Social perception in negotiation

Economic Inequality Fosters the Belief That Success Is Zero-Sum

Ten studies (N = 3,628; including five pre-registered), using correlational and experimental methods and employing various measures and manipulations, reveal that perceived economic inequality fosters zero-sum beliefs about economic success-the belief that one person's gains are inevitably offset by others' losses. As the gap between the rich and the poor expands, American participants increasingly believed that one can only get richer at others' expense. Moreover, perceptions of economic inequality fostered zero-sum beliefs even when the distribution of resources was not strictly zero-sum and did so beyond the effect of various demographics variables (household income, education, subjective socioeconomic status) and individual differences (political ideology, social dominance orientation, interpersonal trust). Finally, I find that zero-sum beliefs account for the effect of inequality on people's view of the world as unjust. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of zero-sum beliefs about economic success.

Inferences about interdependence shape cooperation

During social interactions in daily life, people possess imperfect knowledge of their interdependence (i.e., how behaviors affect each person's outcomes), and what people infer about their interdependence can shape their behaviors. We review theory and research that suggests people can infer their interdependence with others along several dimensions, including mutual dependence, power, and corresponding-versus-conflicting interests. We discuss how perceptions of interdependence affect how people cooperate and punish others' defection in everyday life. We propose that people understand their interdependence with others through knowledge of the action space, cues during social interactions (e.g., partner behaviors), and priors based on experience. Finally, we describe how learning interdependence could occur through domain-specific and domain-general mechanisms.

The fear of conflict leads people to systematically avoid potentially valuable zero-sum situations

From interpersonal interactions to international arms races, game theorists and social scientists have long studied decision-making in zero-sum situations. Yet, what happens when people can freely choose whether to enter zero-sum situations in the first place? Thirteen studies (including five pre-registered) consistently document evidence for zero-sum aversion-the desire to avoid situations that are (or are believed to be) zero-sum. Across different contexts (economic games, market entry decisions, performance reviews, negotiations, job applications), samples (online participant pool, MBA students, community sample), and designs (within- and between-participant, real and hypothetical decisions), people avoid zero-sum situations that inversely link their and others' outcomes as well as refrain from putting others in such situations. Because people fear that zero-sum situations will be rife with conflict, they exhibit zero-sum aversion even when doing so is costly. Finally, we find that people require zero-sum situations to provide substantially higher payoffs (e.g., compensation) to overcome their zero-sum aversion. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for interpersonal and intergroup conflict.

Anger Expression in Negotiation: The Effects of Communication Channels and Anger Intensity

This research aimed to explore the effects of communication channels and anger intensity as factors determining how the expression of anger affects negotiation outcomes. Based on the "emotions as social information" (EASI) model and media richness theory, we tried to examine how anger expression influences both economic and psychological negotiation outcomes as a function of communication channels and explore its underlying mechanism. In Study 1, 470 participants were randomly assigned to one of the five experimental conditions-neutral, anger expression via text/emoticon/voice/video-and asked to participate in an online negotiation task. The results showed a significant main effect of communication channel; partner's anger expression via communication channels richer in non-verbal cues (voice and video) led participants to make a higher concession and report lower satisfaction with negotiation and lower desire for future interaction with the same partner compared to anger expression via less rich channels (text and emoticon). The anger expression effects on psychological outcomes were partially explained by perceiver's anger experience in response to anger display, which is consistent with the affective mechanism proposed by the EASI model. Study 2 examined whether the results of Study 1 could be attributable to the different levels of anger intensity perceived by the participants across different communication channels. Data analyses from 189 participants showed a significant main effect of anger intensity only with a desire for future interaction, but not with satisfaction and concession. The insignificant findings of the latter imply that the observed channel effect in Study 1 cannot be fully explained by the intensity effect.

