b (0.84) 4.55a (0.75) 3.62b (0.94)

Demandingness3.20a (0.96) 4.60b (1.07) 2.83a (1.05) 4.59b (1.33)

n n n n45 73 40 78

(p < .001) and between demandingness and willingnessto work was rD¡.57 (p < .001). In a regression modelof willingness to work on niceness and demandingness,each potential mediator had a signiWcant, independenteVect on the dependent variable (�D .65, p < .001 forniceness; �D¡.15, p < .02 for demandingness; adjustedR2 D .56).

We used Sobel tests (Sobel, 1982) for all of our media-tion analyses.5 As predicted, both niceness and demand-ingness fully mediated the negative eVect of attemptingto negotiate on the evaluators’ willingness to work witha female candidate, Sobel zD4.90, p < .001 for nicenessand Sobel zD5.26, p < .001 for demandingness. Thesevariables, however, did not mediate the interaction eVectof Gender of Candidate£Ask on willingness to work,Sobel zD1.47, pD .14 for niceness and Sobel zD1.12,pD .26 for demandingness.

Discussion

The results of Experiment 2 supported our hypoth-esis that women would incur a greater social cost fromattempting to negotiate for higher compensation thanwould men (Hypothesis 1). Indeed, there was no sig-niWcant decline in the evaluators’ willingness to workwith a male candidate who attempted to negotiate (vs.not). Women, in contrast, faced a large penalty—thenegative eVect of the ask manipulation was more than5.5 times greater for women than for men. Interest-ingly, whether the candidate asked simply (moderateask) or assertively (strong ask) had no eVect on the rel-atively larger social cost for women as compared tomen.

Mediation analyses further supported our hypothesesthat social resistance to a female candidate who initiatednegotiations would be explained by the evaluators’ per-ceptions that she was not nice and overly demanding(Hypotheses 2a and 2b). It is noteworthy, however, that

5 For each mediation analysis, we also calculated the Aroian and theGoodman tests and report if the results of the tests diVer across thethree methods (Aroian, 1947; Goodman, 1960).

Table 3Experiment 2: ANOVA of willingness to work with candidate by gender of candidate, ask condition and gender of evaluator (N D 236)

a Moderate and strong ask conditions combined into one ask condition as compared to no ask condition.¤ p < .05.

¤¤¤ p < .001.

Source df MS F �2

Gender of candidate 1 3.27 2.01 .01Aska 1 26.62 16.38¤¤¤ .07Gender of evaluator 1 3.24 1.99 .01Gender of candidate £ Ask 1 10.95 6.74¤ .03Gender of candidate £ Gender of evaluator 1 0.16 0.10 .0004Ask £Gender of evaluator 1 1.53 0.94 .004Gender of candidate £ Ask £Gender of evaluator 1 1.68 1.03 .01Error 228


neither niceness nor demandingness mediated the inter-action eVect between the gender of the candidate and theask manipulation. This suggests that, while perceivedniceness and demandingness help to explain the evalua-tors’ resistance to a woman who initiated compensationnegotiations, they do not help to explain why there was arelative lack of resistance to the same behavior by a man.

Hypothesis 3 was not supported. There was no diVer-ence in the extent to which male and female evaluatorspenalized female relative to male candidates for initiat-ing negotiations.

Experiment 3

In Experiment 3, we conducted another test ofHypotheses 1–3 in a 2 (gender of candidate)£ 2 (initiatenegotiations: no ask vs. ask)£ 2 (gender of evaluator)between-subjects design. The scenario was identical tothe one used in Experiment 2, except that the partici-pants evaluated candidates based on their behavior in avideotaped interview. The videotaped candidates usedthe no ask and strong ask scripts that participants readin Experiment 2.

Our motivations for conducting the gender of candi-date and ask manipulations with video rather than writ-ten scripts were multifold. Video broadens thebandwidth of communication relative to written tran-scripts by conveying additional nonverbal cues and,thereby, increases the social presence of the actor (Short,Williams, & Christie, 1976; Walther & Parks, 2002).Accordingly, we believed that the video would heightenthe realism of the participants’ evaluation task andenhance the external validity of the results. While it isunusual to watch a videotape of a person’s interviewperformance, it is even more out of the ordinary toreview a transcript of their responses to interview ques-tions. Interviewers generally beneWt from hearing andseeing a candidate speak when making assessmentsabout how much they would like to work with the per-son. Finally, Hypothesis 3 (regarding eVects of the gen-der of the evaluator) was motivated in part by researchon gender and social inXuence, which had employed vid-eotapes (Carli et al., 1995). We anticipated that a richercommunication medium might aVect how the partici-pants responded to the job candidates’ behavior (Wal-ther & Parks, 2002).

Methods

ParticipantsThe participants were 285 adults (107 men, 178

women). Participants signed up to complete a web-basedsurvey called the Evaluation Study at one of two diVer-ent websites that recruit experimental participants. Eachof the websites lists studies that adults over 18 years of

age may sign up to participate in for pay. The Evalua-tion Study was advertised as follows: “Participantswatch a short video of an interview and then answer aseries of questions about the impression created by theinterviewee.” Participants signed up to complete thestudy, and then the experimental laboratory sent them alink to the online survey that was valid for a limited timeperiod of no longer than three days. There were no sig-niWcant diVerences in the results obtained from the twosites, so we pooled the data. The median age was 29years (MD31.12, MinD 18, MaxD62). Sixty-nine per-cent of the participants self-identiWed as White/Cauca-sian, 24% as Asian, 3% as Hispanic, 2% as AfricanAmerican/Black and 2% as Other (or no response).Thirty percent of the participants were currently stu-dents. Forty-four percent had no or some college, 32%were college graduates, and 24% had more than a collegedegree. The median work experience was seven years(MD10.08, MinD0, MaxD 40). Forty-Wve percent ofthe participants had management experience. Those withmanagement experience reported an average of 6.32years of management experience. Participants received$8 for completing the online survey.

