Maria Aspan is a senior writer at Fortune, where she writes features primarily focusing on gender, finance, and the intersection of business and government policy. Her work has won multiple honors from SABEW and others, and her investigation into the risky business of breast implants received the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award for public service in magazine journalism, among several other public-service awards. She is also a co-chair of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International and CEO Initiative conferences, and of Fortune Connect. Before joining Fortune in 2019, Maria was editor-at-large at Inc., where she wrote features while overseeing Inc.’s financial coverage and its annual Female Founders 100 list. She is the author of Startup Money Made Easy: The Inc. Guide to Every Financial Question About Starting, Running, and Growing Your Business (Harper Collins). Maria has also covered business and finance for the New York Times, Thomson Reuters, and Am
/PRNewswire/ FORTUNE has announced that Reshma Saujani, activist and founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms, and Mandela Schumacher-Hodge.
April 8, 2021
Picture a debate or a negotiation and it’s likely you’re thinking of a rapid-fire exchange of arguments between two animated parties. Silence, meanwhile, is typically seen as a sign that one side is stumped dead air is for losers.
New research, however, recasts silence as a productive force, one that results in more satisfying outcomes for both parties during bargaining. A new paper, published in the
Journal of Applied Psychology, describes how pausing for at least three seconds before speaking allows parties time to respond with more meaningful rebuttals and counter arguments.
The study also punctures the notion that keeping mum is a power move meant to make your opponent uncomfortable.