If you rise, I fall: Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms advantaged groups

Nine preregistered studies (n = 4197) demonstrate that advantaged group members misperceive equality as necessarily harming their access to resources and inequality as necessarily benefitting them. Only when equality is increased within their ingroup, instead of between groups, do advantaged group members accurately perceive it as unharmful. Misperceptions persist when equality-enhancing policies offer broad benefits to society or when resources, and resource access, are unlimited. A longitudinal survey of the 2020 U.S. voters reveals that harm perceptions predict voting against actual equality-enhancing policies, more so than voters' political and egalitarian beliefs. Finally two novel-groups experiments experiments reveal that advantaged participants' harm misperceptions predict voting for inequality-enhancing policies that financially hurt them and against equality-enhancing policies that financially benefit them. Misperceptions persist even after an intervention to improve decision-making. This misperception that equality is necessarily zero-sum may explain why inequality prevails even as it incurs societal costs that harm everyone.

Negotiator Consistency, Counterpart Consistency, and Reciprocity in Behavior Across Partners: A Round-Robin Study

This research takes a new perspective on the long-standing mystery of personality in negotiation, which has seen decades of null and inconsistent findings. Grounded in interactionist theories defining personality as consistency in behaviors when placed multiple times in the same situation, the investigation examines consistency in individuals’ behavioral profiles across negotiation partners. Such consistency supports efforts to identify enduring dispositions that can predict objective and subjective outcomes. A comprehensive set of behaviors related to negotiation was coded in a round-robin study using groups of four negotiators who each took turns working with each other person. Analysis using Kenny’s Social Relations Model revealed evidence for extensive actor effects (indicating consistency in negotiators’ behavior), as well as moderate partner effects (indicating consistency in counterparts’ behavior) and dyadic reciprocity (indicating similarity in the behavior of negotiators and counterparts). We conclude with optimism for investigating the effects of personality in negotiation.

Subjective interdependence and prosocial behaviour

Interdependence describes the mutual control different individuals have over their own and others' outcomes. Recent research suggests that interdependence is mentally represented along dimensions of mutual dependence, conflict (vs correspondence) of interests, and relative power. People construe interdependence from cues in their social environment, but subjective perceptions are also influenced by stable individual differences. Importantly, perceptions of interdependence are associated with prosocial behaviour. Perceived conflict of interests, in particular, is detrimental to prosociality, whereas mutual dependence can foster prosocial behaviour. Further, perceived conflict of interests and power may together shape cooperative outcomes. Future research may help elucidate the roots of cross-cultural differences in subjective interdependence and examine how formal and informal institutions promote prosocial behaviour by shifting our perceptions of interdependence.

The straw man effect: Partisan misrepresentation in natural language

Political discourse often seems divided not just by different preferences, but by entirely different representations of the debate. Are partisans able to accurately describe their opponents’ position, or do they instead generate unrepresentative “straw man” arguments? In this research we examined an (incentivized) political imitation game by asking partisans on both sides of the U.S. health care debate to describe the most common arguments for and against ObamaCare. We used natural language-processing algorithms to benchmark the biases and blind spots of our participants. Overall, partisans showed a limited ability to simulate their opponents’ perspective, or to distinguish genuine from imitation arguments. In general, imitations were less extreme than their genuine counterparts. Individual difference analyses suggest that political sophistication only improves the representations of one’s own side but not of an opponent’s side, exacerbating the straw man effect. Our findings suggest that false beliefs about partisan opponents may be pervasive.

When Less Is More: How Complexity Impacts Goal Setting, Judgment Accuracy, and Deals in Negotiation

In two studies, we examine how objective complexity-in terms of numbers of negotiable issues-affects negotiators' aspirations, perceptions, actions, and ultimately, the quality of agreements they reach. We hypothesized and found that when negotiators had a greater number of issues to resolve, they were less ambitious for their own outcomes and developed less accurate insights into their partners' interests.