ProcedureThe procedure was identical to that used in Experi-

ment 2 except that the participants evaluated the candi-date based on a videotape of their responses to theinterview questions (as opposed to a transcript). Thewebsite randomly assigned participants to watch one ofeight videos, so that each participant saw a head-and-shoulders shot of one of four candidates (two male, twofemale) who either accepted their compensation oVerwithout comment or attempted to negotiate for a highersalary and bonus (no ask vs. ask). Participants in the askcondition saw the same video as the participants in theno ask condition, plus the segment in which the candi-date attempted to negotiate for higher compensation.After watching the video, participants clicked on a linkto the Evaluation Survey, which contained the sameitems reported in Experiment 2. The survey also includedthree questions about how competent they perceived thecandidate to be (i.e., how likely it was that the candidatehad the communication skills and analytical ability to bean eVective manager and how conWdent the evaluatorwas that the candidate would be an eVective manager).We had conceptualized the initiation of compensationnegotiations as a form of dominative masculine behaviorthat is distinct from demonstrations of masculine com-petence, so we thought we should test whether (contraryto our expectations) women’s perceived competencewould mediate the eVect of the ask manipulation.

Manipulation of gender of candidate. We recruited twomale and two female actors and recorded them enactingboth the ask and no ask scripts in order to avoid


confounds between actor and condition. We recruitedundergraduate actors so that all of the candidates wouldappear to be in the same age cohort and age appropriatefor the scenario. We selected actors whom we perceivedto be of average attractiveness and asked them to wearprofessional dress. During the rehearsal for the taping,we coached them to enact the script as similarly as possi-ble to one another (e.g., by providing instruction on toneand pace of voice, etc.). The actors spoke for 2.3 min onaverage in the no ask condition and for 3.5 min on aver-age in the ask condition. The male (as compared tofemale) actors took four seconds more on average tocomplete the no ask script and ten seconds more onaverage to complete the ask script.

Results of video rating

While the videos enriched and enhanced the realismof the ask manipulation, they provided less control thana pen-and-paper experiment. Although we coached theactors to enact the script as similarly as possible, wecould not control for natural variation in the actors’appearance and nonverbal behavior. For instance,women tend to smile more often than men (Dovidio,Brown, Heltman, & Ellyson, 1988; Hall & Halberstadt,1986; LaFrance, Hecht, & Paluck, 2003). If the femaleactors’ behavior diVered more between the no ask andask conditions than did the male actors’ behavior (e.g.,they smiled relatively less), then that would suggest analternative explanation for any Wndings of interactioneVects between the gender of the candidate and the askmanipulation.

One-hundred and ninety-six participants (93 men, 103women) rated the actors (Mdn ageD21). The onlinevideo-rating survey randomly assigned participants towatch one of the eight experimental videos with thesound turned oV, so that the substance of the scriptwould not bias their perceptions of the actor. Partici-pants rated the candidates’ appearance in terms of theirage (1D 20–24, 2D25–29, 3D 30–34, 4D35–39), socio-economic status (1D low class, 2Dmiddle class,3Dupper class) and physical attractiveness (1–7 scale:1Dnot at all, 7D extremely). They rated on a 1–7 scale(1Dnot at all, 7Dperfectly) how well the followingadjectives characterized the actors’ facial expressions:angry, happy, friendly, frowning, smiling, and scowling.We used the participants’ ratings of the actors’ facialexpressions to create composite indicators of friendlyexpressions (happy, friendly, smiling; �D .88) and angryexpressions (angry, frowning, scowling; �D .80). We usedANOVA for the 1–7 scale variables and ordered Logitregression for the other categorical variables to testwhether the ask manipulation, the gender of the candi-date, or the gender of the evaluator inXuenced raters’perceptions of the appearance and nonverbal behaviorof the candidates.

There were no signiWcant two-way or three-way inter-action eVects among the gender of candidate, gender ofevaluator, and the ask conditions on the raters’ percep-tions of the appearance or nonverbal behavior of thecandidates (ps > .13). There were two main eVects on theraters’ perceptions of the candidates’ appearance andnon-verbal behavior. Raters perceived the female candi-dates to be more physically attractive than the male can-didates (F[1, 188]D27.08, p < .001, female MD3.97,SDD 1.12, male MD 3.18, SDD1.12) and to make morefriendly expressions (F[1, 188]D13.86, p < .001, femaleMD 4.22, SDD 1.27, male MD3.47, SDD1.27).Although the female candidates came across as moreattractive and friendly than the male candidates, theseimpressions, importantly, did not diVer across the askconditions.

Results of candidate evaluation

We now turn to the analysis of the participants’ will-ingness to work with the candidates. All of the partici-pants correctly identiWed the gender of the candidate,and none of the participants reported that they sus-pected that it was a gender-related study. We removed38 cases because the participants failed to correctly iden-tify how the candidate had responded to the third ques-tion.6 The data analyzed contained 247 cases (95 men,152 women).

Dependent measure: willingness to work with the candidate

As in Experiment 2, we combined the three measures ofthe evaluators’ willingness to work with the candidate tocreate one composite dependent measure (�D .91). Table 6displays the results of the ANOVA of willingness to workwith the candidates by gender of candidate, ask condition,and gender of evaluator. We observed a signiWcant maineVect for ask (F[1,239]D34.71, p < .001) and a signiWcantthree-way interaction of Gender of Candidate£Ask £Gender of Evaluator (F[1,239]D5.81, p< .02). No othereVects were signiWcant (ps> .11).7

For the purpose of interpreting the three-way interac-tion, we conducted separate ANOVAs for female candi-dates and male candidates. The ANOVA of thewillingness to work with female candidates by ask

6 The website required participants to launch the video before pro-ceeding to the Evaluation Survey, but it did not prevent participantsfrom closing down the video midstream. We suspect that these partici-pants did not watch the entire video. The excluded cases appeared tobe randomly distributed across conditions, and had no eVect on the re-sults.

