Having a wider face like Jack Nicholson, Jimmy Carter or Leonardo DiCaprio gives men an edge at the negotiating table but also could hurt if compromise is required.

Those are two of the findings of a new study this month in The Leadership Quarterly journal that set out to understand what role men’s wider faces – width of the face divided by upper facial height – have on negotiating performance.

“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,” said Michael P. Haselhuhn, an assistant management professor at the University of California, Riverside and the study’s co-author.

The work builds on earlier findings comparing wider-faced men and their narrow-faced counterparts by Haselhuhn and his co-authors, Elaine M. Wong, also of U.C. Riverside, and Margaret E. Ormiston of the London Business School. Previous research has found that wider-faced men have higher testosterone and are thus more aggressive. Wider-faced hockey players get more minutes in the penalty box, for example. They’re also more financially successful and have a better chance of getting a second date.

The three researchers already shown that firms whose male CEOs have wider faces – think Dell’s Michael Dell, or Southwest Airlines’ Herb Kelleher – achieve superior financial results. In negotiations, Haselhun and Wong also found that wider-faced men demonstrate greater self-interest, deceive others and are more likely to cheat in order to increase their financial gain.

“The first paper we did looked at ethics and negotiations,” Haselhuhn said. “These guys are physically aggressive but you can’t walk into a boardroom and check a guy against the wall.”

He continued: “How does aggression play out in a corporate setting? Social aggression is lying and cheating. Indeed, we found that wide-faced guys were more likely to lie in a negotiation. This paper was a kind of a logical extension of that. Being aggressive in negotiations isn’t necessarily all about being unethical. It can just be (that) you are being persistent. You are being focused on your own self-interest.”

In the first experiment, the researchers set up a scenario in which a group of male undergrads were told they had landed a job and now had to negotiate a signing bonus. Those with the wider faces managed to get $2,200 more than those with narrower faces.

Similarly, in another scenario, the researchers found that when male MBA students with wider faces were selling a chemical factory they negotiated a higher sale price than men with a more narrow faces. When those same wide-faced men were in the buyer role, they negotiated a lower price than the narrow-faced men.

But it wasn’t all good news for men with wider faces. In a third experiment, male MBA students were asked to come up with a “creative solution” negotiate differences over the sale of a gas station. The problem, known as the Texoil negotiation exercise, meant that the lowest amount of money that the station owner would accept is greater than the highest amount of money that the buyer is authorized to spend.

This time, the wider-faced men “were less able to share information and collaborate to find a way to bridge that gap,” Haselhuhn said.

Nicholas Rule, principal investigator of the Social Perception and Cognition Lab in the psychology department at the University of Toronto ,and who was not part of the study, was intrigued by the findings.

“What’s particularly exciting about this work is that they were looking at the effects of facial-width-to-height-ratio in live interactions,” said Rule, an expert in the relationship between nonverbal behavior and leadership success.”Men are more aggressive in negotiations, tend to do better, but may not see the forest for the trees.”

No women were part of the study. The researchers focused on men, they said, because prior research has suggested that face-width-to-height ration is “particularly important” in male-to-male interactions. It is not “predictive of any changes in behavioral or psychological outcomes in women.”

Haselhuhn said he expects the findings to further help business leaders who already intuitively expect wide-faced men to be more self-interested, tough and competitive. As a result, they will typically avoid a fight with the wide-faced executive.

“When you are negotiating against somebody else, you want as much information as possible about how we should prepare and let’s anticipate how this negotiation is going to go,” he said. “This is one signal.”

Haselhuhn said the findings could also allow wide-faced men to change their strategy if they know they are going to be perceived as aggressive.

“Men should consider how their counterpart is going to view them,” he said. “If I have a wide face and the other guy expects me to be more competitive because wide-faced guys typically are and I really want to build a relationship, I know that I’d better be extra careful in starting off the negotiation on the right foot to build the level of trust.”