Resolving Conflicts Between People and Over Time in the Transformation Toward Sustainability: A Framework of Interdependent Conflicts

Transformative and mutually beneficial solutions require decision-makers to reconcile present- and future interests (i.e., intrapersonal conflicts over time) and to align them with those of other decision-makers (i.e., interpersonal conflicts between people). Despite the natural co-occurrence of intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts in the transformation toward sustainability, both types of conflicts have been studied predominantly in isolation. In this conceptual article, we breathe new life into the traditional dialog between individual decision-making and negotiation research and address critical psychological barriers to the transformation toward sustainability. In particular, we argue that research on intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts should be tightly integrated to provide a richer understanding of the interplay between these conflicts. We propose a novel, unifying framework of interdependent conflicts that systematically structures this interplay, and we analyze how complex interdependencies between the social (i.e., conflict between decision-makers) and temporal (i.e., conflict within a decision-maker) dimensions pose fundamental psychological barriers to mutually beneficial solutions. Since challenges to conflict resolution in the transformation toward sustainability emerge not only between individual decision-makers but also frequently between groups of decision-makers, we scale the framework up to the level of social groups and thereby provide an interdependent-conflicts perspective on the interplay between intra- and intergenerational conflicts. Overall, we propose simple, testable propositions, identify intervention approaches, and apply them to transition management. By analyzing the challenges faced by negotiating parties during interdependent conflicts and highlighting potential intervention approaches, we contribute to the transformation toward sustainability. Finally, we discuss implications of the framework and point to avenues for future research.

Individual differences in negotiation: A relational process model

Intuition suggests that individual differences should play an important role in negotiation performance, and yet empirical results have been relatively weak. Because negotiations are inherently dyadic, the dyad needs to feature prominently in theorizing. In expanding the traditional treatment of individual differences to two systematically interconnected parties, a relational process model (RPM) emerges. The RPM illustrates how the individual differences of both negotiators spark complex behavioral dynamics through five distinct theoretical mechanisms. Individuals (a) select each other, (b) set expectancies for each other, (c) serve as behavioral triggers and affordances for each other, (d) reciprocate and complement each other’s behaviors, and (e) vary in their responses to identical behaviors. It also directs attention to new classes and dimensions of individual difference factors. The RPM helps explain why past research has been highly conservative. A more complete picture needs to incorporate the complex interplay starting with parties’ individual differences.

The politics of zero-sum thinking: The relationship between political ideology and the belief that life is a zero-sum game

The tendency to see life as zero-sum exacerbates political conflicts. Six studies (N = 3223) examine the relationship between political ideology and zero-sum thinking: the belief that one party's gains can only be obtained at the expense of another party's losses. We find that both liberals and conservatives view life as zero-sum when it benefits them to do so. Whereas conservatives exhibit zero-sum thinking when the status quo is challenged, liberals do so when the status quo is being upheld. Consequently, conservatives view social inequalities-where the status quo is frequently challenged-as zero-sum, but liberals view economic inequalities-where the status quo has remained relatively unchallenged in past decades-as such. Overall, these findings suggest potentially important ideological differences in perceptions of conflict-differences that are likely to have implications for understanding political divides in the United States and the difficulty of reaching bipartisan legislation.

Enhancing Sustainable Employment Relationships: An Empirical Investigation of the Influence of Trust in Employer and Subjective Value in Employment Contract Negotiations

The article presents the results of an empirical study investigating the relationships between trust in the employer, the subjective value attained in the negotiation of the employment contract, job satisfaction and employee willingness to (re)negotiate in order to maintain long-term employment relationship. The study develops a research model, based on the existing literature, and uses the partial least-squares technique, and data collected from 373 information technology professionals, to test it. The results indicate the positive effect of the employee's trust in the employer on job satisfaction and willingness to (re)negotiate. Furthermore, the subjective value perceived by the employee in the employment contract negotiation has an increased positive influence on both employee satisfaction and employee willingness to use (re)negotiation to overcome potential issues and maintain the employment relationship long term. Overall, the results of the study bring evidence about the importance of trust and the subjective value in attaining sustainable employment relationships, and therefore sustainable human resource management (HRM). The results provide valuable insights for managers committed to the development of their organizations by promoting sustainable employment relationships. The study offers to firms a ready-to-use model for promoting sustainable employment relationships in organizations operating in knowledge-intensive sectors, such as information technology (IT).

