The authors use the extraordinary 2008 phenomenon of female presidential and vice-presidential candidates in both of the main U.S. political parties to examine what obstacles remain for women, as they seek to negotiate access to the highest roles in society - and not just governmental roles. After detailing how Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin fell foul of one or the other of a matched pair of "gotchas" in how people evaluate ambitious women, they outline a strategy for negotiating gender that is relevant for all female professionals advancing in their careers.

This paper studies the emotion usage of negotiators, specifically the purposeful management of emotion suppression and expression as a strategic tool for shaping bargaining behavior and subsequent negotiation outcomes. We explore the strategic use of emotions in three ways, expressing truly felt emotions, hiding felt emotions, and feigning unfelt emotions. Using self-report transcript coding methods, we are able to accurately identify when and how negotiators managed emotional expression during the course of the negotiation and how such tactical manipulation of emotions influenced negotiated outcomes. We provide evidence using a simulated negotiation exercise of a monetary benefit to negotiators of using emotional deception as a bargaining tactic.

Research evidence across a number of disciplines and fields has shown that women can encounter both social and financial backlash when they behave assertively, for example, by asking for resources at the bargaining table. But this backlash appears to be most evident when a gender stereotype that prescribes communal, nurturing behavior by women is activated. In situations in which this female stereotype is suppressed, backlash against assertive female behavior is attenuated. We review several contexts in which stereotypic expectations of females are more dormant or where assertive behavior by females can be seen as normative. We conclude with prescriptions from this research that suggest how women might attenuate backlash at the bargaining table and with ideas about how to teach these issues of gender and backlash to student populations in order to make students, both male and female, more aware of their own inclination to backlash and how to rectify such inequities from both sides of the bargaining table.

A series of studies found that the personality dimension of unmitigated communion (Fritz amp; Helgeson, 1998) leads negotiators to make concessions in order to avoid straining relationships. Results indicate that even within the population of successful business executives, this dimension of relational anxiety can be identified distinctly from more general relational orientations, such as agreeableness, and that it distinctly predicts accommodating tendencies in everyday conflicts. In economic games, unmitigated communion predicts giving in contexts where the relational norm of reciprocity applies, but not in contexts tapping instrumental or altruistic motives for cooperation. In distributive negotiations, the effect of unmitigated communion in lowering a negotiator's outcome is mediated by pre-negotiation anxieties about relational strain and plans to make large concessions if needed to avoid impasse (lower reservation points). In integrative negotiations, high unmitigated communion on both sides of the negotiation dyad results in relational accommodation, evidenced by decreased success in maximizing economic joint gain but increased subjective satisfaction with the relationship.

The backlash effect is a well-documented negative reaction toward women who are perceived as counter-stereotypical because they engage in "masculine" behaviors during the performance of their jobs. In four negotiation studies we explore the backlash effect in greater depth than previous studies by identifying key factors that affect the propensity for backlash against female negotiators. In particular, our results suggest that executives, who have salient mental models of assertive, successful women, use those exemplars as referents when evaluating the behavior of others. This exemplar is consistent with expectations that women are assertive, thus we find that executives tend not to backlash against assertive women. On the other hand, students in whom this exemplar is less salient, rely on core gender stereotypes in the evaluation of targets, and thus we find that they tend to backlash against assertive women for behaving counter-stereotypically. We then demonstrate that these schemas can be reversed in both populations. By imposing threat we induce executives to draw upon core gender stereotypes leading them to backlash against assertive behavior in women. By making the successful businesswoman exemplar salient in students we observe them using this exemplar as a referent and subsequently accepting the assertive behavior of women.

This article discusses the phenomenon of female leadership and the dual roles associated with female leaders in the United States by examining statistics concerning women in leadership roles and coverage of the 2008 Presidential election. It goes on to explore situations when women leaders may actually avoid experiencing backlash for exhibiting assertive or typically “masculine' characteristics such as when resources are high and perceived threats are low, when the women are deemed to hold positions of high status, when women fulfill expectations associated with their position, and when women are assertive on behalf of others. Finally, the article suggests steps educational institutions can adopt to promote women in leadership positions.

The 2008 election highlighted a dilemma often faced by women in the professional world - a double bind between being perceived as competent or as likeable. Both qualities are imperative for success but the incongruity of normative female roles (warm, nurturing) with characteristics perceived necessary for professional success (independence, assertiveness) means that women are either seen as likeable, but incompetent, or as competent, but unlikeable. Wherever you fell along the political spectrum, it is clear that Hillary Clinton's historic candidacy for the Presidency of the United States followed by Sarah Palin's candidacy for Vice-President provided a unique lens for considering how gender is viewed in our culture. Of course, Clinton's loss in the Democratic primary and Palin's (and McCain's) loss in the election was determined by multiple factors specific to their personalities and their campaigns. Yet, the election coverage demonstrated what workplace and social science research have shown for years: women face unique constraints when trying to be successful in traditionally masculine domains. Interestingly, lawyers do not seem plagued by this same double bind. After reviewing election coverage and social science research, this Article focuses on research about lawyers demonstrating that, in style and in effectiveness, there is no difference between how female and male lawyers are perceived. In a study of lawyers rating other lawyers in their most recent negotiation, female lawyers were described in terms that were similar to their male colleagues (ethical, confident, and personable) and both were equally likely to be judged as effective in general. In fact, women lawyers were rated more highly in assertiveness than their male counterparts, and yet did not seem to suffer negative consequences for violating feminine proscriptions. This Article examines why lawyers appear to escape the backlash effect and argues that unique features of legal work reduce the perceived incongruity between assertiveness and proscribed feminine behavior thereby attenuating the likelihood of backlash. Finally, the Article concludes by suggesting further advice for how lawyers can deal with the backlash effect in contexts where incongruity is still salient.