What is subjective value in negotiation? The concept of subjective value describes how negotiators feel about intangible aspects of a negotiation, including the final outcome, their own performance, the negotiation process, and their relationship with their counterpart(s).
Key Insights
- The core concept: Subjective value measures the psychological and emotional outcomes of a negotiation, such as trust, fairness, and relationship satisfaction, which are just as critical as financial results.
- Objective vs. subjective value: While objective value focuses on measurable metrics like price or salary, subjective value focuses on the relational success of the deal and how your counterpart feels when they leave the table.
- The strategy: A new study shows that women win more repeat business by mastering relationship building in negotiation. To secure long-term partnerships, all negotiators should adopt this approach, including validating their counterpart’s perspective and acknowledging fair offers during the bargaining process.
Table of Contents
- How Stereotypes Affect Negotiation Behavior
- The Power of Relationship Building in Negotiation
- Why People Prefer Negotiating with Women
- Winning the Relationship
- How Can You Create More Subjective Value in Negotiation?
- Objective vs. Subjective Value in Negotiation
- Subjective Value FAQs
In a negotiation with a new counterpart, it’s important to get the deal terms right, but it’s also important to lay the groundwork for a successful long-term working relationship. And when it comes to relationship building in negotiation, women may have a distinct bargaining advantage, according to new negotiation research.
How Stereotypes Affect Negotiation Behavior
There’s an age-old stereotype that women tend to be more cooperative and communal, and men more competitive and individualistic. Negotiation, meanwhile, historically has been framed as a stereotypically male enterprise, one in which it pays to be assertive and self-interested.
These stereotypes often lead people to expect that women will make more concessions in negotiation and that men will negotiate better deals for themselves.
Indeed, early research supported the idea that women were more reticent at the bargaining table.
In their 2003 book, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever argued that “women don’t ask” nearly enough in career negotiations. Babcock and her colleagues’ research showed that women were less likely to negotiate their starting salary than men were, for example. Subsequent research showed that women often passed on opportunities to self-advocate because they accurately anticipated they would be judged negatively and penalized for doing so.
Women appear to have responded to this evidence by negotiating much more assertively for themselves. That is, women now do ask, according to the result of a 2024 study of business-school graduates by Laura Kray and her colleagues. As we wrote in a Program on Negotiation blog post earlier this year, women reported negotiating the salary of their first post-MBA job more often than men (54% of women, 44% of men).
The takeaway: Past research suggested women were reluctant to self-advocate. Perhaps in response to this message, women now appear to negotiate much more forcefully.
The Power of Relationship Building in Negotiation
At least in their own career negotiations, women seem to be asking for more. And women also tend to excel at the collaborative skills that are essential to relationship building, according to new negotiation research by Charlotte H. Townsend, Kray, and Solène Delecourt. That’s a winning combination.
To understand why, let’s review some groundbreaking research on negotiator satisfaction by Jared Curhan, Heng Xu, and Hillary Anger Elfenbein.
After wrapping up a negotiation, most people don’t evaluate their success based solely on objective outcomes, like meeting their salary target. Negotiator satisfaction often depends on much more subjective factors.
Specifically, Curhan, Xu, and Elfenbein identified four categories of feelings that strongly impact negotiator satisfaction:
- Feelings about measurable outcomes. Aside from the objective quality of their agreement, negotiators often have strong feelings about a deal’s quality. People also feel strongly about whether the deal was fair, equitable, complied with precedents, and so on.
- Feelings about the self. Our negotiated outcomes also affect how we feel about ourselves as bargainers. If you are unhappy with the result of a negotiation, you might question your competence or the degree to which you adhered to your principles.
- Feelings about the negotiation process. The degree to which you feel your counterpart listened to your concerns, negotiated fairly, and considered your opinions will affect your satisfaction—and vice versa.
- Feelings about the relationship. Your level of satisfaction with your dealmaking also depends on whether you believe you built trust with your counterpart, formed positive impressions of each other, and established a strong foundation for an ongoing partnership.
The takeaway: A negotiator’s ultimate satisfaction depends heavily on their feelings about what they achieved, and not just their objective financial outcome.
Why People Prefer Negotiating with Women
In their 2026 study, researchers Townsend, Kray, and Delecourt analyzed over 2,000 participants across five studies to find out whether gender impacts negotiator satisfaction.
First, the researchers analyzed feedback from an MBA class where students negotiated face-to-face. The students rated their female negotiation partners significantly higher on subjective measures like building trust, demonstrating fairness, communicating effectively, and listening. Consequently, partners expressed a stronger desire to negotiate with women again than with men. This preference didn’t arise because the women were pushovers: Men and women negotiated similar economic outcomes.
To test whether these results arose because people expected women to be “nicer,” the researchers conducted experiments in which participants negotiated anonymously online. Once again, after negotiating, they showed a strong preference for female counterparts, despite not knowing their gender.
Chat transcripts revealed the women were preferred because they were more likely to explicitly accept offers and validate their counterpart’s perspective. This behavior signaled to the partner that they were being heard and that the proposal was fair. This approach increased partner satisfaction without negatively impacting the women’s financial results.
The researchers estimated the real-world career impact of people’s preference for negotiating with women more than men. Over the course of a career, they calculated, female professionals would accumulate roughly 45% more negotiation opportunities than men simply by being invited back to the table more often.
The takeaway: By explicitly engaging in relationship building in negotiation, women secure significantly more repeat business than men without sacrificing financial gains.
Winning the Relationship
We tend to think of negotiation as a competitive, winner-takes-all game. But when played most successfully, negotiation is a carefully orchestrated combination of collaborative and cooperative strategies.
Winning great economic terms means very little if your negotiating counterpart never wants to sit across the table from you again. By focusing on how their counterpart feels during the process, this new research suggests, women appear to secure better long-term partnerships and generate significantly more future business.
The takeaway: Negotiators who balance securing strong economic terms with relational skills will win more long-term partnerships and repeat business.
How Can You Create More Subjective Value in Negotiation?
Try implementing these strategies for relationship building in negotiation:
- Explicitly accept pleasing proposals. Don’t just silently move on when your counterpart makes a fair proposal. Validating their offer makes them feel heard and respected.
- Monitor the relationship. Periodically check in on how your counterpart is feeling about the negotiation process to build a strong foundation of trust for future partnerships.
- Focus on fairness. Ensure that the final agreement complies with industry precedents and equitable standards so both sides feel they secured a legitimate deal.
Objective vs. Subjective Value in Negotiation
Understand the difference between the two primary ways negotiators measure success.
| Objective Value | Subjective Value | |
| Primary Focus | Measurable financial terms | Feelings, relationships, and process |
| Primary Goal | Maximize economic gain | Build trust and secure future deals |
| How It’s Measured | Price, salary, or contract length | Satisfaction, fairness, and willingness to collaborate again |
| Impact | Dictates the success of the immediate deal | Dictates the lifespan of the ongoing partnership |
Subjective Value FAQs
What is subjective value in negotiation?
Subjective value refers to the social, psychological, and emotional outcomes of a negotiation. It includes how a person feels about the measurable outcome, themselves, the process, and their relationship with their counterpart.
Why do people prefer negotiating with women?
Research shows that women are more likely to explicitly accept offers and validate their counterpart’s perspective. This collaborative communication style increases partner satisfaction and trust without sacrificing financial outcomes.
How does subjective value impact future business?
Creating high subjective value boosts negotiator satisfaction, which makes counterparts more receptive to working with you again. This should translate into more fruitful negotiation opportunities and trusting business partnerships over time.
Question: How do you work to promote relationship building in negotiation? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
