What's a Masculine Negotiator? What's a Feminine Negotiator? It Depends on the Cultural and Situational Contexts

Gender-related categorization is a key feature of the literature on gender in negotiation. While previous literature focused on context-free traits such as warmth and competence, we examine how people categorize specific negotiation goals and behaviors as masculine and feminine across the United States and China in different negotiation contexts, illustrating the role of cultural and situational contexts in gender-related categorization. Two studies found that while American participants categorized competitive goals and behaviors as masculine and cooperative ones as feminine across business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) negotiation contexts, Chinese participants' patterns depended on the negotiation context. In B2C contexts, Chinese participants categorized competitive goals and behaviors as feminine and cooperative ones as masculine; in B2B contexts, they made further distinctions, categorizing competitive goals and behaviors that are socially inappropriate as feminine, but competitive ones that are socially appropriate, and cooperative goals and behaviors, as masculine. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.