Power and negotiation: review of current evidence and future directions

This review synthesizes the impact of power on individual and joint negotiation performance. Although power generally has positive effects on negotiators' individual performance (value claiming), recent work suggests that more power is not always beneficial. Taking a dyadic perspective, we also find mixed evidence for how power affects joint performance (value creation); some studies show that equal-power dyads create more value than unequal-power dyads, but others find the opposite. We identify the source of power, power distribution, and competitiveness as critical moderators of this relationship. Finally, we suggest that future research should move beyond studying alternatives in dyadic deal-making, identify strategies to overcome a lack of power,increase empirical realism, and take a more dynamic view of power in negotiations.

The fairness identity and the emergence of inequality

Social exchange theories explain how differences in structural power can generate inequalities in exchange networks. We argue here that even in the absence of structural power differences, inequality can emerge out of the identity process. We posit that when structurally equivalent actors are uncertain about the resource levels available for distribution, different levels of the fairness identity and responses to identity non-verification will influence how they negotiate for resources. Results from an experiment that varies the fairness identity level and the identity verification of actors in two different equal power exchange networks confirm this. Absent structural power differences, the level of the fairness identity, identity non-verification, and structure of the network mutually influence the distribution of resources such that some dyads earn as much as two and a half times more than others. We discuss our findings as they pertain to unearthing the processes by which group inequalities arise and persist.

When Essentialism Facilitates Intergroup Conflict Resolution: The Positive Role of Perspective-Taking

Essentialism, a fundamental belief of the fixedness of social group essences, is often associated with negative intergroup outcomes. However, research is yet to explore the role of essentialism in intergroup conflicts, despite their prevalence. To address this gap, we conducted the first direct examination on how essentialism influences conflict management toward out-group members. Moreover, we examined perspective-taking as a positive factor in improving conflict management among essentialist individuals relative to their non-essentialist counterparts in intergroup contexts. Results across three experiments provided little support to the negative effect of essentialism on intergroup (vs. intragroup) conflict management. Yet, we found that perspective-taking promoted the use of problem solving and improved one’s own gain and the dyad’s joint gain among essentialist individuals, but not non-essentialist individuals, in intergroup (vs. intragroup) conflict situations. This research suggests that when coupled with perspective-taking, essentialism can promote constructive conflict resolution in intergroup contexts.

Perceived deception in negotiation: Consequences and the mediating role of trust

Previous research on deception in negotiation focused primarily on the deceiver. It was posited that studying perceived deception from the recipient of a suspected deception is critical, but it receives scant attention in research. Drawing from the research on paranoid cognition and on detection of deception, perceived deception was examined through the display of nonverbal cues that are stereotypical of deception. Using videos simulating a negotiation scenario, Study 1 showed that deceptive nonverbal cues triggered perceived deception, and it was related to trustworthiness perception, intended concession, willingness to disclose information, and satisfaction with the negotiation counterpart negatively. Study 2 provided support for a sequential mediation model: The effect of deceptive nonverbal cues on negotiation responses was first mediated by perceived deception and subsequently by trust. Subtle cues of gaze aversion and speech pauses were able to trigger the effect. Implications of the findings on trust in negotiation are discussed.

The Impact of Mixed Emotions on Creativity in Negotiation: An Interpersonal Perspective

Creativity is critical to organizational success. Understanding the antecedents of creativity is important. Although there is a growing body of research on how (mixed) emotions affect creativity, most of the work has focused on intrapersonal processes. We do not know whether contrasting emotions between interacting partners (i.e., interpersonal mixed emotions) have creative consequences. Building on information processing theories of emotion, our research proposes a theoretical account for why interpersonal mixed emotions matter. It hypothesized that mixed- (vs. same-) emotion interactions would predict higher collective creative performance. We tested the hypothesis in two-party integrative negotiations (105 dyads). We manipulated negotiators' emotional expressions (angry-angry, happy-happy, angry-happy dyads) and measured the extent to which they generated creative solutions that tapped into hidden integrative potential in the negotiation for a better joint gain. The results overall supported the hypothesis: (i) there was some evidence that mixed-emotion dyads (i.e., angry-happy) performed better than same-emotion dyads; (ii) mixed-emotion dyads, on average, achieved a high level of joint gain that exceeded the (non-creative) zero-sum threshold, whereas same-emotion dyads did not. The findings add theoretical and actionable insights into our understanding of creativity, emotion, and organization behavior.

