Amy Lim

Gender expectations for women have largely been blamed for the widely documented “gender gap” in negotiations between men and women. However, women in business have both gender and professional identities. Drawing from the psychological literature on multiple identities, this paper examines the role of businesswomen’s perceived compatibility between their gender and professional identities–captured by the construct Gender-Professional Identity Integration (G-PII)–in shaping their negotiation behaviors. Two studies were conducted to examine how G-PII interacts with the salience and valence of identity cues to influence negotiation outcomes. The results showed that those who perceived their gender and professional identities as compatible (high G-PII) exhibited an “assimilation” effect by negotiating more effectively when their professional identity is salient and when prototypical female traits were positively linked to negotiation success; they negotiate less effectively when their gender identity is salient and when prototypical female traits were negatively linked to negotiation success. However, those who perceived their gender and professional identities as incompatible (low G-PII) exhibited the opposite “contrast” effect. This work sheds new light on the boundary conditions of the gender gap in negotiations, as well as ways to reduce the gender gap in organizations.