Go wide, get a good deal

Male executives who seek in edge in negotiations — and who doesn't? — have a new answer: a wide face.

That's courtesy of a study published by two assistant professors of management at the University of California Riverside's School of Business Administration. (Yes, there's a study for everything.) The paper is titled Negotiating face-to-face: Men's facial structure predicts negotiation performance. UC-Riverside professors Michael Haselhuhn and Elaine Wong co-wrote the paper in conjunction with researchers from the London Business School and Columbia University.

“These studies show that being a man with a wider face can be both a blessing and a curse and awareness of this may be important for future business success,” Haselhuhn says in a release.
The researchers set up several negotiation simulations. Two test cases include the following:

Men with wider faces negotiated a signing bonus of nearly $2,200 more than men with a more narrow face.

When men with wider faces were selling a chemical plant they negotiated a higher sale price than men with a more narrow face. When those same wide-faced men were in the buyer role they negotiated a lower price than the narrow-faced men.

This isn't the first time wider-faced men have scored well in a study like this. One previous study from the same research group determined men with wider faces usually lead more successful financial firms.

But it's not always roses for the wide-faced group: Another study found men with wider faces are more likely to lie and cheat. And the most recent study includes results that wide-faced men fare poorly on negotiations that involve more collaboration and less individual approaches.

All of this seems a little academic to Coffee Talk given the myriad factors that can impact business deals. But the researchers say this work is valuable. “We negotiate every day whether we think about it or not,” Haselhuhn says. “It's not just the big things, like a car or a home. It's what time your kid is going to go to bed or what you or your spouse are going to have for dinner.”