Here is a management tip for getting the most out of your female employees: if you want to fire them up before an important business negotiation, just talk to them about Larry Summers. Only you may find that this tactic also delivers some undesirable side-effects.

Laura Kray, a social psychologist at the Haas School of Business at the University of California in Berkeley, has used the case of the former Harvard president as a subtle way to change the behaviour of students in the "lab" where she works.