Getting Past No

An individual-difference perspective on gender in negotiation suggests that men will persist more than women and that gender differences in persistence will be greatest in mixed-gender dyads. Alternatively, a gender-in-context perspective suggests women will vary their persistence behavior more than men and become more rather than less persistent with men out of resistance to male dominance in negotiation. Three studies show that, while men report being more persistent than women in negotiation, women vary the degree and quality of their persistence more than men. Specifically, women become more persistent with male than female negotiation counterparts. Supporting the proposition that women persist more with men than women out of resistance to stereotypical male dominance in negotiation, we find women rely on low-power forms of influence (more indirect than direct) when persisting with men but not women.