Can Gender-Disposed Personality Traits Explain Who Initiates Negotiations?

Abstract

In the professional world, there remains an obvious gender wage gap, partly because men ask for raises more often and in greater increments than women (Babcock et al., in Den De Cremer M, Zeelenberg, Murnighan JK (eds), Social psychology and economics, pp. 239–262, Erlbaum, 2006). In the current study, we seek to extend the literature on individual differences and negotiation by testing theory regarding how dispositional traits—namely Big Five subfacet personalities—may contribute to salary negotiation initiation. In summary, we found that women are generally higher in politeness and compassion than men, but neither of these personality traits were related to the propensity to initiate a negotiation. Rather, assertiveness was positively related to initiating negotiations. We also found evidence supporting the hypothesis that women are less likely to initiate a negotiation, but that this gender difference only exists with male supervisors.