(Press-News.org) June 17, 2015 (Washington, D.C.) - Whether sealed with a handshake, a million-dollar contract, or a string of curses, every business deal is a reflection of trust. Both parties trust that the other will hold up their end of the bargain. Good negotiators have a store of social capital before bargaining begins; built up through interactions outside the negotiations that establish trust. Working with a team of researchers from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and Technische Universität in Munich, Germany, American University's Kogod School of Business professor of management Alexandra Mislin researched how small talk before a negotiation impacted perceptions and outcomes.
The study, titled "Should He Chitchat? The Benefits of Small Talk for Male Versus Female Negotiators," published in the Basic and Applied Social Psychology reveals that small talk can be another tool in the arsenal for men, one that builds social capital and increases their likelihood of beneficial gains from negotiation. "We saw a boost in positive negotiation outcomes for men when they engaged in small talk before the negotiation," Mislin said. "Even a little small talk contributed to getting a better deal." However, the same is not true for women.
For example in a salary negotiation with one's employer, "based on our findings, we suggest that people negotiating employment contracts, particularly men, think twice before skipping the small talk," said Mislin. "While both men and women may experience benefits from small talk when negotiating salary, men might walk away with a better deal."
According to the researchers, it comes down to expected gender behaviors and stereotypes. Because women are expected to be more communicative, they are anticipated to make small talk and thus earn no extra social capital for engaging in "chit chat" before a negotiation. "It's not as notable a behavior when a woman makes small talk," Mislin said. "So she is not as likely to experience a social boost from the effort." But the same communal behavior from men is unexpected, and thus contributes to more positive perception of men as well as more favorable final offers.
The researchers discovered that the benefits to men who small talk are more pronounced in negotiation situations that are characterized by more ambiguity and where small talk is not necessarily expected. In situations where expectations are clearly defined, including an expectations of small talk (e.g. an employment contract interview), both men and women who small talk are perceived more favorably. But this positive perception only translates into better deals for men who small talk.
"Our findings reinforce the notion that men and women in the same situation, engaging in the same behavior, can experience different reactions because of different behavioral expectations associated with their gender," Mislin said. "But our research also suggests that there may be areas where violating stereotypes is beneficial, as we see here for the men who engage in small talk."
INFORMATION:
About American University
American University is a leader in global education, enrolling a diverse student body from throughout the United States and nearly 140 countries. Located in Washington, D.C., the university provides opportunities for academic excellence, public service, and internships in the nation's capital and around the world. The Kogod School of Business has been a leader in the D.C. business community for 60 years and is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. AACSB accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement for a business school worldwide.
Someday, treating patients with nanorobots could become standard practice to deliver medicine specifically to parts of the body affected by disease. But merely injecting drug-loaded nanoparticles might not always be enough to get them where they need to go. Now scientists are reporting in the ACS journal Nano Letters the development of new nanoswimmers that can move easily through body fluids to their targets.
Tiny robots could have many benefits for patients. For example, they could be programmed to specifically wipe out cancer cells, which would lower the risk of complications, ...
Needle injections have been around since 1657 and remain a key delivery method for many drugs, including vaccines that have prevented countless illnesses. But for patients that require daily pricks or for people in remote locations, the syringe model has major drawbacks. An article in Chemical & Engineering News looks at potential alternatives, their successes and their roadblocks.
Alex Scott, a senior editor at C&EN, explains that many pharmaceuticals, particularly large-molecule drugs such as insulin, are not good candidates for oral delivery. If swallowed, they would ...
A new approach to skin rejuvenation developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may be less likely to have unintended side effects such as scarring and altered pigmentation. In the online journal Scientific Reports, an MGH research team reports that treatment with pulsed electric fields - a noninvasive procedure that does not involve the generation of heat - removed skin cells in an animal model without affecting the supporting extracellular matrix, eventually leading to renewal of the skin surface.
"We showed that non-thermal pulsed electric field or PEF treatment ...
ANN ARBOR--A University of Michigan researcher and his colleagues are forecasting an average but still large "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico this year.
The forecast calls for an oxygen-depleted, or hypoxic, region of 5,483 square miles, roughly the size of Connecticut. It was announced today by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which sponsors the work.
Farmland runoff containing fertilizers and livestock waste, much of it from as far away as the Corn Belt, is the main source of the nitrogen and phosphorus that cause the annual Gulf of Mexico ...
A NASA animation of imagery from NOAA's GOES-East satellite shows the progression of Tropical Storm Bill through the western Gulf of Mexico, landfall in east Texas and weakening into a depression west of Dallas.
A GOES-East animation of infrared and visible imagery from June 15 through June 17 shows Tropical Storm Bill's movement and landfall. The animation was created by NASA/NOAA GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
At 5 a.m. EDT 0900 UTC), the center of Tropical Depression Bill was located near latitude 31.0 North, longitude ...
The words 'yes' and 'no' may seem like two of the easiest expressions to understand in any language, but their actual behavior and interpretation are surprisingly difficult to pin down. In a paper published earlier today in the scholarly journal Language, two linguists examine the workings of 'yes' and 'no' and show that understanding them leads to new insights concerning the understanding of questions and statements more generally.
Floris Roelofsen (University of Amsterdam) and Donka F. Farkas (UC - Santa Cruz) provide a comprehensive account of 'polarity particles', ...
ITHACA, N.Y. - To sort out the biological intricacies of Earth-like planets, astronomers have developed computer models that examine how ultraviolet radiation from other planets' nearby suns may affect those worlds, according to new research published June 10 in Astrophysical Journal.
"Depending on the intensity, ultraviolet radiation can be both useful and harmful to the origin of life," says Lisa Kaltenegger, Cornell associate professor of astronomy and the director of Cornell's new Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dot and Beyond. "We are trying to ascertain how much ...
CHICAGO --- Consumers may need more help navigating the sunscreen aisle. A new Northwestern Medicine study found that many people seem to be confused by sunscreen terminology.
Only 43 percent of people surveyed understood the definition of sun factor protection (SPF) and only seven percent knew what to look for on a label if they wanted a sunscreen that offers protection against early skin aging.
Details of the study were published June 17, in the journal JAMA Dermatology.
"We need to do a better job of educating people about sun protection and make it easier for ...
To move the world toward sustainability, scientists are continuing to explore and improve ways to tap the vast power of sunlight to make fuels and generate electricity. Now they have come up with a brand-new way to use light -- solar or artificial -- to drive battery power safely. Their "photo battery," reported in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, uses light and titanium nitride for the anode.
Metal-ion batteries such as those based on lithium ions run most of our gadgets. But they take a long time to charge. They can also overheat and catch fire if they're ...
Chances are good that women with a low heart rate variability also suffer from sexual dysfunction. That's the finding from a study led by Amelia Stanton of The University of Texas at Austin in the US published in Springer's journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.
Heart rate variability refers to differences in the length of time between consecutive heartbeats. It is one of the most sensitive and objective measures of the interplay between the sympathetic nervous system (which activates the so-called fight or flight response) and the parasympathetic nervous system ...
