Men with wider faces negotiate better

Men with wider faces are better at negotiating when it comes to their own benefit but not so much when the situation requires compromise and collaboration, says a study.

It adds that men who are more attractive are better collaborators compared to less attractive men.

"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," said Michael P. Haselhuhn, an assistant professor of management at the University of California-Riverside.

The study described four negotiation simulations.

In the first, researchers found that men with wider faces negotiated a signing bonus of nearly $2,200 more than men with a more narrow face.

In another scenario, researchers found that when men with wider faces were selling a chemical plant, they negotiated a higher sale price than men with narrower faces.

When those same wide-faced men were in the buyer role, they negotiated a lower price than the narrow-faced men.

In the third negotiating scenario, in which a creative solution is needed to bridge a gap on a real estate transaction, researchers noticed that teams with wider-faced men were less successful in the negotiation.

In the final scenario, research assistants were given a series of questions to assess the attractiveness and beauty of the research subjects.

Again, the men were paired off and given the same scenario in which they needed to come up with a creative solution to bridge a gap on a real estate transaction.

The study found that more attractive men were more successful in the negotiation.

The paper was published online in the journal The Leadership Quarterly.