By: Sean Nealon
Study finds men with wider face are successful when negotiating for themselves, but not so when the situation requires compromise and collaboration
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — Having a wider face helps men when they negotiate for themselves, but hurts them when they are negotiating in a situation that requires compromise. Additionally, men who are more attractive are better collaborators compared to less attractive men.
Those are among the findings outlined in a just-published paper co-authored by Michael P. Haselhuhn and Elaine M. Wong, assistant professors of management at the University of California, Riverside’s School of Business Administration. The paper describes four negotiation simulations set up by the authors of the paper.
In one, they found that men with wider faces negotiated a signing bonus of nearly $2,200 more than men with a more narrow face.
Similarly, in another scenario, they found that when men with wider faces were selling a chemical plant, they negotiated a higher sale price than men with a more narrow face. When those same wide-faced men were in the buyer role, they negotiated a lower price than the narrow-faced men.
In the third negotiating scenario, in which a creative solution is needed to bridge a gap on a real estate transaction, the researchers placed men in teams of two. They found that the teams with wider-faced men were less successful in the negotiation.
In the final scenario, research assistants were given a series of questions to access the attractiveness and beauty of the research subjects. Again, the men were paired off and given the same scenario in which they needed to come up with a creative solution to bridge a gap on a real estate transaction. The researchers found that the more attractive men were more successful in the negotiation.
“These studies show that being a man with a wider face can be both a blessing and a curse and awareness of this may be important for future business success,” Haselhuhn said.
The paper, “Negotiating face-to-face: Men’s facial structure predicts negotiation performance,” was published online in the journal “The Leadership Quarterly.” Haselhuhn and Wong’s co-authors are Margaret E. Ormiston and M. Ena Inesi, both of the London Business School, and Adam D. Galinsky of Columbia University.
To read the full press release visit: http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/23919
Sean Nealon spent eight years as a newspaper reporter in New York and California before being hired as a senior public information officer at UCR in 2010. He studied communication and sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo and earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. He enjoys biking to work, weekly softball games, growing vegetables and picking low-hanging fruit around campus.
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