A test of construct isomorphism of the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game scale: A multilevel 43-nation study

BACKGROUND

We examined the equivalence of the individual and the country-level factor structure of the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG) scale, a tool designed to measure antagonistic beliefs about social relations (i.e., perceived social antagonism) in the struggle for limited resources.

AIMS

In this article we focused on a test of construct isomorphism in a multilevel modeling approach. It was hypothesized that the BZSG measure satisfies all requirements for a strong level of configural isomorphism, and thus that it is useful to investigate BZSG at both the individual and the country levels. The relationships between the BZSG at a country level with other macro-socio-economic indicators were also investigated.

METHOD

Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) was carried out on a cross-country sample composed of 11,368 participants from 43 different countries. We also used the country-level latent BZSG factor in each country as an indicator of a property that we attributed to a particular culture: cultural dimension (collectivism-individualism), macroeconomic indicators (GDP per capita and GNI per capita) and macrosocial indicators (Human Development Index and Democracy Index) describing societies.

RESULTS

The results revealed an isomorphic factor structure of perceived social antagonism (measured by BZSG scale), defined in terms of the equivalence factor structure at the both individual and country levels. Furthermore, the relationship between the perceived social antagonism, gross national income per capita, and collectivism were confirmed.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study supports the usefulness of the BZSG scale for cross-cultural comparison, in the case of its isomorphic structure. At the country level, antagonistic beliefs emerge in hierarchical collectivist societies with lower income. The main contribution of this article is the presentation of the test of construct isomorphism. We made an effort to present a full perspective on construct isomorphism putting together two different but very recent approaches.

Mindset-Oriented Negotiation Training (MONT): Teaching More Than Skills and Knowledge

In this conceptual paper, we propose that both skill set development and mindset development would be desirable dimensions of negotiation training. The second dimension has received little attention thus far, but negotiation mindsets, i.e., the psychological orientations by which people approach negotiations, are likely to have a considerable influence on the outcome of negotiations. Referring to empirical and conceptual mindset studies from outside the negotiation field, we argue that developing mindsets can leverage the effectiveness of skills and knowledge, increase learning transfer, and lead to long-term behavioral changes. We introduce an integrative negotiation mindset that comprises three inclinations which complement each other: a collaborative, a curious, and a creative one. We also discuss activities that help people to develop and enhance this mindset both in and out of the classroom. Our general claim is that by moving beyond the activities of conventional negotiation training, which focuses on skills and knowledge, mindset-oriented negotiation training can increase training effectiveness and enable participants to more often reach what we define as sustainable integrative agreements.

Personality Traits and Negotiation Style Effects on Negotiators' Perceptions in a Web-Based Negotiation

This article investigates the relationship between the prior knowledge of someone's personality traits and negotiation styles in negotiations supported by web-based negotiation support system (NSS) and the negotiator's perception of the usefulness of NSS, ease of use of communication mechanisms, and outcome satisfaction. A distributive negotiation problem between dyads was proposed for participants. The dyadic analyses were performed using the actor-partner interdependence model. As a result, the analyses found significant effects of prior knowledge of information about personality traits and negotiation styles on the negotiator's perception (actor effects) of the usefulness and ease of use of communication mechanisms, and an indirect effect on outcome satisfaction. Significant effects were also found in the relationship between the opponents' perceptions (partner effects) on ease of use of communication mechanisms and prior knowledge about personality traits and negotiation styles, as well as their effects on outcome satisfaction.

Functional Interdependence Theory: An Evolutionary Account of Social Situations

Social interactions are characterized by distinct forms of interdependence, each of which has unique effects on how behavior unfolds within the interaction. Despite this, little is known about the psychological mechanisms that allow people to detect and respond to the nature of interdependence in any given interaction. We propose that interdependence theory provides clues regarding the structure of interdependence in the human ancestral past. In turn, evolutionary psychology offers a framework for understanding the types of information processing mechanisms that could have been shaped under these recurring conditions. We synthesize and extend these two perspectives to introduce a new theory: functional interdependence theory (FIT). FIT can generate testable hypotheses about the function and structure of the psychological mechanisms for inferring interdependence. This new perspective offers insight into how people initiate and maintain cooperative relationships, select social partners and allies, and identify opportunities to signal social motives.

