Findings

Persuasion and Negotiation

Kevin Lewis

May 27, 2010

Tell Me More: The Effects of Expressed Interest on Receptiveness During Dialogue

Frances Chen, Julia Minson & Zakary Tormala
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract:
Two studies investigated the effect of expressed interest on individuals' openness to opposing viewpoints and perceptions of debate counterparts. Participants in Study 1 engaged in an online conversation with a purported debate counterpart who did or did not express interest in the participants' viewpoint by asking an elaboration question-that is, a question geared at soliciting additional information. Compared to control participants, participants who received a question rated their debate counterpart more favorably, were more willing to engage in future interaction with their counterpart, and acted in a more receptive manner. Study 2 tested the effects of instructions to prepare elaboration questions on listeners' responses to a speaker offering counter-attitudinal arguments. Preparing questions caused participants to be more open to the idea of having a conversation with the speaker, to make more positive attributions about typical proponents of the speaker's viewpoint, and to judge the conclusions of the speech as more valid. Theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.

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Knowing Others' Preferences Degrades the Quality of Group Decisions

Andreas Mojzisch & Stefan Schulz-Hardt
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, May 2010, Pages 794-808

Abstract:
Results from 4 experiments demonstrate that learning the other group members' preferences at the beginning of a discussion impedes the solution of hidden profiles. In Experiments 1-3, participants who were not informed about their fellow group members' preferences were more likely to solve a hidden profile than those who received bogus information about the others' preferences. The negative effect of learning the others' preferences on decision quality was mediated by participants paying less attention to the information exchanged when they had been made aware of the others' preferences. Experiments 1 and 2 further ruled out that the effect of learning the others' preferences is due to participants bolstering their position or due to an increase in informational load. Experiment 3 showed that learning the other group members' preferences impedes the solution of hidden profiles even if one of the other members favors the correct alternative. Finally, Experiment 4 replicated these results in face-to-face interacting 3-person groups.

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Cultural Variance in the Interpersonal Effects of Anger in Negotiations

Hajo Adam, Aiwa Shirako & William Maddux
Psychological Science, forthcoming

Abstract:
The current research is the first investigation of how the effects of expressing discrete emotions in negotiations vary across cultures. In a hypothetical negotiation scenario (Study 1) and a computer-mediated negotiation simulation (Study 2), expressing anger (relative to not expressing anger) elicited larger concessions from European American negotiators, but smaller concessions from Asian and Asian American negotiators. A third study provided evidence that this effect is due to different cultural norms about the appropriateness of anger expressions in negotiations: When we explicitly manipulated anger expressions to be appropriate, Asian and Asian American negotiators made larger concessions to the angry opponent, and their concessions were as large as was typical for European American negotiators; when we explicitly manipulated anger expressions to be inappropriate, European American negotiators made smaller concessions to the angry opponent, and their concessions were as small as was typical for Asian and Asian American negotiators. Implications for current understanding of culture, emotions, and negotiations are discussed.

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The Prospect of Negotiating: Stress, Cognitive Appraisal, and Performance

Kathleen O'Connor, Josh Arnold & Andrea Maurizio
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract:
Despite a significant literature on the impact of stress on performance in achievement settings, little is known about whether and how stress might matter for would-be negotiators. In two studies, we investigate how bargainers cognitively appraise a looming negotiation, whether its prospect is stressful and what the consequences are for performance. Individuals who appraised a prospective negotiation as a threat experienced more stress ahead of a negotiation, and reached lower quality deals compared to those who had appraised a challenge. Results from a follow-up experiment showed that would-be negotiators who had appraised a threat behaved more passively and were less likely to use tough tactics compared to those who appraised a challenge. Those who appraised a threat also had relatively inaccurate perceptions of their partners' priorities and interests, which undermined their outcomes. The outcome advantage for those who appraised a challenge was limited to negotiations that contained integrative potential.

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Knowing who likes who: The early developmental basis of coalition understanding

Lara Platten, Mikoaj Hernik, Peter Fonagy & Pasco Fearon
European Journal of Social Psychology, June 2010, Pages 569-580

Abstract:
Group biases based on broad category membership appear early in human development. However, like many other primates humans inhabit social worlds also characterised by small groups of social coalitions which are not demarcated by visible signs or social markers. A critical cognitive challenge for a young child is thus how to extract information concerning coalition structure when coalitions are dynamic and may lack stable and outwardly visible cues to membership. Therefore, the ability to decode behavioural cues of affiliations present in everyday social interactions between individuals would have conferred powerful selective advantages during our evolution. This would suggest that such an ability may emerge early in life, however, little research has investigated the developmental origins of such processing. The present paper will review recent empirical research which indicates that in the first 2 years of life infants achieve a host of social-cognitive abilities that make them well adapted to processing coalition-affiliations of others. We suggest that such an approach can be applied to better understand the origins of intergroup attitudes and biases.

