The power to oblige: Power, gender, negotiation behaviors, and their consequences

This study experimentally examined how power and gender affect negotiation behaviors and how those behaviors affect negotiated outcomes. One hundred and forty-six dyads, in four combinations of power and gender, negotiated compensation agreements. In line with gender stereotypes, male negotiators were more dominating and females more obliging and somewhat more compromising. However, partially challenging the common association of power and masculinity, high-power negotiators were less dominating and more collaborating, obliging and avoiding than their low-power opponents. Generally, feminine and high-power behaviors induced agreement while masculine and low-power behaviors enhanced distributive personal gain. The study also assessed patterns of behavioral reciprocity and used sophisticated analytic tools to control for dyadic interdependence. Therefore it helps to elucidate the negotiation process and the role that power and its interplay with gender play in it.