WHEN DOES SYMPATHY WORK IN SALARY NEGOTIATION? THE ROLE OF GENDER AND TYPE OF SYMPATHY APPEAL

Abstract

A recent study found that the use of sympathy appeals lead to better negotiation outcomes as compared to the use of rational or fairness appeals. The present research extends this work by looking at the moderating role of gender and type of sympathy appeal. Drawing from the gender role theory, it was hypothesized that sympathy appeals would exert the strongest for females when using family-related issues in the appeals. Study 1 examined the effects of sympathy appeals that are categorized into family-related or self-related, while also examining the effect of gender. Participants were assigned the role of a supervisor who has to grant salary raises to employees. Results did not support the hypotheses. However, the perception of employee’s deservingness predicted negotiation outcomes. Following up on Study 1, Study 2 examined deservingness together with gender to investigate the effect of family-related sympathy appeal. Participants were assigned the same role. Results suggest that top performers receive higher salary raises than average performers, regardless of gender. Deservingness was also found to mediate the relationship between work performance and salary raise. Across both studies, sympathy was not found effective in salary negotiations. Implications and future directions of the research are discussed.