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Now You See It, Now You Don't: Interests, Issues, and Psychological Distance in Integrative Negotiation

Mauro Giacomantonio, Carsten De Dreu & Lucia Mannetti
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, May 2010, Pages 761-774

Abstract:
Negotiators are often advised to seek win-win agreements by focusing on interests (primary features) rather than issues (secondary features), but whether such advice is valid remains to be seen. Consistent with construal level theory (Y. Trope & N. Liberman, 2003), Experiments 1 and 2 show that negotiators focus on secondary features (issues) more than on primary features (interests) when psychological distance is low rather than high, and concomitant construal level is local and specific rather than global and abstract. Experiment 3 showed that high construal level promoted problem-solving behavior and therefore facilitated the achievement of win-win agreement, but only when integrative potential resided in underlying interests; when integrative potential resided in the issues, low construal level negotiators achieved higher joint outcomes. Thus, both low- and high-construal negotiators may achieve win-win agreements when such agreements require trade-offs at the level of issues, or at the level of underlying interests, respectively.

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Bribery as a Negotiation: A Decision Making Perspective

Pavel Dimitrov Atanasov
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, May 2010

Abstract:
Why do Peruvian citizens who make the first bribe offer to officials end up paying significantly less for better service, compared to citizens who give bribes only after being asked to do so (Hunt & Laszlo 2005)? If making the first offer brings citizens a significant advantage, why do most citizens wait for officials to move first? Why do applicants for driver's licenses in India (Bertrand et al. 2007) bribe almost exclusively through agents, as opposed to approaching officials directly? What services are provided to justify the additional cost of using middlemen? Why do poor Peruvians (Hunt & Laszlo 2005) pay significantly smaller bribes to public officials, yet receive better services, compared to richer citizens? Why are older citizens asked for bribes less often than young ones? Why is bribery more prevalent in larger cities, compared to smaller towns? This paper takes a behavioral decision making approach to the study of bribery. It aims to supplement standard economic models on the topic, by relaxing the assumption of rational self-interest maximization. The paper explores the bribery process through the lens of negotiation and focuses on the interactions between bribe-givers and bribe-takers. The negotiation approach to bribery is not new (e.g. Hunt 2005, Fisman & Gatti 2003). Unlike previous studies, however, I approach the problem from a decision making angle, focusing on the bounded ethicality (Chugh, Bazerman & Banaji 2005; Tenbrunsel & Messick 2004) of bribe-givers and bribe-takers. Namely, I hypothesize that most participants in corrupt transactions find corruption morally aversive in general, but they find ways to rationalize their own corrupt actions through self-deception or by outsourcing blame onto others. More interestingly, individuals seem to take costly steps to avoid moral responsibility. Bounded ethicality not only perpetuates corruption in the face of anti-corruption efforts focusing on moral education, but may inflict additional costs to society. Evidence in support of this hypothesis is reviewed, focusing on economic and psychological experiments as well as field studies on bribery.

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Political skill and emotional cue learning

Tassilo Momm, Gerhard Blickle & Yongmei Liu
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming

Abstract:
We seek to further validate the political skill inventory (PSI) by tapping into the core of political skill, the ability to quickly identify and learn about relevant social cues. In three quasi-experimental studies in which brief training on emotion recognition was given, politically skilled individuals consistently demonstrated greater improvement in emotion recognition accuracy after training.

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'Becoming Angry When Another is Treated Fairly': On Understanding When Own and Other's Fair Treatment Influences Negative Reactions

David De Cremer & Alain Van Hiel
British Journal of Management, June 2010, Pages 280-298

Abstract:
The present research examined across two experimental studies the impact of how fairly one's partner was treated on the experience of one's own negative emotions and intentions to display antisocial behaviours. Experiment 1 revealed that one's own feelings of anger and frustration were significantly higher when one's partner was treated fairly (i.e. receiving voice in the decision-making procedure) relative to when one's partner was treated unfairly (i.e. receiving no voice), but only so when the interaction between oneself and the other was characterized by competitive interdependence (i.e. a zero-sum gain in which a good performance by the other is negative for oneself and vice versa). The opposite pattern of results emerged in the cooperative interdependence condition (i.e. a good performance by the other is positive for oneself and vice versa). Experiment 2 (in which also the fairness of one's own treatment was manipulated) further showed that in the competitive interdependence condition own anger and frustration were higher when one's partner received voice and oneself did not relative to when the partner did not receive voice and oneself did. A similar effect was also obtained for intentions to display antisocial behaviour, which was mediated by negative emotions. These findings thus reveal that the other's procedurally fair treatment affects own responses differently as a function of the given goal interdependence and own treatment.