7 For the ANOVA presented in Table 6, we tested whether therewere actor-speciWc eVects—that is, whether evaluations of the femaleactors diVered from one another and whether the evaluations of themale actors diVered from one another. We found no statistically sig-niWcant diVerences between the actors of the same gender (all ps > .14).


condition and gender of evaluator revealed a signiWcantmain eVect for the ask manipulation (F[1, 120]D 20.69,p < .001, �2D .15) and no signiWcant eVects by gender ofevaluator (Fs < 1.35, ps > .24, �2 < .02). As indicated bythe means in Table 7, both male and female evaluatorswere less inclined to work with female candidates whoinitiated negotiations as compared to those who did not,t(74)D2.61, p < .02 for female evaluators andt(46)D3.94, p < .001 for male evaluators. ANOVA of thewillingness to work with male candidates showed a sig-niWcant main eVect for the ask manipulation(F[1,119]D14.21, p < .001, �2D .11) and a signiWcantinteraction eVect of Ask£Gender of Evaluator(F[1,119]D5.27, pD .02, �2D .04). There was no signiW-cant main eVect of gender of evaluator, (F[1, 119]D0.36,pD .55, �2 < .01). As shown by the means in Table 7,attempting to negotiate for higher compensation had nosigniWcant eVect on male evaluators’ willingness to workwith male candidates, t(45)D0.90, pD .37. However, theask manipulation had a signiWcantly negative eVect onfemale evaluators’ willingness to work with male candi-dates, t(74)D5.06, p < .001.

Another way of interpreting the three-way interactionis to split the ANOVA by gender of evaluator. For theANOVA for female evaluators, there was a signiWcantmain eVect for the ask manipulation (F[1, 148]D 27.82,p < .001, �2D .16) and no signiWcant main or interactioneVects by gender of candidate (Fs < 2.24, ps > .13,�2 < .02). This indicates that male and female candidates

incurred the same social cost for initiating negotiationswith female evaluators. With male evaluators, there wasa signiWcant main eVect for the ask manipulation(F[1, 91]D 11.38, pD .001, �2D .11), which was qualiWedby a signiWcant interaction eVect of Gender ofCandidate£Ask (F[1, 91]D4.27, pD .04, �2D .05), andno signiWcant main eVect of gender of candidate(F[1, 91]D 0.71, pD .40, �2 < .01). As shown by the meansin Table 7, with male evaluators, female candidatesincurred a signiWcant social cost for initiating negotia-tions, whereas male candidates did not.

Potential mediators: niceness, demandingness, and competence

We replicated the principal components factor analy-sis reported in Experiment 2. We combined the Wrst fac-tor (eigenvalueD12.32) into a composite indicator ofperceived niceness (�D .94) and the second factor(eigenvalueD2.93) into a composite indicator of per-ceived demandingness (�D .96). We combined the threemeasures of how competent the evaluators perceived thecandidates to be into one composite indicator of per-ceived competence (�D .87).

Table 8 displays means by condition for perceivedniceness, demandingness and competence. Niceness anddemandingness were signiWcantly correlated rD¡.62,p < .001. Evaluators perceived nicer candidates to bemore competent (rD .61, p < .001) and more demandingcandidates to be less competent (rD¡.37, p < .001).

Table 6Experiment 3: ANOVA of willingness to work with candidate by gender of candidate, ask condition and gender of evaluator (N D 247)

¤ p < .05.¤¤¤ p < .001.

Source df MS F �2

Gender of candidate 1 4.17 2.51 .01Ask 1 57.78 34.71¤¤¤ .13Gender of evaluator 1 0.45 0.27 .001Gender of candidate £Ask 1 0.97 0.58 .002Gender of candidate £Gender of evaluator 1 0.14 0.09 .0003Ask £ Gender of evaluator 1 0.85 0.51 .002Gender of candidate £Ask £Gender of evaluator 1 9.67 5.81¤ .02Error 239

Table 7Experiment 3: Means of willingness to work with candidate by gender of candidate, ask condition, and gender of evaluator

Note: We report standard deviations in parentheses beside the means. DiVerent superscripts between ask conditions indicate signiWcant mean diVer-ences, a,b at the level of p < .001 and a,c at the level of pD .01.

Gender of evaluator Male candidate Female candidate

No ask Ask EVect of ask No ask Ask EVect of ask

M M d M M d

Male 4.10a (1.07) 3.75a (1.53) 0.27 4.85a (1.27) 3.43b (1.22) 1.14Female 4.49a (1.03) 3.09b (1.38) 1.16 4.53a (1.48) 3.68c (1.33) 0.60

n n n nMale 28 19 25 23Female 41 35 38 38


Evaluators were signiWcantly more inclined to work withcandidates they perceived to be nice (rD .79, p < .001)and competent (rD .74, p < .001), and signiWcantly lessinclined to work with candidates they perceived to bedemanding (rD¡.63, p < .001). In a regression model ofwillingness to work on niceness, demandingness, andcompetence, each potential mediator had a signiWcant,independent eVect on the dependent variable (�D .39,p < .001 for niceness; �D¡.23, p < .001 for demanding-ness; �D .41, p < .001 for competence; adjusted R2D .76).

