ABSTRACT
S ocial psychologists have long recognized that what is salient in a given situation has a profound influence on behavior (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Gender is one of the most salient characteristics of an individual, causing observers to notice and process it immediately in a social situation (Deaux & LaFrance, 1998). Despite the widespread application of social psychological perspectives to the negotiation domain, the investigation of gender’s capability of explaining negotiating behavior has been relatively sparse. Two factors speak to the failure of gender to capture the attention of negotiation researchers. First, this type of investigation is generally regarded to be atheoretical. Documenting a gender difference does not speak to what caused the difference to emerge, and explorations of gender in negotiations have typically fallen short of adequately explaining the process through which gender matters. Another reason why researchers have been reluctant to study gender is the perception that it accounts for little variation in behavior in a complex, mixed-motive context such as negotiations. To the extent that gender has been recognized as a predictor of competitive behaviors and the division of resources (Stuhlmacher & Walters, 1999; Walters, Stuhlmacher, & Meyer, 1998), its documented impact has been relatively weak.
