Research: Simple Prompts Can Get Women to Negotiate More Like Men, and Vice Versa
Studies show that because men are more likely to lie in negotiations because they are more competitive than empathic. The reverse is true for women. But new experimental research shows that it’s fairly easy to change those norms. Taking steps to reduce competitiveness and enhance empathy in negotiations or other professional settings may increase collaboration and joint problem-solving. When we see ourselves as participants in mutually beneficial interactions, it’s more likely we’ll all come out winners.
Do we lie to get what we want out of negotiations?
That depends, according to forthcoming research I conducted with Jason Pierce of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. We found that the likelihood of engaging in unethical behavior during negotiation is related strongly to gender: men are more likely to act deceptively than women are.
The difference in bargaining behavior is linked to negotiators’ sense of competitiveness and empathy. In negotiations, men tend to embrace a competitive mode that motivates unethical behavior to get ahead, whereas women opt for an empathic approach, leading to less deceptive behavior.
But it turns out it is startlingly simple to “activate” the competitiveness and empathic motives. And, when we activate these different motives, both women and men act more like the other gender in bargaining situations.
My interest in this research area grew partly out of my own experience as a woman in negotiation situations. As a young professor at the University of Washington, for example, I realized I was taking a passive approach to career advancement, waiting for promotions to come to me rather than asserting myself to create opportunity. That was especially remarkable because I was already a negotiation researcher!
As I studied the relationship between gender and negotiation behavior, I found that even the most qualified, elite professional women—including those with MBAs from top programs and decades of experience—fared worse than their male counterparts at the bargaining table. They didn’t go after favorable terms in the same way as men, helping to explain the gender-based pay gap that remains today.
But how far would either gender go in trying to win a negotiation in which it might be tempting — yet unethical — to deceive?
It’s one thing to get ahead by leaning in, speaking up, and asking for more, as women are increasingly encouraged to do. But it’s quite another to lie outright or misrepresent oneself in a negotiation. Substantial research shows that men set lower ethical standards for themselves, including in bargaining situations: they lie more frequently in negotiation than female counterparts, are more likely to believe misrepresentation is acceptable, and endorse seeking negotiation-related information in unscrupulous ways (such as looking at confidential reports not intended for them).
We built on this research by studying the behaviors associated with unethical negotiation behavior, rather than self-reported attitudes—the focus of most past studies. Specifically, we wanted to look at gender differences in deceptive behavior, the underlying reasons for it, and whether we could motivate both men and women to engage in less—or more—ethical bargaining tactics.
In our first experiment, we brought participants into the lab and asked them to engage in what we framed as a “two-person decision-making task.” Then we gave the focal participant—“Player 1” in our task—an envelope containing cash and told them to communicate to Player 2 (1) the amount of money in the envelope and (2) their proposal for how to split the money. Player 2 was purportedly in another room, and all communication took place through online messaging.
Given Player 1’s information advantage, it was tempting to lie to Player 2, misrepresenting the amount in the envelope to keep more of it for themselves. That’s exactly what happened in many cases: participants acted unethically, to serve their own interest. But we observed a large difference in such behavior by gender. Of our male participants, 44% lied; only 29% of the women did.
To get at the reasons underlying the difference, we asked participants to respond to measures of their general sense of competitiveness (more commonly expressed by men) and empathy (more commonly reported by women). Not surprisingly, men scored higher on competitiveness, while women reported greater empathy levels, helping to explain our findings.
Unleashing the Tiger—or the Empath
Based on the findings from our first experiment, we created a second study, one that placed participants in a decision-making task framed explicitly as competitive, to see if this would increase unethical behavior.
Specifically, participants completed the same money-splitting task as in the first study. But this time we provided some of them with competition-inducing instructions, framing the activity as an “ultimatum game” played against an opponent, with clear “winners” and “losers.”
Now the results changed dramatically: in the competition-inducing condition, 64% of men and 61% of women lied to get ahead, compared to only 49% and 23%, respectively, under a neutral condition similar to that in Experiment 1.
So, even simple cues around competition induced women to adopt the more aggressive negotiation mindset men tend to default to, leading to unethical behavior. We’d “unleashed the tiger” within our female participants, and they behaved more like men.
Next we asked whether we could do the opposite: make men behave more like women in negotiation. We tested that in a third study by seeking to induce empathy in participants playing the same game as before. In the high-empathy condition, participants received a message from Player 2 stating that Player 2 participated in such experiments to buy treats for their grandchildren, while living off their limited retirement income; in the low-empathy condition, the message from Player 2 indicated they used proceeds from experiments to buy themselves items and planned to retire early.
In the low-empathy condition, 44% of men lied, and 21% of women did, similar to previous results in neutral conditions. In the high-empathy condition, only 22% of men acted unethically, and 16% of women, suggesting the empathy we induced led to fairer behavior.
Toward More Ethical Negotiations
Taken together, our findings suggest that under normal conditions, men engage in unethical negotiation tactics more than women do, largely because males tend to be more competitive. Women tend to act more empathically, leading to less deceitful behavior on their part.
But context was critical: even simple changes greatly narrowed the gender gap for behavior, making women act much more like men in negotiation, and vice-versa. The needle moved more toward ethical or unethical behavior, depending on the circumstances.
For women, one takeaway is that we will often find ourselves in situations—negotiations or otherwise—where a sense of empathy motivates fair, ethical behavior that might not be reciprocated by those across the table from us. Be prepared and vigilant about this reality, and keep in mind that certain cues (such as framing a discussion as a competition, even if just to yourself) may unleash your inner tiger.
Men, on the other hand, may benefit from understanding their competition-fueled tendency toward misrepresentative behavior and appreciating its real-life implications. Any ill-gotten win may come at some real cost for others.
More generally, taking steps to reduce competitiveness and enhance empathy in negotiations or other professional settings may increase collaboration and joint problem-solving. When we see ourselves as participants in mutually beneficial interactions, it’s more likely we’ll all come out winners.
Research: Simple Prompts Can Get Women to Negotiate More Like Men, and Vice Versa
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