Consistent with Hypotheses 2a and 2b, both perceivedniceness and perceived demandingness fully mediated theeVect of the ask manipulation on the evaluators’ willing-ness to work with female candidates, Sobel zD5.03,p<.001 for niceness and Sobel zD5.46, p<.001 fordemandingness. The ask manipulation had no eVect on theperceived competence of female candidates (p> .20), so itwas not a potential mediator. Post hoc analyses showedthat perceived niceness, demandingness and competencemediated the interaction eVect of Ask£Gender of Evalua-tor on the willingness to work with male candidates (SobelzD2.94, p<.01 for niceness, Sobel zD2.01, pD .04 fordemandingness, Sobel zD2.03, pD .04 for competence),explaining why female evaluators penalized male candi-dates for asking but male evaluators did not. None of thepotential mediators explained the three-way interaction ofGender of Target£Ask£Gender of Evaluator on the will-ingness to work with the candidates (Sobel test ps>.12).

Discussion

The results of Experiment 3 supported Hypothesis 3:women paid a higher social cost for initiating compensa-tion negotiations than men, but only with male evalua-

Table 8Experiment 3: Means of potential mediators, perceived niceness, per-ceived demandingness, and competence, by gender of candidate, askcondition, and gender of evaluator

Note: DiVerent superscripts between ask conditions indicate signiWcantmean diVerences, a,b at the level of p < .05 and a,c at the level of p < .001.

Gender of evaluator Male candidate Female candidate

No ask Ask No ask Ask

M SD M SD M SD M SD

NicenessMale 4.18a 0.81 3.77a 1.08 4.63a 1.01 3.92b 1.13Female 4.66a 0.90 3.18c 1.00 4.82a 0.96 3.67c 0.91

DemandingnessMale 3.57a 0.99 5.13c 1.22 3.02a 1.06 4.85c 0.81Female 2.86a 1.24 5.35c 1.17 2.82a 1.22 4.88c 1.10

CompetenceMale 4.17a 1.17 4.44a 1.25 4.83a 0.93 4.54a 1.17Female 4.54a 1.22 3.82b 1.38 4.45a 1.44 4.18a 1.15

n n n nMale 28 19 25 23Female 41 35 38 38

tors. Attempting to negotiate for higher compensationhad no eVect on men’s willingness to work with men, butit had a signiWcantly negative eVect on men’s willingnessto work with women. Women penalized men and womenequally for attempting to negotiate.

The mediation analyses supported Hypotheses 2a and2b. Even though the evaluators perceived the womenwho initiated compensation negotiations to be just ascompetent as those who did not, they were disinclined towork with them because they appeared less nice andmore demanding. The mediation analyses did notexplain why men evaluated male and female candidatesdiVerently, while women did not.

The eVects of gender of evaluator in Experiment 3 fol-low a similar pattern to results observed in other video-based research on gender and social inXuence, in whichfemale evaluators held men’s and women’s inXuenceattempts to a more similar standard than did male evalu-ators (Carli et al., 1995). However, these results contrastwith those of Experiments 1 and 2, in which both maleand female evaluators penalized women more than menfor initiating negotiations. It is possible that the mediarichness of the video manipulation caused the women toperceive the male candidates’ negotiation attemptsdiVerently; when we presented the same behavior in amore socially distant, text format, the behavior did notseem so unattractive.

While there was some inconsistency in women’s eval-uations of men between the video-based and text-basedexperiments, men evaluated women more negativelythan men for initiating negotiations across all three stud-ies. This suggests that, while men may be as hesitant aswomen to initiate compensation negotiations with afemale evaluator, women should clearly be more hesitantthan men about initiating compensation negotiationswith a male evaluator. In Experiment 4, we instructedparticipants to adopt the perspective of the candidate inthe same scenario used in Experiments 2 and 3, in orderto test whether gender diVerences in the propensity toinitiate negotiate would reXect gender diVerences in thesocial risks of doing so.

Experiment 4

In Experiment 4, we tested our second set of Hypoth-eses 4–6 in a 2 (gender of participant)£ 2 (gender ofevaluator) between-subjects experimental design. Adopt-ing the perspective of the candidate in the job placementinterview scenario, participants reviewed two potentialstrategies for how to respond to a question about theirsalary and beneWts oVer. The two strategies were identi-cal to the no ask and ask scripts in Experiment 3. Inorder to test for eVects by gender of evaluator, wemanipulated whether the participants (as candidate)wanted to work for a man or a woman.


Method

ParticipantsThe participants were 367 adults (184 men, 183

women) recruited from the website of a university-basedexperimental research laboratory to participate in anInterview Preparation Study. The study was advertisedas follows: “Participants will review a job interview sce-nario and answer questions about how they would pre-pare for the interview. After evaluating the interviewinformation, participants will answer two brief surveysabout themselves.” The median age of the participantswas 21 years (MD23.92, MinD 18, MaxD 64). Sixty per-cent of the participants self-identiWed as White/Cauca-sian, 18% as Asian, 10% as African American/Black, 8%as Hispanic, and 4% as Other. Seventy-eight percent ofthe participants were full-time university students. Themedian work experience was four years (MD5.72,MinD 0, MaxD42). Participants received $15 for partic-ipating in the study.

ProcedureAfter obtaining the participants’ consent to partici-

pate in the study, the experimenter distributed paperpackets containing background information on theinterview preparation scenario. The background mate-rial instructed participants to imagine that they had justcompleted a management training program in prepara-tion for a more senior management position within theircompany. According to the background materials, theparticipants were about to participate in a placementinterview to determine the department to which theywould be assigned. Participation in the study involvedpreparing for that interview.

Ask vs. no ask plan. The background information pre-sented participants with three questions that the inter-viewer was likely to ask, and provided preparedanswers to the Wrst two questions. (The answers to theWrst two questions were identical to the responses givenby the candidates in Experiments 2 and 3.) The task forparticipants was to decide between two alternativeanswers (i.e., Plan A or Plan B) to the third question,which related to their salary and beneWts oVer from thecompany. Plan A was the no ask script used in Experi-ments 2 and 3, and Plan B was the strong ask scriptused in Experiment 2 and the ask script used in Experi-ment 3.

