From the work of Hannah Riley Bowles and Linda Babcock, the former of whom headlined a workshop at the Cognitive Science Society this past summer on the topic (https://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/uploads/2011-w6.pdf):
“Perhaps, the most direct contribution of this research is to the study of the compensation negotiation dilemma for women. This research adds nuance to previous research by demonstrating that women have avenues for escaping the double-bind. Specifically, we offer the strategy of a ‘relational account’ for improving women’s social and economic outcomes in compensation negotiations. Communicating relational concerns can help improve a woman’s social outcome, but it does not make her compensation requests more persuasive. Legitimizing a compensation request might improve a woman’s economic prospects, but a legitimate request may not be sufficient to ameliorate the social costs of having negotiated. We propose that women find mutually compatible ways of expressing both their concern for organizational relationships and why their compensation request is appropriate under the circumstances.
As in past research, our results suggest that the compensation negotiation dilemma is a more important consideration for women than for men. When comparing the simple-negotiation and no-negotiation conditions in Study 1, negotiating for higher compensation had no effect on the willingness to work with male employees. In our analyses of the negotiation conditions in Studies 1 and 2, the negotiating scripts had no significant effects on the social outcomes of a male employee. In contrast for a female employee, the act of simply negotiating (vs. not) carried a significant social cost (Study 1) and the manner in which a woman negotiated significantly influenced on her ability to improve her social outcomes (Studies 1 and 2)—and both of these effects were significantly greater for women than for men.”
Good find, Carolyn — and welcome!
Thanks, John!