Implications of Self-observation for Metaperceived Gender Salience During Mixed-Gender Online Negotiations

Gender salience is a core construct in theories of gender-related affect, cognition, and behavior. This research suggests a novel, subtle trigger of gender salience in mixed-gender negotiations: the self-observation typically involved in online interaction. This trigger maps onto everyday experience and is qualitatively different from other documented triggers. We reasoned that given individuals’ enduring alertness to the possibility of being viewed unfavorably by others, seeing their own image would lead them to imagine that their interaction partner was focused on their gender—a visible distinctive group membership in the interaction context. A mini meta-analysis across three studies in which mixed-gender dyads negotiated online with self-view on or off (total N = 366 dyads) indicated that overall self-observation increased women’s but not men’s metaperceived gender salience, although there was some inconsistency across the studies. Analyses of indirect effects suggested that higher gender salience was associated with greater female disadvantage in negotiation outcomes.