Gender differences in the professional landscape could be a result of differences in the power granted to men and women, according to the Columbia Business School of Executive Education. Psychologists conducted a series of studies in which they randomly assigned power conditions to participants of both genders, then tested their ability to negotiate and interpreting others’ emotions. The studies found that those who were assigned higher power conditions were confident and maneuvered more easily in negotiations, but were also less perceptive of their counterparts’ emotions. The researchers suggest that this assignment of power could be one of the reasons why women are held back — they are given less power, which discourages them from speaking up for themselves and negotiating a raise or a promotion, for example. “There are numerous strategies which can help us negotiate power differences, but if we really want to take this seriously, and address long-standing gender disparities then there’s only one solution: We need to give women more power.”