Tag Archives: gratitude

Women May Undermine Salary Negotiations with Excessive Gratitude

Andreas Leibbrandt

Candid self-disclosure hurt women’s salary negotiation outcomes when they disclosed that a salary that exceeded their expectations in a study by Monash University’s Andreas Leibbrandt and John A. List of the University of Chicago.

John List

John List

Some women applying for administrative assistant jobs were told that the wages were “negotiable,” and these women negotiated higher pay by a ratio of more than 3 to 1.
This result echoes previous findings tht women frequently do not negotiate unless given explicit permission.
However, women achieved higher salaries at about the same rate as men when invited to negotiate.

Leibbrandt and List tested this finding by not mentioning negotiation to the remaining participants.
Participants in this group typically provided “too much information” by saying that they were willing to work for a lower hourly rate.

Edward E. Jones

Edward E. Jones

Though this approach likely leads to lower salary, it could be considered strategic ingratiation.
This negotiation tactic can take several forms, according to Duke University’s Edward E. Jones:

-Self-presentation: Self-enhancement or “one-down” humility, providing favors or gifts,

-Flattery: “Other-enhancement” by sharing credible positive comments,

-Agreement: Opinion-conformity and matching non-verbal behavior.

The ingratiator’s intent may be to enhance the future working relationship, but could lead the negotiation partner to question the applicant’s judgment and confidence.
This maneuver may delay salary increases because the candidate expresses satisfaction with the original offer.

Steven H. Appelbaum

Steven H. Appelbaum

In contrast, “strategic ingratiation” resulted in promotion or pay increase, in a study by Concordia University’s Steven H. Appelbaum and Brent Hughes.

They found that this may have been influenced by situational and individual factors including:

  • Machiavellianism,
  • Locus of control,
  • Work task uniqueness.
Jeffrey Flory

Jeffrey Flory

Another of Leibbrandt and List’s randomized field studies, collaborating with Concordia colleague Jeffrey Flory, men did not wait for permission to negotiate when no statement was made about salary discussions.

In fact, male participants said they prefer ambiguous salary negotiation norms or “competitive work settings”  in which salary negotiation was typically expected.

Leibbrandt, List, and Flory concluded that women accept “competitive” workplaces when “the job task is female-oriented” and the local labor market leaves few alternatives.

Women who seek higher salaries benefit from proposing their “aspirational salaries” rather than waiting for permission to negotiate.
Women negotiators can achieve better outcomes when they offer moderate expressions of gratitude and avoid revealing their “reserve” salary figure.

-*In what work situations have you benefitted from applying ‘strategic ingratiation’?

-*To what extent have expressions of gratitude in negotiation undermined bargaining outcomes?

RELATED POSTS:

©Kathryn Welds

Advertisement

Gratitude Increases Financial Patience, Investment Earnings

Jennifer Lerner

Jennifer Lerner

Emotions affect personal financial decision-making, and negative emotions like anger and fear can lead people to make either risky or conservative financial choices, according to Harvard’s Jennifer Lerner.

David DeSteno

David DeSteno

With Northeastern University’s David DeSteno, Leah Dickens, University of California Riverside’s Ye Li, Lerner and Columbia University colleague Elke Weber noted that sadness increases impatience and leads to “myopic misery” – focus on immediate gain instead of more profitable longer-term options.

Leah Dickens

Leah Dickens

Lerner and team analyzed participants’ payoff choices when they were in an induced sad state or a neutral emotional condition compared with disgust as a control state.

Ye Li

Ye Li

On average, sad-state participants accepted between 13% and 34% less money to receive a payoff immediately (“present bias”) instead of waiting 90 days for a larger payment, confirming that induced sad feeling led to preference for immediate reward and less patience for a better but more distant payoff.

Elke Weber

Elke Weber

However, these sad volunteers were not more impatient in other generalized areas, suggesting that this effect focuses on impatience for rewards.
In contrast, the negative emotion of disgust did not result in greater impatience, pointing to the specific impact of sad feelings on payoff choices.