Gender of evaluator. Consistent with Experiments 2 and3, the background information informed the partici-pants that the senior manager they really wanted towork for was known to hire people who are good teamplayers and who work well with other people. In order tomanipulate the gender of the evaluator, we gave themanager a gender neutral name, and then referred to the

manager either as a man or as a woman and with corre-sponding male or female pronouns.

Measures. After reviewing the background materials, theparticipants completed an online Interview PreparationSurvey in which they assessed each of the plans. Partici-pants rated each plan individually in terms of how theywould feel about using the plan and whether they antici-pated negative social consequences from using the plan.We used these ratings to create our potential mediators:nervousness and anticipated backlash. Participants ratedon a scale of 1–7 (1Ddisagree completely, 7D agreecompletely) how embarrassed, comfortable, nervous,relaxed, and anxious they would feel using each of theplans. Participants answered two questions on a scale of1–7 (1Ddisagree completely, 7D agree completely)about whether they thought a man (or woman) like[name of manager] would not want to hire or work withthem if they used either plan.8 Finally, participants ratedwhich plan they would be more likely to use relative tothe other (1D I would be much more likely to use [the noask plan], 7D I would be much more likely to use [theask plan]). This was our dependent measure of the pro-pensity to initiate negotiations.

Because our hypotheses derived from the basic prop-osition that gender diVerences in the propensity to initi-ate negotiations are motivated by diVerences in thesocial feedback that men and women receive when theyattempt to negotiate, we thought we should explore thealternative hypothesis that gender diVerences in the pro-pensity to initiate negotiations are a function of thenegotiator’s gender identity (i.e., the extent to which thenegotiator identiWes with masculine and feminine per-sonality traits regardless of whether the negotiator is aman or a woman). After submitting their responses tothe Interview Preparation Survey, the participants com-pleted a second online Personality ProWle Survey thatincluded the 30 items from the Bem Sex-Role Inventory(BSRI) short form (Bem, 1981).

A Wnal online exit survey contained manipulationchecks, demographic questions and debrieWng materials.The manipulation checks tested whether the participantsknew the diVerence between Plans A and B and the gen-der of the evaluator. DebrieWng materials included aquestion about what they thought the study was aboutwhile they were participating in it.

Results

We removed 18 cases because the participants failedto provide correct answers on the manipulation checks.We removed 8 cases because participants suspected the

8 There were no gender eVects on nervousness or anticipated back-lash for the no ask plan (ps > .12). To streamline the presentation ofresults, we do not discuss these variables further.


study was about gender in hiring or negotiation.9 Thedata analyzed contained 341 cases (171 men, 170women).

Dependent variable: use of ask vs. no ask planThe overall mean rating of the likelihood of using the

ask vs. the no ask plan was signiWcantly lower than theindiVerence point between the two options (4), indicatingthat participants tended to favor the no ask over the askplan, MD2.24, t(340)D 18.79, p < .001. As shown inTable 9, ANOVA revealed a signiWcant interaction ofGender of Participant£Gender of Evaluator on thelikelihood of using the ask vs. no ask plan(F[1, 337]D4.13, pD .04), but no main eVects for genderof participant or gender of evaluator (ps > .28). As shownin Table 10, when the evaluator was male, women weresigniWcantly less inclined than men to use the ask vs. noask plan, t(159)D 2.06, pD .04. Consistent with theresults of Experiment 3, when the evaluator was female,men were as likely as women to use the ask vs. no askplan, t(178)D¡0.72, pD .47.

Potential mediators: nervousness, anticipated backlash, and gender identity

Following Hypothesis 6, we tested whether nervous-ness and anticipated backlash would explain the genderdiVerence in the propensity to initiate negotiations witha male evaluator.

Nervousness. We used the emotions variables to createa mean composite indicator of nervousness about usingthe ask plan (�D .87). Feeling nervous about using theask plan was negatively correlated with the likelihood ofusing the ask vs. no ask plan (rD¡.57, p < .001). Asshown in Table 11, women reported signiWcantly morenervousness than men about using the ask plan whenfacing a male evaluator, t(159)D 2.78, p < .01, dD .43.Nervousness about using the ask plan fully mediated theeVect of gender of participant on the likelihood of usingthe ask vs. no ask plan with a male evaluator, SobelzD 2.61, p < .01. However, nervousness did not mediatethe interaction of Gender of Candidate£Gender of

9 The excluded cases appeared to be randomly distributed acrossconditions. Consistent with the premise that they added noise to theanalyses, exclusion of these cases increased the statistical signiWcanceof the Wndings, but had no other eVect on the overall pattern of results.

Table 9Experiment 4: ANOVA of likelihood of using ask vs. no ask plan(N D 341)

¤ p < .05.

Source df MS F �2

Gender of participant 1 3.46 1.17 .003Gender of evaluator 1 0.06 0.02 .000Gender of participant £Gender of evaluator 1 12.23 4.13¤ .01Error 337

Evaluator on the likelihood of using the ask vs. no askplan (Sobel zD1.07, pD .28). This means that, while ner-vousness explained why there was a gender diVerence inthe propensity to initiate negotiations with a male evalu-ator, it did not explain why the gender diVerence wasgreater with a male than with a female evaluator.

Anticipated backlash. We combined the two items aboutwhether using the ask plan would make the evaluatornot want to hire or work with them into a mean compos-ite indicator of anticipated backlash (�D .86). Antici-pated backlash from using the ask plan was negativelycorrelated with the likelihood of using the ask vs. no askplan (rD¡.55, p < .001). The more backlash the partici-pants anticipated, the more nervous they felt about usingthe ask plan, rD .51, p < .001. However, as shown inTable 11, there was no signiWcant diVerence by gender ofparticipant in anticipated backlash from using the askplan with a male evaluator, t(159)D1.04, pD .30, dD .16.Anticipated backlash did not mediate the eVect of gen-der of participant on the likelihood of using the ask planwith a male evaluator (Sobel zD1.03, pD .30), nor did itmediate the interaction between gender of participantand gender of candidate on the likelihood of using theask plan (Sobel zD 1.77, pD .08).

