Yes, ladies, you are as charming as you think you are. That’s the finding of anew study on flirting from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business at the University of California.
From the seductive femme fatale to the love-at-first-sight girl next door, women have often demonstrated power over men. And this new study suggests how it’s done. “Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of its Costs and Benefits in Negotiations,” published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that women who flirt get what they want.
Researchers sought to measure the impact of subtle, casual flirting, not over-the-top sexual advances: a slight touch of arm or a confident bat of an eye. They found that flirting helped women achieve negotiating objectives.
“Women are uniquely confronted with a tradeoff in terms of being perceived as strong versus warm. Using feminine charm in negotiation is a technique that combines both,” says Laura Kray, Haas School of Business professor and study author.
According to the study, co-authored by Haas PhD alumna Connson C. Locke of the London School of Economics and Haas PhD candidate Alex B. Van Zant, for flirting to yield optimal negotiating results, it must come across as genuine and engaging, yet lacking a serious agenda.
Kray also suggests that flirting is not unprofessional. “The key is to flirt with your own natural personality in mind. Be authentic. Have fun. That will translate intoconfidence, which is a strong predictor of negotiation performance.”
Even former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted to flirting her way through negotiations when asked by comedian Bill Maher back in 2009.
To evaluate the social charm of men vs. women, 100 participants were asked to rate their own use of flirtation in negotiations. Additionally, subjects assessed their partners’ negotiating success. Results proved that women who self-reported a higher rate of flirtation, were seen as more effective by their partners. However, men who self-reported an inflated rate of flirtation, were not.
Researchers also surveyed the men and women on two hypothetical situations regarding the selling of a car. One involved a serious female customer shopping for the best price, while the other described a buyer who smiled, touched, and winked at her seller while playfully inquiring about cost.
Again, results showed that men were more than willing to give the flirtatious shopper a discount while women were unaffected by the customer’s flirtatious behavior.