Effects of Experience and Advice on Process and Performance in Negotiations

This experiment ( N = 68 dyads) tested the influence of experience and advice on behavior and joint outcomes in integrative two-party negotiations. Dyads in an advice condition received short tactical advice to question fixed-pie assumptions and to exchange information. Afterward, they negotiated once. Dyads in an experience condition negotiated twice in successive rounds. Finally, dyads in an experience-and-advice condition negotiated twice and received advice prior to the second negotiation. Dependent measures were negotiation behavior, negotiation duration, joint outcome, and judgmental accuracy. Results showed that the combination of advice and experience led dyads to apply more problem solving and fewer contentious strategies, which mediated the higher joint outcomes that these dyads reached in shorter times. Experience or advice alone was not sufficient to make negotiators use different strategies or to exploit the integrative potential of the negotiations better than they did before they received advice and/or gained experience.

Trust Expectations, Information Sharing, Climate of Trust, and Negotiation Effectiveness and Efficiency

Trust expectations, information quantity shared, the climate of trust, and negotiated outcomes were investigated. Initial trust expectation was manipulated, and participants provided data about the quantity of information shared, the climate of trust, and the outcomes of the negotiations. The 324 participants were practicing managers who conducted a negotiating role play with win-win potential. Information sharing followed from initial trust expectations, and information sharing did not fully mediate the relationship between expectations and climate of trust. Negotiating effectiveness was associated with the quantity of information shared but not with trust. Procedural inefficiency (time to discover the solution) decreased as information quantity increased, but procedural inefficiency was not related to trust. One measure of outcome inefficiency (complexity of the agreement) decreased as trust increased, but another measure of outcome inefficiency (monetary cost of the agreement) was not related to trust. Unexpectedly, buyers’ monetary cost increased as information increased, suggesting that sellers might profit from information exchange and, indirectly, from trust. Contributions and limitations of the study are discussed in addition to implications of trust in negotiations by practicing managers.

A Look into the Mind of the Negotiator: Mental Models in Negotiation

Negotiation can be conceptualized as a problem-solving enterprise in which mental models guide behavior. We examined the association between negotiation outcomes and mental models, as measured by negotiators’ associative networks. Four hypotheses were supported. First, negotiators who reached optimal settlements had mental models that reflected greater understanding of the negotiation’s payoff structure, and of the processes of trading and exchanging information, compared to negotiators who did not reach optimal settlements. Second, negotiators who reached optimal settlements exhibited greater within-dyad mental model similarity. Third, experience-based training was more likely than instruction-based training to produce mental models similar to the mental models of negotiators who actually reached optimal settlements. Finally, negotiators who received 10 weeks of experience-based training had mental models that were similar to novice negotiators who reached optimal settlements, except that the mental models of the experienced negotiators were more abstract.

The Impact of Social Value Orientations on Negotiator Cognition and Behavior

Prior research using experimental games has demonstrated that social value orientations affect the ways in which individuals approach and react to interdependent others; prosocials exhibit greater cooperation than individualists and competitors. This article extends these lines of research by examining the influence of social value orientations on negotiation cognition and behavior. Consistent with predictions, prosocials, relative to individualists and competitors, exhibited lower levels of demand, exhibited greater levels of concessions, and ascribed greater levels of fairness and considerateness to the other person. Moreover, prosocials as well as individualists and competitors exhibited tendencies toward logrolling, making greater concessions on low-priority rather than high-priority issues. The discussion describes several theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Myopic Biases in Strategic Social Prediction: Why Deadlines Put Everyone Under More Pressure Than Everyone Else

Five experiments document biases in the way people predict the outcomes of interdependent social situations. Participants predicted that situational constraints would restrain their own behavior more than it would the behavior of others, even in situations where everyone faced identical constraints. When anticipating the effects of deadlines on outcomes of negotiations, participants predicted that deadlines would hinder their performance more than it would hinder the performance of others. The results shed light on the psychological processes by which people predict the outcomes of and select strategies in strategic social interaction. They extend prior findings, such as people believing themselves to be below average on difficult tasks, to highly interdependent situations. Furthermore, the article shows both how focusing can account for these effects and also how perspective taking can reduce their biasing influence.