Gender identity. Finally, we examined whether identiWca-tion with masculine and feminine traits would mediateor moderate gender eVects on the propensity to initiatenegotiations. There was no gender diVerence in the par-ticipants’ identiWcation with masculine personality traits,female MD4.97, SDD .81, male MD 5.05, SDD .84,t(339)D 0.94, pD .35, dD .10. Female (vs. male) partici-pants identiWed more strongly with feminine personalitytraits, female MD5.55, SDD .79, male MD5.25,SDD .88, t(339)D3.33, p < .001, dD .36. The participants’masculinity and femininity scores were positively corre-lated, rD .11, pD .04. IdentiWcation with masculine traitswas negatively correlated with nervousness (rD¡.15,p < .01), uncorrelated with anticipated backlash(rD¡.03, pD .55), and positively correlated with use ofthe ask vs. no ask plan (rD .14, pD .01). There was nosigniWcant correlation between the participants’ feminin-ity scores and nervousness, anticipated backlash or useof the ask vs. no ask plan (rs < .04, ps > .54).

Given the potential for participants to identifystrongly with one, both or neither of the scales (i.e., bemasculine or feminine identiWed, androgynous orundiVerentiated) (Bem, 1974), we used regression analy-sis to test whether the interaction of the masculinity andfemininity scores was correlated with nervousness, antic-ipated backlash or use of the ask vs. no ask plan; weobserved no signiWcant eVects (ps > .12). Because therewas no gender diVerence in the participants’ masculinityscores and no other correlations with use of the ask vs.no ask plan, gender identity was not a candidate for


mediation. Gender identity also had no signiWcant mod-erating eVect on the propensity to initiate negotiations;we observed no signiWcant interaction eVects betweenthe BSRI scores and gender of participant (ps > .09) orgender of evaluator (ps > .20) on the likelihood of usingthe ask vs. no ask plan.

Discussion

The female (as compared to male) participants inExperiment 4 were more reluctant to attempt to negoti-ate for higher compensation, but only when the evalua-tor was male. When the evaluator was female, womenwere as inclined as men to attempt to negotiate forhigher compensation. Consistent with Hypothesis 5 andmirroring the results of Experiment 3, the gender of theevaluator was a signiWcant moderator of the eVect ofgender of participant on the propensity to initiate com-pensation negotiations.

Mediation analysis showed that women (as comparedto men) were signiWcantly more reticent to initiate nego-tiations with a male evaluator because the prospect ofdoing so made them more signiWcantly more nervous(Hypothesis 6a). Contrary to our predictions, antici-pated backlash did not mediate gender diVerences in thepropensity to initiate negotiations with a male evaluator(Hypothesis 6b). Neither nervousness nor anticipatedbacklash explained why the gender diVerence in the pro-pensity to negotiate was greater with a male than with a

female evaluator. The results of the mediation analysessuggest that women’s greater hesitation (as compared tomen) about attempting to negotiate for higher compen-sation may be informed more by emotional intuitionthan a conscious cost-beneWt calculus based upon theanticipated social consequences of initiating negotia-tions. Future research should take advantage of develop-ments in the study of emotions in decision making(Damasio, 1994) and explore the relative inXuence ofemotions and conscious reasoning in the reinforcementof status-based behavioral norms.

Finally, we tested for possible mediating and moder-ating eVects of gender identity on the propensity to initi-ate negotiations. The higher the participants’masculinity scores, the more likely they were to choosethe negotiation option. However, gender identiWcationdid not explain gender diVerences in the propensity toinitiate negotiations with a male evaluator. These resultsfurther support the proposition that gender eVects onthe propensity to initiate negotiations are motivated bydiVerential treatment of men and women as opposed topersonality diVerences.

General discussion

We posed the question at the beginning of this article ofwhether women’s greater reluctance (as compared to men)to initiate negotiations over resources, such as higher com-

Table 10Experiment 4: Mean gender diVerences in the likelihood of using ask vs. no ask plan by gender of evaluator

Note: We report standard deviations in parentheses beside the means. DiVerent superscripts (a,b) indicate signiWcant gender diVerence within condi-tion at the level of p < .05.

Male evaluator Female evaluator

Male participant Female participant Gender diVerence Male participant Female participant Gender diVerence

M M d M M d

2.52a (1.91) 1.94b (1.66) .32 2.17a (1.64) 2.34a (1.64) .10

n n n n81 80 90 90

Table 11Experiment 4: Mean gender diVerences in nervousness about using ask plan and anticipated backlash from using ask plan by gender of evaluator

Note: We report standard deviations in parentheses beside the means. DiVerent superscripts (a,b) indicate signiWcant gender diVerence within condi-tion at the level of p < .05.

Male evaluator Female evaluator

Male participant Female participant Male participant Female participant

M M M M

Nervousness about using ask plan5.36a(1.27) 5.90b (1.22) 5.58a (1.23) 5.83a (1.18)

Anticipated backlash from using ask plan4.56a (1.67) 4.83a (1.62) 5.06a (1.37) 4.72a (1.68)

n n n n81 80 90 90


pensation, could be explained by the diVerential treatmentof male and female negotiators. The results of these experi-ments suggest that the answer to this question is yes. In theWrst three experiments, male evaluators penalized womenmore than men for attempting to negotiate for higher com-pensation. In Experiment 4, women were more reticentthan men about attempting to negotiate for higher com-pensation with a male evaluator, and nervousness aboutattempting to negotiate explained this gender diVerence.The results of the mediation analyses in Experiments 2 and3 were consistent with the proposition that womenencounter resistance when they attempt to negotiate forhigher compensation because such behavior is a status vio-lation. Men were signiWcantly more inclined to work withnicer and less demanding women who accepted their com-pensation oVers without comment than they were withthose who attempted to negotiate for higher compensa-tion, even though they perceived women who spoke up tobe just as competent as women who demurred.