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Resistance to extreme strategies, rather than prosocial preferences, can explain human cooperation in public goods games

Rolf Kümmerli, Maxwell Burton-Chellew, Adin Ross-Gillespie & Stuart West
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming

Abstract:
The results of numerous economic games suggest that humans behave more cooperatively than would be expected if they were maximizing selfish interests. It has been argued that this is because individuals gain satisfaction from the success of others, and that such prosocial preferences require a novel evolutionary explanation. However, in previous games, imperfect behavior would automatically lead to an increase in cooperation, making it impossible to decouple any form of mistake or error from prosocial cooperative decisions. Here we empirically test between these alternatives by decoupling imperfect behavior from prosocial preferences in modified versions of the public goods game, in which individuals would maximize their selfish gain by completely (100%) cooperating. We found that, although this led to higher levels of cooperation, it did not lead to full cooperation, and individuals still perceived their group mates as competitors. This is inconsistent with either selfish or prosocial preferences, suggesting that the most parsimonious explanation is imperfect behavior triggered by psychological drives that can prevent both complete defection and complete cooperation. More generally, our results illustrate the caution that must be exercised when interpreting the evolutionary implications of economic experiments, especially the absolute level of cooperation in a particular treatment.

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On the Formation of Coalitions to Provide Public Goods - Experimental Evidence from the Lab

Astrid Dannenberg, Andreas Lange & Bodo Sturm
NBER Working Paper, May 2010

Abstract:
The provision of public goods often relies on voluntary contributions and cooperation. While most of the experimental literature focuses on individual contributions, many real-world problems involve the formation of institutions among subgroups (coalitions) of players. International agreements serve as one example. This paper experimentally tests theory on the formation of coalitions in different institutions and compares those to a voluntary contribution mechanism. The experiment confirms the rather pessimistic conclusions from the theory: only few players form a coalition when the institution prescribes the full internalization of mutual benefits of members. Contrary to theory, coalitions that try to reduce the free-riding incentives by requiring less provision from their members, do not attract additional members. Substantial efficiency gains occur, however, both along the extensive and intensive margin when coalition members can each suggest a minimum contribution level with the smallest common denominator being binding. The experiment thereby shows that the acceptance of institutions depends on how terms of coalitions are reached.

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Persuasion in experimental ultimatum games

Ola Andersson, Matteo Galizzi, Tim Hoppe, Sebastian Kranz, Karen van der Wiel & Erik Wengström
Economics Letters, forthcoming

Abstract:
We study persuasion effects in experimental ultimatum games and find that Proposers' payoffs significantly increase if, along with offers, they can send messages which Responders read before deciding. Higher payoffs are driven by both lower offers and higher acceptance rates.

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Group Transformation: How Demonstrability Promotes Intra-Group Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Timothy Hopthrow & Dominic Abrams
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract:
Intra-group cooperation in a social dilemma is increased after a group has discussed and reached a decision, especially if the dilemma is easily understood (‘demonstrable'). This paper examines how demonstrability affects the decision of a group that consists entirely of participants who are initially non-cooperative. Thirty-eight 6-person groups with unanimous prior preference for cooperation or non-cooperation discussed a prisoner's dilemma before making a group decision. When demonstrability was low groups reflected the prior (either cooperative or non-cooperative) preferences of their members. When demonstrability was high we found that groups showed no effect of prior preference. Specifically, groups of prior non-cooperators made more cooperative group decisions and subsequently their members remained cooperative when asked to express preferences individually. The combined advantages of group process and high demonstrability for facilitating optimal cooperation are discussed.

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The more (complex), the better? The influence of epistemic motivation on integrative bargaining in complex negotiation

Job van der Schalk, Bianca Beersma, Gerben van Kleef & Carsten De Dreu
European Journal of Social Psychology, March 2010, Pages 355-365

Abstract:
Negotiating about a larger number of issues is often argued to enhance the potential for integrative bargaining. However, the enhanced complexity may also make negotiators more susceptible to bias, making it less likely for them to reach win-win agreements. We argue that epistemic motivation, the motivation to hold accurate perceptions of the world, provides a key to solve this paradox. In a negotiation experiment we manipulated complexity by having participants negotiate about 6 or 18 issues and we manipulated epistemic motivation by making participants process-accountable or not. Under low complexity, there was no effect of epistemic motivation on created value. Under high complexity, however, negotiators with high epistemic motivation created more value than negotiators with low epistemic motivation. Thus, negotiating about larger numbers of issues was only beneficial for negotiators if they were motivated to think deeply and thoroughly.


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