A counterpart’s feminine face signals cooperativeness and encourages negotiators to compete

•When people choose negotiation counterparts, they prefer men and women with more feminine faces.•Preferences for feminine faces are reversed when people select negotiation agents.•Negotiators believe feminine faced counterparts are going to behave more cooperatively.•Negotiators demand relatively more from feminine-featured counterparts.

Early on, negotiators take each other’s measure, drawing inferences that shape subsequent decisions and behaviors. In two studies, we investigate whether impressions based on the facial femininity of counterparts affect negotiators’ behaviors. In our first experiment, we tested whether negotiators would choose counterparts with more feminine-featured faces over those with less feminine faces. As predicted, regardless of counterpart sex, negotiators preferred counterparts with more feminine-featured faces. When choosing agents, however, this preference reversed, indicating strategic decision making on the part of negotiators. In a second experiment, we tested our underlying claim that facial femininity evokes stereotypes of cooperativeness. It did, and in keeping with our main hypotheses, negotiators demanded more from their feminine-featured counterparts.