Four experiments show that gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations may be explained by differential treatment of men and women when they attempt to negotiate. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants evaluated written accounts of candidates who did or did not initiate negotiations for higher compensation. Evaluators penalized female candidates more than male candidates for initiating negotiations. In Experiment 3, participants evaluated videotapes of candidates who accepted compensation offers or initiated negotiations. Male evaluators penalized female candidates more than male candidates for initiating negotiations; female evaluators penalized all candidates for initiating negotiations. Perceptions of niceness and demandingness explained resistance to female negotiators. In Experiment 4, participants adopted the candidate's perspective and assessed whether to initiate negotiations in same scenario used in Experiment 3. With male evaluators, women were less inclined than men to negotiate, and nervousness explained this effect. There was no gender difference when evaluator was female.

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A major unsolved riddle facing the social sciences is the cause of impasse in negotiations. The consequences of impasse are evident in the amount of private and public resources spent on civil litigation, the costs of labor unrest, the psychic and pecuniary wounds of domestic strife, and in clashes among religious, ethnic and regional groups. Impasses in these settings are not only pernicious, but somewhat paradoxical since negotiations typically unfold over long periods of time, offering ample opportunities for interaction between the parties.Economists, and more specifically game theorists, typically attribute delays in settlement to incomplete information. Bargainers possess private information about factors such as their alternatives to negotiated agreements and costs to delay, causing them to be mutually uncertain about the other side's reservation value. Uncertainty produces impasse because bargainers use costly delays to signal to the other party information about their own reservation value (Kennan and Wilson, 1989; Cramton, 1992). However, this account of impasse is difficult to test because satisfactory measures of uncertainty are rare. With only a few exceptions (Tracy, 1986(Tracy, , 1987, most field research in this area has been limited to testing secondary hypotheses, such as the relationship between wages and strike duration (

Unlike typical negotiation experiments, these studies investigated when men and women initiate negotiations in the absence of overt prescriptions to negotiate. Using a new experimental paradigm, the authors showed that the framing of situations is a critical driver of gender differences in initiating negotiations. Drawing on literature on language, power, and politeness, the authors argued that framing situations as opportunities for negotiation is particularly intimidating to women, as this language is inconsistent with norms for politeness among low-power individuals, such as women. By contrast, framing situations as opportunities for asking is much less intimidating to women, as this language is more polite and role-consistent. Consequently, gender differences in initiating negotiations persisted when situations were framed as opportunities for negotiation yet were eliminated when situations were framed as opportunities to ask. Moreover, primed power attenuated gender differences in aversive reactions to the negotiation frame. In all, the studies presented begin to elucidate the reasons for gender differences in initiating negotiations and further illustrate that such effects depend on the situation.

Gender differences in task allocationsDespite significant female educational advances, we continue to see gender differences in labor market outcomes (Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko 2006; Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz 2010). Particularly striking is the persistent vertical gender segregation (Altonji and Blank 1999; Bertrand and Hallock 2001). To better understand the process by which men and women advance in the workplace, researchers have begun to examine whether the tasks that they perform at work vary, and whether such differences contribute to differences in advancement.Of particular interest is whether, relative to men, women spend less time on tasks that are likely to influence their performance evaluations (high-promotability tasks) and more time on tasks that, while benefiting the organization, are less likely to affect their evaluation and career advancement (low-promotability tasks). For example, in industry, revenue-generating tasks may be seen as more promotable than