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Briefly describe the following four approaches used to study the behavior of successful negotiators: (1) comparing superior and average negotiators in actual negotiations; (2) comparing expert and amateur negotiators in simulated negotiations; (3) comparing experienced and naïve negotiators in simulated negotiations; and (4) studying high-profile negotiators. Each of these approaches has strengths and weaknesses; none of them is ideal.
22. Four approaches have been used to study the behavior of successful negotiators: Superior versus Average Negotiators - A comprehensive study comparing superior and average negotiators in actual negotiations was conducted by Neil Rackham (1980), who compared the behavior of labor relations negotiators in 102 actual negotiation sessions. He found important differences between superior and average negotiators during pre-negotiation planning, face-to-face negotiations, and postnegotiation review. The results of this study are summarized in Table 15.1. While the results of Rackham's study may not be fully applicable to negotiations outside of labor relations, they provide sensible advice for all negotiators. Expert versus Amateur Negotiators - Margaret Neale and Greg Northcraft (1986) compared the performance of expert and amateur negotiators in a simulated negotiation market. The expert negotiators in the study were professional negotiators with average formal experience of more than 10 years. The amateur negotiators were graduate and undergraduate college students. Neale and Northcraft found that while both experts and amateurs were more likely to reach integrative solutions as the market progressed, experts were more integrative at the beginning of the negotiations than were amateurs. Experts also tended to receive higher average outcomes than amateurs, although this difference was not very large. Experienced versus Naïve Negotiators - Leigh Thompson (1990) examined the effects of a particular kind of experience - prior opportunities to engage in integrative bargaining - on judgments, behaviors, and outcomes in negotiation. Thompson formed two groups of negotiators. In the experienced negotiator group, negotiators increased their experience by bargaining with a different person in seven different integrative negotiation simulations. In the naïve negotiator group, negotiators had either little or no previous experience with integrative negotiation, and only one opportunity to increase their experience in the study. Thompson found that experienced negotiators made more accurate judgments about the other party's priorities as they gained experience and that the likelihood of negotiating favorable agreements increased with experience, especially when negotiating with a naïve negotiator who had no previous experience with the simulation.O'Connor, Arnold, and Burris (2005) explored how experience in one negotiation encounter influences the quality of negotiated outcomes in subsequent encounters. Their findings were straightforward: Those whose first negotiation ended in impasse (no deal) were more likely to reach another impasse in their next negotiation. Moreover, those who reached an impasse the first time but reached a deal the second time arrived at agreements of lower quality compared to those who successfully reached a deal the first time. These results held regardless of whether the second negotiation was with the same opponent or not, whether negotiation occurred face-to-face or online, or whether the time interval between negotiations was short (15 minutes) or long (one week). Study High-Profile Negotiators - An approach to studying successful negotiators that offers an alternative to systematic social science is to look in a narrative way at the professional lives of famous negotiators. This is the approach taken by Michael Benoliel and Linda Cashdan in their book Done Deal: Insights from Interviews with the World's Best Negotiators (2005). Their interviews generated first-hand accounts from professionals in business, law, politics, and diplomacy about the key techniques and strategies that made them successful. In the book's concluding chapter, Benoliel and Cashdan describe a "master negotiator" as an individual with a blend of intelligences, attitudes, and skills. These include, among other things, both cognitive ability and emotional intelligence, along with self-motivation, patience, pragmatism, perspective-taking ability, creativity, and strategic vision. It should be apparent that this list overlaps significantly with the traits and abilities that have been considered in the empirical research on individual differences that have been discussed in this chapter.
Does an activated stereotype matter more than the actual gender of the negotiator?
A study by Kray, Reb, Galinsky, and Thompson (2004) found that more powerful negotiators (those with a superior alternative in the form of a better BATNA) obtained higher outcomes when a masculine stereotype - one that stressed that aggressiveness and self-interest were important for negotiator success - was explicitly activated. When a feminine stereotype was activated, negotiators of both sexes achieved more integrative outcomes.
Discuss the reasoning behind the alternative approach of studying successful negotiators.
