THE POWER OF FEAR VS. THE FEAR OF POWER
Understanding how gender psychology affects a woman’s strong preference for cooperation over conflict is vital to becoming a successful negotiator.
We all know a big reason women don’t dare to ask is the anxiety it triggers: Will I not be liked? Will I make an enemy? Am I being selfish?
But there may be an Up Side to the fear factor, too. According to researchers at U.C.L.A. a ‘frightened’ woman makes for a better negotiator. The study is sketchy in the way that classroom psychology often is (the subjects were playing a word game and could bargain for a winning pay-off from $4-12—not exactly the real world) but the implication is interesting.
When the female subjects were exposed to a fright (such as seeing a scary segment from The Shining) they proved more aggressive in their demands. In contrast, the expectation that anger would make women more aggressive bargainers turned out not to be the case. “The results were a complete surprise,” says U.C.L.A.’s Maia Young.
A Canadian women thinks fear was a healthy motivator for her. “ Years ago, I wanted a better paying job because as a single parent, I could not afford to put my son in hockey (something all Canadian boys want to do) and feed him. I was scared I’d let my 5 year old son down. So with fear of parental failure in my belly, I negotiated hardball and won a large raise, something I worked hard for and looking
back, unquestionably deserved vis-a-vis my male colleagues.”
Any truth to this notion that you can scare yourself into being a better negotiator? Probably way too early to tell but the implications of your psychological state of mind significantly impact whether you do or don’t ‘dare to ask’.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mink Pinkowitz and Dr. Shannon Reece, Neil Shister. Neil Shister said: The power of fear vs the fear of power- do scared women make better negotiators? http://ow.ly/3dCWa #womennegotiating [...]