A Preference For Women Negotiating Partners: An Examination of Gender-Based Partner Effects In Negotiators’ Subjective Value

Existing research would suggest that, for reasons such as gender stereotypes about negotiation abilities, and backlash against women, men are perceived as better negotiators (Kray et al., 2001; Bowles et al., 2007). Prior work has shown small, varied gender differences in actor- based objective outcomes, with men claiming more value, but to our knowledge, little attention has been paid to the effects of negotiating partner gender on how negotiators experience the negotiation. Subjective value can be more important than economic in negotiations (e.g., Curhan et al., 2006, 2009). And, women tend to be rated higher on important tenets of subjective value, such as trustworthiness (Buchan et al., 2008; Kong et al., 2014). Answering calls to change the narrative on what it means to be a successful negotiator (Kray & Kennedy, 2017), the present research examines whether given the strengths associated with women negotiators, negotiating with women produces greater subjective value. In a classroom sample of MBAs, we found that negotiators rated women partners higher in trustworthiness, fairness, satisfying partner interests, expanding the pie, and communicating, all of which predicted a greater likelihood of desire to negotiate with their partner again. We replicated this in a chat-based online negotiation sample wherein partner gender was not specified, suggesting the preference for women is not simply due to gender stereotypes and instead may reflect differences in how men and women behave as negotiating partners. This effect persists controlling for actor gender and objective outcomes.