📊 A Survey Experiment With EU Diplomats

A survey experiment conducted in the Council of the European Union tests whether gender stereotypes shape bargaining outcomes among elite negotiators. The study presents diplomatic representatives with bargaining proposals and examines how a female representative's stereotypically weak or vulnerable behavior affects other negotiators' willingness to support her proposal.

🔎 What Was Measured and How

• Experimental manipulation within the Council of the European Union with diplomats as respondents.
• Observed outcome: whether other representatives (especially male representatives) agreed to support a bargaining proposal from a female representative who displayed stereotypically weak or vulnerable behavior.

📌 Key Findings

• Female representatives who behaved in ways that fit gender-stereotypical images of weakness and vulnerability were more likely to elicit support from male representatives.
• This chivalry reaction—the increased likelihood that men agree to back a bargaining proposal from women—was conditional on negotiators' cultural background.
• The chivalry effect was concentrated among diplomats from countries with relatively low levels of gender equality; it was not broadly uniform across all national backgrounds.

💡 Why This Matters

• Demonstrates that gender stereotypes operate at the elite level of international diplomacy and can materially alter bargaining outcomes.
• Expands research on nonstandard behavior in international relations by highlighting how emotions and their reception (e.g., perceived vulnerability) influence diplomatic decision making.
• Suggests that gender stereotypes moderate intuitive cognitive processes underlying negotiators' choices, extending insights from laboratory studies to real-world elite settings.
• Argues for greater attention to gender in the study of international negotiations, where gender dynamics have been largely overlooked despite their substantive effects.