Making a Positive Impression in a Negotiation: Gender Differences in Response to Impression Motivation

Abstract

AbstractPrior research has demonstrated the phenomenon ofstereotype reactance, whereby men and women behave in contrast to gender stereotypes, when those stereotypes are activated explicitly (Kray, Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001). The authors propose and present an experiment demonstrating a new mechanism for stereotype reactance—namely,impression motivation, or the degree to which people are motivated to control how others see them (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Participants randomly assigned to represent either a high‐status recruiter or a low‐status job candidate engaged in a standard employment negotiation simulation. Half the participants were offered an additional incentive to make a positive i..