Saturday, February 20, 2010

Women can't be men: Social expectations and salary negotiations

Earlier at Femonomics, we discussed the pressure for women to behave like men to be successful, and why this won't work. The Harvard Business Review brings us more evidence for why this is an unsuccessful strategy, especially when negotiating salary. It turns out women are in a classic catch-22 when it comes to negotiating compensation.
Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who did ask for more, the perception being that women who asked were "less nice."
Women cannot succeed simply by changing their behavior if the true criteria for success is others' perception of that behavior. The original study can be found here.

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