Explaining Gender Differences in Negotiation: A Close Replication and Extension of Amanatullah and Morris (2010)

• Applicant: Dr. Jens Mazei
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 509454699

A central question in research on gender and negotiation is why, exactly, women and men differ when negotiating their salary. This question is relevant because gender differences in salary negotiations can partly explain gender inequalities in the workplace (e.g., the Gender Pay Gap; e.g., Dannals et al., 2021; Säve-Söderbergh, 2019), which remain a “grand challenge” worldwide (George et al., 2016; OECD, 2022). Hence, Amanatullah and Morris (2010) aimed to provide an answer to this central question in their seminal study, which suggests that self-advocating women, but not women acting as an advocate for others, negotiate less assertively than men because they more readily anticipate incurring backlash (i.e., negative reactions by others; Rudman, 1998). Their study came to play an outsized role because it examined key theoretical propositions as derived from the leading theory in the field of research on gender and negotiation (i.e., Role Congruity Theory; Eagly & Karau, 2002). However, the actual, available evidence for these theoretical propositions—that self-advocating (but not other-advocating) women negotiate less assertively than men because they more readily anticipate incurring backlash—is thin: The original study by Amanatullah and Morris (2010) was underpowered, and other, related work often yielded diverging results. Yet, this other research also utilized a different methodology, making it unclear whether or not theory needs to be revised. Therefore, the main goal of the current research is to provide a close replication of the seminal study by Amanatullah and Morris (2010), both in Germany and in the United States. In doing so, we illuminate the validity and generalizability of propositions that are central for both theory and practice.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Joachim Hüffmeier