In the Words of Larry Summers: Gender Stereotype Endorsement and Implicit Negotiation Beliefs in Mixed-Gender Negotiations

Laura Kray
Berkeley-Haas Management of Organizations

Connson Locke
affiliation not provided to SSRN

Michael Haselhuhn
University of California, Riverside (UCR)

2007

IACM 2007 Meetings Paper

Abstract:

We present two experiments that explore how endorsing the belief that innate ability differences apply to men and women affects performance in mixed-motive negotiations. In contrast to stereotype lift (Walton & Cohen, 2003), which predicts a benefit for positively stereotyped negotiators, we demonstrate in Experiment 1 that gender stereotype endorsement impairs performance for positively stereotyped negotiators relative to negatively stereotyped negotiators, and decreases joint performance by causing both negotiators to overlook commonalities. In Experiment 2, we explore whether reactions to stereotype endorsement are moderated by negotiators’ implicit beliefs about the malleability of performance. We demonstrate that stereotype reactance by the negatively stereotyped negotiator is promoted by a belief that negotiating ability is malleable, whereas a belief that negotiating ability is fixed renders negotiators immune to the endorsement of gender stereotypes.

In the Words of Larry Summers- Gender Stereotype Endorsement and Implicit Negotiation Beliefs in Mixed-Gender Negotiations