A study by a U.C. Berkeley professor and two co-authors shows that women gain by flirting during negotiations. But the same didn't hold true for men.
The study was titled, “Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of its Costs and Benefits in Negotiations," by lead author Laura Kray, a professor at the Haas School of Business
The research defined flirtation as female friendliness, or "feminine charm," without overt sexual advances or serious intent.
One experiment asked subjects to imagine they were selling a car for $1,200 and negotiating with one of two potential buyers: "serious Sue" or "playful Sue."
"Next, the subjects read one of two scenarios," according to a statement from the school. "The first group meets Sue, who shakes hands when she meets the seller, smiles, and says, 'It’s a pleasure to meet you,' and then 'What’s your best price?' in a serious tone.
"The second group reads an alternate scenario in which Sue greets the seller by smiling warmly, looking the seller up and down, touching the seller’s arm, and saying, “You’re even more charming than over email,” followed by a playful wink and asking, “What’s your best price?”
Male sellers offered to knock off $100 of the price for "playful Sue" but not for "serious Sue," the study found. Female buyers, however, were unmoved.
“Women are uniquely confronted with a tradeoff in terms of being perceived as strong versus warm," Kray said in a comment quoted by the Haas School. "Using feminine charm in negotiation is a technique that combines both.”
The study appears in the October issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. It is co-authored by Haas Ph.D. alum Connson Locke of the London School of Economics and Alex B. Van Zant, a Haas Ph.D. student.
Any surprises here? Is flirting fair?
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'Most of all, evolution can teach us much about what it means to be alive, and why people do what they do.- --Rob Brooks, author of Sex, Genes and Rock & Roll http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-brooks/sex-genes-rock-n-roll_b_1311747.html
Like all sexually reproducing animals, women and men are locked in an ancient tussle of differing evolutionary interests called sexual conflict. A woman's evolutionary fitness is highest when she can have a modest number of children, avoid dying in childbirth, and can give those offspring the care and education they need. For men, fitness is more of a numbers game. If a man's wife dies in childbirth he can always marry another. Subsistence farming massively favors men's interests, but industrialisation, women's education and economic empowerment all redress some of this imbalance. Greater power within the home and within society allows women more control over their own fertility, resulting in fewer unwanted children and slower population growth.
Because men's and women's evolutionary interests differ, women have evolved the ability to conceal when they are at their most faithful and to have sex at any time of the month. This prevents all manner of men from sniffing around and fighting over an ovulating woman like dogs after a bitch on heat. It also keeps a woman's partner from losing interest in her when she isn't fertile. But men have counter-evolved ways of discerning subtle cues of ovulation. In one now-famous study, lap-dancers in Albuquerque strip clubs who were ovulating earned up to twice as much per shift as they earned at other time of the month. Exactly what cues customers used to detect dancer's fertility remains to be established.
Love -- or at least many of the symptoms thereof -- evolved as a reward. It rewards us for putting aside our mistrust of strangers and allowing them into our personal lives long enough to have sex and bear a child. It also helps to cement the long-term bonds between partners, helping us to stay together and collaborate in rearing one or more children. Love is such a sublime suite of emotions because, over millions of years, people who were good at loving and being loved were the ones who succeeded in the difficult business of reproduction. (for more examples, see the link I posted above)
Leah didn't post anything inappropriate about this article. If you think what she posted is inappropriate, then I can tell you don't get discounts.