Some research seeks to uncover negotiation effectiveness by analyzing the actual behaviors of superior negotiators, rather than identifying their personality traits or native abilities. The implicit assumption underlying this research is that individuals who can understand and apply the behavior of successful negotiators will become better negotiators themselves. That assumption rests, in turn, on an even more basic premise: that negotiation is a skill that can actually be improved rather than just a fixed ability that you either have or you don't. To put it another way, are good negotiators born or made? It won't surprise you to learn that as authors of a textbook on negotiation, they side with the view that negotiation is a skill that can be developed.
One way of moving the study of personality toward a more unified and coherent position and away from numerous studies of a multitude of seemingly unrelated traits is to focus on a very few key personality categories, or factors, under which most individual traits can be subsumed. This is what personality psychologists had in mind when they developed the Five-Factor Model of personality. With that said what are the personality factors that comprise the Big Five?
The Big Five personality factors that are related to negotiator behavior and outcomes are: Extraversion - being sociable, assertive, talkative. Agreeableness - being flexible, cooperative, trusting. Conscientiousness - being responsible, organized, achievement oriented. Emotional stability - being secure, confident, not anxious. Openness - being imaginative, broad-minded, curious.
Thomas (1976) proposed that two personality dimensions can represent the two levels of concern which identify five major conflict management styles. Based on that proposal briefly describe the five major conflict management styles.
The five major conflict management styles are: A competing style - high on assertiveness and low on cooperativeness. An accommodating style - low on assertiveness and high on cooperativeness. An avoiding style - low on both assertiveness and cooperativeness. A collaborating style - high on both assertiveness and cooperativeness. A compromising style - moderate on both assertiveness and cooperativeness.
In recent years, psychologists have proposed that other forms of intelligence beyond general cognitive ability may exist as stable abilities. One in particular that has attracted a good deal of attention since the early 1990s is the notion of emotional intelligence (EI). How do researchers define emotional intelligence?
Researchers define emotional intelligence as encompassing a set of discrete but related abilities: (1) the ability to perceive and express emotion accurately; (2) the ability to access emotion in facilitating thought; (3) the ability to comprehend and analyze emotion; and (4) the ability to regulate appropriately one's own emotions and those of others (Mayer and Salovey, 1997). A book written by a journalist in the mid-1990s (Goleman, 1995) made strong claims about the role of emotional intelligence in a broad range of social domains and attracted widespread attention in the popular press.
What did Robin Pinkley find when she explored how disputants interpret, or "frame," conflict situations?
Robin Pinkley (1990, 1992) explored how disputants interpret, or "frame," conflict situations. In her research, people remembered and described a recent dispute in which they were involved. Pinkley found that disputants use three dimensions to interpret conflicts: relationship versus task, emotional versus intellectual, and compromise versus win. Women were more likely to perceive conflict episodes in relationship terms, whereas males were more likely to perceive the task characteristics of conflict episodes.
What role does self-monitoring play in negotiation and what are some of the effects that can be realized?
Self-monitoring refers to the extent to which people are responsive to the social cues that come from the social environment (Snyder, 1974, 1987). High self-monitors are attentive to external, interpersonal information that arises in social settings and are more inclined to treat this information as cues to how they should behave. Low self-monitors are less attentive to external information that may cue behavior and are guided more in their behavioral choices by inner, personal feelings. Think of self-monitoring as the extent to which people monitor the external social environment for cues about how they are supposed to behave.
What is the difference between sex and gender?
Sex refers to the biological categories of male and female. As one standard dictionary of English puts it, sex is "the property or quality by which organisms are classified as female or male on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions." Gender refers to cultural and psychological markers of the sexes - the aspects of role or identity (rather than biology) that differentiate men from women in a given culture or society.
According to Kolb and Coolidge, what are the six ways that women conceptualize negotiations differently than men?