The behavior of female evaluators diVered acrossExperiments 1–3. When evaluating written descriptions ortranscripts of the candidates’ interview responses (Experi-ments 1 and 2), female evaluators penalized women morethan men for attempting to negotiate for higher compen-sation. After watching and listening to the candidatesrespond to the interview questions on video (Experiment3), female evaluators were disinclined to work with bothmen and women who initiated negotiations. Interestingly,the behavior of the participants in Experiment 4 mirroredmost closely the results of the video-based experiment;there was no diVerence in men’s and women’s propensityto initiate negotiations with a female evaluator.

Previous video-based research on gender and socialinXuence produced a similar pattern of results to thosereported in Experiment 3, with men demanding a higherdegree of likeability from female than from male targetsto be persuaded by them and women perceiving likeabil-ity to be important to the persuasiveness of both menand women (Carli et al., 1995). More theory andresearch are needed to explore more deeply the role ofthe gender of the evaluator in the reinforcement of pre-scriptive sex stereotypes and to disentangle the inconsis-tencies in the eVect of the gender of the evaluatorobserved across these studies and in the broader litera-ture on prescriptive sex stereotypes (Heilman & Chen,2005). The current set of studies suggests that futureresearch on the eVect of the gender of the evaluatorshould explore potential methodological as well as con-textual moderators (Carli, 1990; Deaux & LaFrance,1998; Deaux & Major, 1987; Kanter, 1977).

Negotiation and the distribution of organizational resources

This research has important implications for the distri-bution of resources and opportunities within organiza-

tions. If men have more freedom to negotiate forthemselves than do women, particularly with senior men,then that could help to explain phenomena, such as thegender wage gap and glass ceiling. In most organizations,those who control organizational resources and opportu-nities for advancement tend to be men. If women are jus-tiWably less inclined than men to initiate negotiationswith men, then they may have fewer opportunities toincrease their compensation and promotion potential.

It is not clear from the results of these experimentsthat men consciously resist women’s attempts to negoti-ate. The results of Experiment 4 indicated that women(as compared to men) were more reticent about negoti-ating with a male evaluator because the idea of doing somade them more nervous and not because they antici-pated more backlash. It warrants further investigationwhether men’s resistance to women who initiate com-pensation negotiations is also motivated more by a feel-ing of aversion or discomfort than by a consciousdecision that such behavior by women should be dis-couraged. Research on the challenges to women ofbreaking the glass ceiling, for instance, indicates thatmany male CEOs think that women should take moreinitiative to signal their interest in critical developmentalexperiences (Ragins, Townsend, & Mattis, 1998). Futureresearch should explore whether raising awareness aboutthe systemic reasons for gender diVerences in the initia-tion of negotiations might help to mitigate the socialrisks for women. Moreover, both male and female man-agers should keep in mind that negotiation is a funda-mental form of social interaction within organizations,and a potentially important mechanism for the retentionand attraction of talented labor (Rousseau, 2005). Moreresearch is needed to understand better the organiza-tional implications of inhibiting the initiation of negotia-tions over issues such as compensation.

The decision to negotiate

Whether our participants’ behavior was optimal, interms of weighing the actual social and economic costsand beneWts of initiating compensation negotiations,remains an open question. The beneWts of initiatingnegotiations in this type of context would obviouslyinclude the expected compensation gains, and the costswould include the risks of undermining potentiallyimportant working relations and missing out on desir-able work opportunities. If the expected economic gainswere large enough to outweigh the social costs, then therational course of action would be to initiate negotia-tions, in spite of the social costs. If the social costs andtheir long-term career implications outweighed the bene-Wts of higher compensation, then reticence would be themore prudent choice. We cannot claim, based on ourresearch, that either men or women are initiating negoti-ations too much or too little. We show with this research


that women’s disinclination relative to men to initiatenegotiations over resources, such as compensation, maybe traced to the higher social costs that they face whendoing so.

It deserves highlighting that, on average, both menand women in Experiment 4 preferred the no-negotia-tion to the negotiation plan for responding to a questionabout their salary and beneWts oVer. This may be attrib-utable in part to the artiWciality of choosing between twopre-determined scripts rather than choosing one’s ownwords to negotiate. However, research on the propensityto initiate negotiations reveals relatively low overallrates of initiation. For instance, studies of the salarynegotiations of graduating professional school studentssuggest that less than a third of students initiate compen-sation negotiations (32% in study by Babcock & Lasch-ever, 2003; 21% in study by Gerhart & Rynes, 1991). Inrecent laboratory research, only 12% of participants ini-tiated negotiations when they knew they might earnmore if they asked (Babcock, Laschever, Gelfand, &Small, 2003). These low baselines of negotiation raiseimportant questions about the decision to negotiate thathave yet to be addressed in the literature. Futureresearch should investigate the motivations for this hesi-tancy, particularly in situations in which the economiccosts to not negotiating are substantial.

Limitations

One limitation of our experimental design was theartiWciality of the negotiation and no-negotiationscripts. If the candidates had been able to choose theirown words, it is possible that men and women wouldhave presented themselves diVerently (Barron, 2003).We weighed this limitation, however, against the bene-Wts of enabling us to test the eVects of gender of partic-ipant, gender of evaluator and gender identiWcation onperceptions of a speciWc set of behavioral choices andto test in Experiments 2 and 3 how evaluators wouldperceive men and women enacting the precise behav-iors that the participants assessed in Experiment 4.Future research should explore whether men andwomen initiate negotiations in diVerent ways andwhether variation in accounts (Scott & Lyman, 1968)or self-presentation style (Carli, 1990; Carli et al., 1995)would moderate the evaluation of their negotiationattempts.