Cynthia Cryder

Cynthia Cryder

In a related study, Lerner and team evaluated the impact of induced positive emotions: Happiness and gratitude.
Again, participants could select a smaller, immediate payoff or larger payout later.

Induced gratitude enabled most volunteers to negotiate larger immediate rewards in exchange for giving up a larger, but more distant payment: “…the mean grateful participant required $63 immediately to forgo receiving $85 in three months, whereas the mean neutral or happy participant required only $55 immediately.

James Gross

James Gross

This trend was replicated in other studies by Lerner, Li, and Weber, who reported that average sad-mood participant was willing to accept $4 today instead of $100 in a year, whereas the average neutral-mood volunteer required more than four times as much$19 today to forego $100 in a year.
Another study estimated that sad volunteers accepted between 35% and 79% less money immediately instead of waiting for a future payoff.

Ronald Dahl

Ronald Dahl

This ”misery is not miserly” effect is influenced by the degree of “self-focus” or attention to personal impact in  an observed situation.
When volunteers were primed to focus on their personal reactions while experiencing induced sadness, they gave up more money to acquire a commodity compared with people who had neutral emotions or neutral self-focus, according to Lerner with Washington University’s Cynthia E. Cryder, James J. Gross of Stanford, and University of Pittsburgh’s Ronald E. Dahl.

Gratitude moderates “economic impatience” and suggests that affect-based interventions can help investors enhance financial decision making.

-*How do you manager the impact of transient emotional states on financial decision-making and risk-taking?

Follow-share-like http://www.kathrynwelds.com and @kathrynwelds

RELATED POSTS:

Twitter @kathrynwelds
BlogKathryn Welds | Curated Research and Commentary
Google+
LinkedIn Open Group Psychology in Human Resources (Organisational Psychology)
Facebook Notes

©Kathryn Welds

Explicit Gratitude Increases Well-Being, Reduces Materialism

Robert Emmons

Robert Emmons

Gratitude, or appreciating a beneficial outcome, has significant benefits to physical and emotional health, according to Robert Emmons at the University of California.

He found that volunteers who kept a gratitude journal exercised more frequently, reported fewer physical symptoms of pain, were more optimistic about the upcoming week, and showed greater progress towards personal goals over a two-month period than people who kept journals that reported events factually or allowed them to complain.

Jeffrey Froh

Jeffrey Froh

Emmons worked with Hofstra’s Jeffrey J. Froh and Giacomo Bono of California State University, Dominguez Hills to consider gratitude in contrast to happiness among 700 middle school students, who completed measures of gratitude, prosocial behavior, life satisfaction, and social integration, with re-measures after 3 months and 6 months.

Giacomo Bono

Giacomo Bono

Emmons and team found that students who expressed gratitude initially showed greater social integration after 6 months, and these dimensions enhanced each other.
Theyposit that gratitude may help young people develop greater emotional and social well-being, and prosocial contribution to their communities.

Jennifer Wilson

Jennifer Wilson

This team was joined by Hofstra’s Jennifer Wilson and Noel Card of University of Arizona in another study of young adults who practicing daily gratitude exercises.

These volunteers reported higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to people who focused on social comparisons with people in better or worse life situations than they.

Noel Card

Noel Card

The year-end holiday season often provokes reflections on materialism and gratitude.

Emily Polak

Emily Polak

Materialistic strivings have been implicated as a cause of unhappiness, whereas gratitude as a trait and as a temporary state can be related to happiness, according to Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Emily L. Polak and Michael E. McCullough of University of Miami’s.

Michael McCullough

Michael McCullough

They note that gratitude may reduce materialistic strivings and reduce associated unhappiness to increase well-being.

-*How effective is conscious gratitude on increasing happiness, well-being, and social integration?

 Follow-share-like http://www.kathrynwelds.com and @kathrynwelds
RELATED POSTS:

Twitter  @kathrynwelds
Blog – Kathryn Welds | Curated Research and Commentary  
Google+
LinkedIn Open Group Psychology in Human Resources (Organisational Psychology)
Facebook Notes:

©Kathryn Welds