Six ways that women conceptualize negotiations differently than men include: Relational View of Others - Women are more likely to perceive negotiation as part of the larger context within which it takes place. Men tend to be task oriented and want to resolve the matter at hand and not to concentrate on the other party's feelings or perceptions. Embedded View of Agency - Women tend not to draw strict boundaries between negotiating and other aspects of their relationships with other people. Men tend to demarcate negotiating from other behaviors that occur in the relationship, and to signal the beginning and end of the negotiations behaviorally. Beliefs about Ability and Worth - A woman's perceived worth affects how she approaches the negotiation table. Control through Empowerment - Women are more likely to seek empowerment when there is interaction among all parties in the relationship to build connection and enhance everyone's power. Men can be characterized as using power to achieve their own goals, or to force the other party to capitulate to their point of view. Problem Solving through Dialogue - Women seek to engage the other in a joint exploration of ideas whereby understanding is progressively clarified through interaction. Men use dialogue to convince the other party that their position is the correct one, and to support various tactics and ploys that are used to win points during the discussion. Perceptions and Stereotypes - Men have an advantage in negotiation as a "dominant cultural stereotype." For the female negotiator, this may mean a reputation that precedes her.
What were the four conceptual elements of Machiavellianism theorized and demonstrated by Dahling and colleagues?
The four conceptual elements of Machiavellianism are: Distrust - High Machs are actively distrustful of others. Amoral manipulation - High Machs are "selectively willing to deviate from moral standards when the opportunity for gain presents itself." Desire for control - Seeing other people as threatening, high Machs wish to dominate interpersonal situations. Desire for status - High Machs are driven to "pursue goals such as wealth, power, and status" in order to feed "a desire to accumulate external indicators of success."
What has past research tended to find in the search for gender differences?
The search for gender differences is the most researched individual difference topic in negotiation. Until recently, this research tended to yield contradictory findings; some re-search suggests that there is little or no difference between male and female negotiators, whereas other research documents significant differences between male and female negotiators. Large-scale reviews of the literature on gender differences in negotiation have concluded that women behave less competitively and more cooperatively in negotiation than men and that men tend to negotiate better outcomes than women (Kulik and Olekalns, 2012; Stuhlmacher and Walters, 1999; Walters, Stuhlmacher, and Meyer, 1998). For each of these conclusions, however, the differences, while statistically significant, are small.
Discuss why, although it seems like an obvious and intuitive insight that people have different personalities and that variations in personality affect how things go, there is still controversy among scholars in psychology and organizational behavior about the overall importance of dispositions.
To simplify the debate, on one side are those who argue that the study of personality is theoretically thin and that dispositional effects are less important than situations in predicting attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Davis-Blake and Pfeffer, 1989). On the other side are those who concede that situations matter but insist that dispositions by themselves are significant predictors of relevant behaviors (e.g., House, Shane, and Herold, 1996). Many psychologists have come to regard the debate as a "false dichotomy" (Funder, 2001, p. 200): Research offers ample evidence that personality traits are sufficiently stable and can be as predictive of important behaviors as situations. In short, dispositions and situations both matter.
Although we might conceptualize trust as an attitude that shifts with changing relationships and circumstances, trust also functions as a personality variable with important effects in social relationships. With that in mind, discuss the meaning of "interpersonal trust" and in what ways it is determined.
According to research by Julian Rotter (1980), individuals differ in their level of interpersonal trust - defined as "a generalized expectancy held by an individual that the word, promise, oral, or written statement of another individual or group can be relied upon." Interpersonal trust, according to Rotter, is determined by the experiences that people have in dealing with others. If people have had experiences in which they have trusted others, and this trust has been rewarded by reciprocal trust and productive relationships, then generalized interpersonal trust should be high. In contrast, if people have had their trust punished by others through exploitation, deception, and dishonesty, then interpersonal trust is likely to be low.
What did Bowles and colleagues find out after investigating reactions to males and females who negotiate with aggressive tactics in a job interview situation?
Bowles, Babcock, and Lai (2007) investigated reactions to people who negotiate aggressively. Participants in the study read a résumé and interview notes from a job candidate. The gender of the candidate was varied as well as whether or not the candidate attempted to negotiate for specific job benefits. Aside from these two manipulations, participants saw exactly the same information. Results showed that both male and female candidates were less likely to be hired when they bargained aggressively. However, women were far less likely than men to be hired when aggressive. In short, women were punished far more severely than men for exactly the same action.