如果一个男人拥有像杰克•尼科尔森、吉米•卡特以及莱昂纳多•迪卡普里奥那样的宽脸，则他在谈判桌上会更具优势，但如果谈判中需要让步，则宽脸男性也可能会成为麻烦。

这是《领导者季刊》（Leadership Quarterly）本月研究得出的两项结果，该研究旨在了解男人的脸宽（脸部宽高比）对谈判表现的影响。

美国加州大学河滨分校管理助理教授迈克尔P. 哈瑟胡恩（Michael P. Haselhuhn）是此次研究的合著者，他表示：“这些研究表明，宽脸男人是一把双刃剑，而意识到这一点可能对未来业务的成功有着重要意义。”

此次研究基于以往的研究成果。哈瑟胡恩的合著者伊莱恩M•黄（Elaine M. Wong）也是加州大学河滨分校的教授，他们曾与伦敦商学院（London Business School）的玛格丽特E.奥米斯顿（Margaret E. Ormiston）教授合作开展了一项研究，将宽脸者与窄脸者进行对比。该研究发现宽脸男人体内睾酮水平更高，所以更加强势。例如，宽脸曲棍球运动员在犯规球员禁闭区待的时间更长。宽脸男性在财务上也更加成功，而且在恋爱中获得第二次约会的几率更高。

这三位研究人员的成果显示，脸型较宽的首席执行官——例如戴尔的迈克尔•戴尔（Michael Dell）以及美国西南航空公司的赫伯•凯莱赫（Herb Kelleher）——都获得了优异的财务业绩。哈瑟胡恩和伊莱恩•黄还发现，在谈判中，宽脸男人更自私，更善于欺骗别人，而且更可能会为了获得更多经济利益而作弊。

哈瑟胡恩表示：“我们的第一篇论文主要研究道德和谈判。宽脸男人通常具有攻击性，但你不可能走进会议室去衡量每个人的宽高比。”

他继续说道：“侵略性在企业环境中会以何种方式表现出来？社会侵略性表现为撒谎和欺骗。确实，我们发现宽脸男人在谈判中撒谎的可能性更大。这篇论文是对这一理论的逻辑延伸。在谈判中表现强势并不一定是不道德的。也许只是因为你很固执，专注于自己的利益。”

在第一个实验中，研究人员为一群男性本科生设定了一个场景，告诉他们已获得一份工作，目前需要就签约奖金进行谈判。那些宽脸学生获得的签约奖金比窄脸学生多2,200美元。

同样在另一个场景中，研究人员让一群MBA学生出售一家化学工厂。研究人员发现宽脸MBA学生通过谈判达成的售价高于窄脸MBA学生。而当这些宽脸学生扮演买家时，他们通过谈判得到的价格低于窄脸学生。

但是宽脸男人并非在各方面都具有优势。在第三个实验中，研究人员要求男性MBA学生们制定一个“创造性的解决方案”，通过谈判解决加油站出售中存在的价格分歧。这个问题被称为Texoil谈判练习，加油站所有者能够接受的最低价格高于买方获得授权可支付的最高额。

哈瑟胡恩表示，在这个案例中，宽脸男人“不大愿意通过共享信息和合作来寻求缩小差距的解决办法。”

尼古拉斯•鲁尔（Nicholas Rule）是多伦多大学心理学系社会感知与认知实验室的首席研究员，虽然他并未参与这项研究，但他对这项研究结果很感兴趣。

鲁尔是研究非语言行为与领导者成功之间关系的专家，他表示：“这项研究非常有意思，研究的是面部宽高比对现场互动的影响。在谈判中更为强势的男性往往表现得更好，但也可能是窥豹一斑罢了。”

研究并没有涉及女性。研究人员只专注于男性，因为此前的研究已表明面部宽高比在男性与男性互动中的影响“尤其显著”。宽高比的差异无法”预测女性行为或心理结果的任何变化”。

哈瑟胡恩表示，有些领导者本能地认为宽脸男人更多考虑自我利益、更强势且更好胜，他预计该结果将进一步为这些商界领袖提供佐证。正因如此，他们通常会避免与宽脸高管进行争论。

他说道：“当你与别人谈判时，你想获得尽可能多的信息，从而进行有针对性的准备，并预计谈判将如何进行。该研究便提供了一个信号。”

哈瑟胡恩表示，该研究成果也会使宽脸男人改变他们的策略，因为他们知道别人会认为他们很强势。

他表示：“男性应该考虑一下谈判对手会如何看待他们。如果我有一张宽脸，其他人会先入为主地认为我更好胜，而我确实想通过谈判建立一种关系，那么我一开始就应该非常谨慎，通过良好的开端来建立信任。”