Male pragmatism in negotiators’ ethical reasoning

a r t i c l e i n f o Across four studies, we explored why a gender gap emerges in negotiator ethics, such that men set lower ethical standards than women. The male pragmatism hypothesis suggests men, more than women, are motiva-tionally biased in setting ethical standards. Experiment 1 demonstrated how negotiations' masculinity implications underlie this gender gap in ethics. Experiment 2 demonstrated that, by viewing ethics from a self-interested perspective, men were more egocentric in their ethical reasoning than women. Experiment 3 demonstrated that, by granting themselves more leniency in ethics than others, men exhibited more moral hypocrisy than women. Experiment 4 examined how implicit negotiation beliefs affect the relation between gender and ethical standards. As hypothesized, fixed beliefs predicted lower ethical standards, particularly for men. These findings suggest a robust pattern by which men are more pragmatic in their ethical reasoning at the bargaining table than women. Introduction Bernie Madoff is infamous for luring myriad investors into doomed business deals under false pretenses. Yet, if Bernie had been born Bernadette, would similarly egregious ethical lapses have occurred? Since Gilligan's (1982) seminal work on moral development , differences have been noted in how men and women distinguish right from wrong. Though evidence that men and women have categorically distinct moral orientations is tenuous (Jaffey & Hyde, 2000), women appear to have higher ethical standards than men in business contexts (Franke, Crown, & Spake, 1997). In strategic interactions, men are more accepting of ethically questionable tactics The prevalence of economically devastating business scandals involving male protagonists raises the question of what drives men's ethical reasoning. To understand this gender gap in ethics, we explore its cognitive-motivational underpinnings. We hypothesized that men are more pragmatic in their ethical reasoning than women. Ethical pragmatism involves judging ethicality on the basis of practical consequences and whether decision makers' goals are achieved (James, 1896), and is evidenced by responsiveness to situational cues. People are generally motivated to interpret ambiguous information beneficially and to seek information supporting self-interested conclusions 1979). Yet, when it comes to morality, males are more morally disengaged than females (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996). In other words, males more readily justify moral misconduct by minimizing its consequences or otherwise excusing it. In addition, males adjust their moral orientation on the basis of situational characteristics, like protagonist sex, more so than females (Bussey & Maughan, 1982). Each of these …