The influence of cultural and gender bias on the negotiation process

Abstract

The use of psychology to study influence has mainly escaped the attention of negotiation researchers. Seen as combining the theories of cultural negotiation with that of negotiation and social influence, this study builds on previous research by Malhotra and Bazerman, (2008) and complements that body of work by demonstrating the cognitive perceptions of cultural and gender bias and the influence phenomenon on the negotiation process - an indirect contact on intergroup attitudes and perceptions. Indirect contact includes the influence on the negotiation process of (a) cultural bias: learning about the groups’ attitudes towards projects of targeted stereotype groups, (b) gender bias: exploring each gender’s perceptions of their own ability to negotiate and testing the genders’ perceptions about the opposite gender’s ability to negotiate, and (c) gender power: testing the perceptions of physical attraction on the negotiation process when dealing with the opposite sex. This study proposes a pragmatic guide to business leaders and finds evidence that business leaders may safely and confidently apply less significance to the literature on influence in the context of cultural and gender bias, and may rather apply more significance to the influence of attribution bias by reducing stereotype endorsement, prejudice, and even discrimination relating to decision-making in influencing the negotiation process.