Contributions

Our Wndings reinforce the importance for negotiationscholars and practitioners of considering the social aswell as economic outcomes of negotiation (Curhan,Elfenbein, & Xu, 2006; Morris, Larrick, & Su, 1999).This work adds to this understudied area of research innegotiation by providing another demonstration that

the social costs of engaging in certain negotiating behav-iors may not outweigh the economic beneWts (Morriset al., 1999). When focusing primarily on economic out-comes of negotiation, we fail to appreciate fully the costsand beneWts of negotiation processes and their products.

The current research also contributes to the growingbody of literature on gender in negotiation in at leastfour respects. First, whereas previous research hasfocused on internal motivations for gender diVerences inthe propensity to initiate negotiations (Babcock et al.,2006), this set of studies demonstrates clearly that menand women face diVerent social incentives when decidingwhether to initiate negotiations over issues such as com-pensation. This advancement is important because itshould shift the discussion of prescriptive implicationsaway from Wxing the women to addressing the socialconditions that motivate these gender diVerences (Wat-son, 1994b). Second, by demonstrating that there arecontextual explanations for gender diVerences in negoti-ation behavior, we contribute empirical research to along line of theoretical work that has criticized the sex-diVerence approach to the study of gender in negotiation(Gray, 1994; Kolb & Putnam, 1997; Kolb & Williams,2000; Wade, 2001; Watson, 1994a, 1994b).

Third, this research adds to the recent body of workon sex stereotypes in negotiation by illuminating theinXuence of prescriptive, as opposed to descriptive, sexstereotypes (Burgess & Borgida, 1999)—or, in terms ofsocial role theory, stereotypes about gender roles asopposed to sex-typed skills (Eagly, 1987). Whereas previ-ous research has demonstrated various ways in whichgender-based performance expectations shape negotia-tion outcomes (Kray et al., 2001, 2002, 2004), thisresearch shows that gender-based norms of appropriatebehavior may inXuence whether individuals decide tonegotiate and the social outcomes of their negotiations.Future research should continue this exploration of howgendered expectations of appropriate negotiating behav-ior may inXuence negotiation performance (Wade,2001).

Fourth, this work contributes to the documentationof situational moderators of gender eVects in negotia-tion. Contrary to the proposition that women are alwaysmore reluctant than men to negotiate, we found thatwomen were only more reluctant than men to attempt tonegotiate in the situation in which the relative social riskwas greatest (i.e., with a male evaluator). Future researchshould draw motivation from developments in the studyof situational moderators of gender eVects in negotiation(Bowles et al., 2005; Kray & Thompson, 2005; Walterset al., 1998) and continue to explore the boundaries ofgender diVerences in the propensity to initiate negotia-tions. For instance, the activation of explicit sex stereo-types favoring men or of implicit sex stereotypesfavoring women might prompt women to initiate negoti-ations more often than men (Kray et al., 2001, 2002).


To the extent that men and women diVer in relationalorientation (Cross & Madson, 1997; Gabriel & Gardner,1999), manipulation of the current or potential futurerelationship between negotiating parties might moderategender eVects in the propensity to initiate negotiations(Gelfand, Major, Raver, Nishii, & O’Brien, 2006). Gen-der diVerences in the propensity to initiate negotiationsmight also be inXuenced by the prospective negotiator’srepresentation role (i.e., for self vs. other). Previousresearch suggests that women are more motivated incompensation negotiations when they are representingsomeone else as opposed to themselves (Bowles et al.,2005).

Finally, these Wndings have important implicationsfor the teaching and practice of negotiation, becausethey show that one-size-Wts-all prescriptions may notturn out to be “best practice” for both male and femalenegotiators. This research suggests that gender diVer-ences in the initiation of negotiations cannot be resolvedsimply by encouraging women to speak up more.Addressing this issue requires an understanding of thesituational circumstances that motivate gender diVer-ences in the propensity to initiate negotiations and a setof prescriptions that alter the behavior of evaluators aswell as negotiators.

Appendix A. Question 3

By now you must have received the salary and bene-Wts oVer from the company. Is there anything else youwould like us to keep in mind as we consider your man-agement placement?

Responses by condition

No ask

Yes, I received the salary and beneWts package. ThebeneWts information was very clear. Geographically, Iam totally unconstrained. I am happy to work anywhere,as long as I have got interesting stuV to do.

Moderate ask

Yes, I received the salary and beneWts package. ThebeneWts information was very clear. Geographically, Iam totally unconstrained. I am happy to work anywhere,as long as I have got interesting stuV to do. What wasnot clear to me, however, was whether that salary repre-sented the top of the pay range. I understand that thereis a range in terms of how much junior managers arepaid in their Wrst placement. I would like to be paid atthe top of that range. I would also like to be eligible foran end-of-year performance bonus.

Strong ask

Yes, I received the salary and beneWts package. ThebeneWts information was very clear. Geographically, Iam totally unconstrained. I am happy to work anywhere,as long as I have got interesting stuV to do. What wasnot clear to me, however, was whether that salary repre-sented the top of the pay range. I understand that thereis a range in terms of how much junior managers arepaid in their Wrst placement. I think I should be paid atthe top of that range. This is really important to me; Ithink I deserve it. I also would like to be eligible for anend-of-year bonus. I know performance bonuses are notstandard for junior managers, but I would certainly bemore motivated if I could look forward to a perfor-mance bonus at the end of the year. I am thinking ofsomething in the 25–50% of salary range. Not doublingmy salary or anything. And, listen, I do not care if it’s incash or stocks—and I promise you I’ll earn it. So, thoseare the two things that I am asking with regard to mycompensation: one, paying me at the top of the juniormanager salary range and, two, providing me with anend of year, 20–50% of salary performance bonus.

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