A Nasty but Effective Negotiation Strategy: Misrepresentation of a Common-Value Issue

Conflicts sometimes involve issues for which both parties want the same outcome, although frequently parties fail to recognize their shared interests. These common-value issues set the stage for a nasty misrepresentation strategy: feigning opposed interest on the common-value issue to gain an advantage on other issues. In a laboratory negotiation simulation, participants used misrepresentation in 28% of their negotiations. The strategy was more likely to occur when negotiators had individualistic motives and was less likely to occur when both parties realized their common interests. Use of the strategy led to favorable outcomes, and these were best predicted by negotiator aspirations, rather than perceptual accuracy. The authors discovered two forms of the strategy: misrepresentation by commission (the user actively misrepresented his or her common-value issue preferences) and misrepresentation by omission (the user concealed his or her common-value issue interests when the other person made a favorable offer).

Perceived Versus Actual Transparency of Goals in Negotiation

Participants in Study 1 either engaged in a negotiation with a '"phantom "second negotiator or observed the negotiation. Negotiators judged whether the observer would be able to accurately discern their goals from their behavior; observers judged the negotiator's goals. Results indicated that negotiators overestimated the transparency of their objectives. An interaction between goal salience and constraints on communication was also evident: When communication was highly constrained, negotiators overestimated their transparency only when they were led to focus on their goals; when communication was less constrained, negotiators overestimated their transparency regardless of goal salience. Study 2 revealed that motivational forces are not necessary for transparency overestimation to occur: Observers informed about a negotiator's goals also overestimated the extent to which his or her goals would be transparent to an uninformed observer.

Moments in Time: Metacognition, Trust, and Outcomes in Dyadic Negotiations

This research tested the relationships between turning points, cognitive and affective trust, and negotiation outcomes. After completing a simulated negotiation, participants identified turning points from videotape. Turning points were then classified as substantive (interest, offer), characterization (positive, negative), or procedural (positive, negative). Prenegotiation affective trust predicted subsequent turning points, whereas prenegotiation cognitive trust did not, suggesting that different cues influence the two types of trust. Postnegotiation cognitive trust was increased by the occurrence of interest, positive characterization, and positive procedural turning points and decreased by negative characterization turning points. Affective trust was increased by positive procedural turning points. Finally, interest turning points resulted in higher joint outcomes, whereas negative characterization turning points resulted in lower joint outcomes. We conclude that there are two paths to building trust and increasing joint gain, one through insight and one through signaling good faith intentions.

High construal level can help negotiators to reach integrative agreements: The role of information exchange and judgement accuracy

In negotiations, a focus on interests (why negotiators want something) is key to integrative agreements. Yet, many negotiators spontaneously focus on positions (what they want), with suboptimal outcomes. Our research applies construal-level theory to negotiations and proposes that a high construal level instigates a focus on interests during negotiations which, in turn, positively affects outcomes. In particular, we tested the notion that the effect of construal level on outcomes was mediated by information exchange and judgement accuracy. Finally, we expected the mere mode of presentation of task material to affect construal levels and manipulated construal levels using concrete versus abstract negotiation tasks. In two experiments, participants negotiated in dyads in either a high- or low-construal-level condition. In Study 1, high-construal-level dyads outperformed dyads in the low-construal-level condition; this main effect was mediated by information exchange. Study 2 replicated both the main and mediation effects using judgement accuracy as mediator and additionally yielded a positive effect of a high construal level on a second, more complex negotiation task. These results not only provide empirical evidence for the theoretically proposed link between construal levels and negotiation outcomes but also shed light on the processes underlying this effect.