Describe how self-efficacy plays an important role in complex interpersonal behavior, including negotiation.
For example, a negotiator's self-efficacy predicts the likelihood that he or she will choose to negotiate, rather than accept mediation. In research using a salary negotiation simulation, Marilyn Gist and her colleagues (1991) found that people with higher levels of self-efficacy set higher goals for themselves, and as a result obtained higher salaries in the simulation. An individual's perceived level of competence at the task of negotiation also may increase the likelihood that collaborative problem solving will occur. Alexander, Schul, and McCorkle (1994), in a study of industrial managers participating in a sales negotiation simulation, found that individuals high in task-specific self-esteem (perceived degree of competence in performing a task) engaged in more cooperative, problem- solving behaviors. These perceptions of a person's own competence extend to the use of specific kinds of negotiating tactics. Those who believe themselves more skilled at using distributive or integrative tactics employed these strategies more often and achieved higher outcomes in distributive or integrative problems, respectively (Sullivan, O'Connor, and Burris, 2006).
What did researchers find in how same-sex pairs of men and women negotiated in a low-conflict bargaining situation?
Halpern and Parks (1996) used a low-conflict bargaining simulation to examine how same-sex pairs of men and women negotiated. They found that men were more likely to discuss positions than women, whereas women were more likely to reveal personal information and feelings than men. In addition, men and women chose different examples to buttress their arguments during the negotiation.
What role does mindset play as a tool in negotiation for the different sexes?
Having a powerful mindset can be an important tool in negotiation. By "powerful mindset" we mean an awareness of the role of power in the situation and its relation to tactics and outcomes. Galinsky, Gruenfeld, and Magee (2003) showed that such mindsets make a difference in behavior: Power becomes action. In negotiation, approaching the negotiation with a powerful frame of mind can lead to higher outcomes for the female negotiator, who might otherwise be at a disadvantage.
Men and women may receive different treatment and outcomes during negotiations according to research on salary negotiations. Explain the differences.
In a study of MBA graduates, Gerhart and Rynes (1991) found that males received a higher monetary payoff for negotiating their salary than did females, even though men and women were equally likely to negotiate. Gender differences in negotiated salaries may emerge from differences in how negotiators define the bargaining zone, which inevitably influences the offers that individuals will make and accept.
Although researchers argue that taking conflict personally is both a state (a temporary feeling associated with a particular event) and a trait (an enduring predisposition that differs across individuals), what did the actual research findings of Judith Dallinger and Dale Hample (1995) determine?
Judith Dallinger and Dale Hample (1995) determined the following: Those who are more likely to take conflict personally are more likely to have nonconfrontational (avoiding or accommodating) styles of managing conflict. Those who are more likely to take conflict personally prefer supervisors who have a compromising conflict management style. Those who are more likely to take conflict personally are more likely to feel persecuted by, and have a higher stress management reaction to, those supervisors who use a forcing (competing) conflict style, and they are much less satisfied with this supervisor.
What do the authors, Babcock and Laschever, argue in their recent book addressing the gender divide in negotiation?
Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (2003), addressing the gender divide in negotiation, argue that from birth, men are taught to uphold the masculine norms of competition and superiority: ". . . superiority is central to our society's definition of maleness." They contend that women learn, quite early, that competing and winning against a man can threaten his socially defined masculinity. Similarly, women are groomed to maintain social harmony and are often punished for self-promotion or competitive behavior as a violation of femininity (Rudman, 1998; Rudman and Glick, 1999).
Negotiators need to perceive, understand, and respond to arguments that the other party makes during negotiations. The ability to take the other person's perspective, especially during planning for negotiation, should enable negotiators to prepare and respond to the other party's arguments. How is perspective-taking ability defined?
Perspective-taking ability is defined as a negotiator's "cognitive capacity to consider the world from another individual's viewpoint," which enables the negotiator to anticipate the other's behavior (Trötschel, Hüffmeier, Loschelder, Schwartz, and Gollwitzer, 2011). Negotiators who understand the other party's perspective will be more likely to form arguments that convince the other party and should also be more likely to find an agreement that satisfies the other party.
