Mediation as an aid to face saving in negotiation (original) (raw)
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Face threat sensitivity in distributive negotiations: Effects on negotiator self-esteem and demands
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2020
Face threat sensitivity (FTS) is defined as reactive sensitivity to threats to one's social self-worth. In negotiations, such threats may come from a counterpart's competitive behavior. We developed and tested the argument that individuals high in face threat sensitivity, when negotiating with a competitive (vs. cooperative) counterpart, exhibit psychological responses that inhibit them from claiming value in distributive negotiations. Employing a face-to-face interaction paradigm, Study 1 revealed that higher counterpart competitiveness was negatively associated with high (but not low) FTS negotiators' global self-esteem, which in turn led them to be less demanding and obtain worse negotiation outcomes. In Study 2, employing a simulated on-line interaction paradigm, we manipulated counterpart's behavior (cooperative vs. competitive) to establish causality and examined specific aspects of negotiator global self-esteem that may account for the effect. We found that the effect of counterpart's competitiveness on high FTS negotiators' demand levels was mediated by their performance selfesteem, but not by their social self-esteem. In Study 3, we manipulated performance self-esteem to establish it as a causal underlying psychological mechanism. For high FTS negotiators, when performance self-esteem was low, demand levels were significantly lower with a competitive (vs. cooperative) counterpart. However, when performance self-esteem was high, there was no significant difference in demand levels depending on counterpart's behavior. This finding suggests that negotiating with a competitive (vs. cooperative) counterpart reduces high FTS negotiators' performance self-esteem, which in turn leads them to make lower demands. The implications of these findings are discussed.
The Cognitive Characteristics of Mediator's Decision Making
2012
Cognitive processes are key to understanding experts’ decisions. In mediation, the stylistic dichotomy might conceal the multiple factors shaping mediators’ decisions. To reveal these factors, we systematically examined the explicit and implicit challenges of mediators’ schema, the tensions emerging when a mediators’ schema meets a complex reality, and the ways mediators choose to handle their perceived challenges. We analyzed the work of eight mediators out of twenty-two who participated in the study. Most were highly experienced mediators who came to our lab. All mediated the same simulated conflict enacted by two female disputants. All sessions were observed, videotaped and then assessed through multiple measures from 3 viewpoints: the mediators, the disputants, and three independent observers. A special effort was made to capture the cognitive aspects of mediators’ decisions and compare them with their actual behaviors. In the dynamic mediation interaction, mediators often reacted unconsciously and intuitively. Consistent with mediation research, mediators explicitly presented themselves as stylistically eclectic but most were observed behaving with little stylistic and behavioral flexibility. Mediators’ implicit schema varied from simple to complex. Two universal mechanisms of coping with the stresses of the mediation role were identified--flexibility and reflection. Greater cognitive and behavioral flexibility, as well as reflective capacity, were detected in mediators with a complex schema, and they seem to relate to higher competency and better intervention quality than those with a simple schema.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
A demurral is a verbal or physical display of shock, disgust, or disbelief made immediately in response to an opening offer. This study investigated the impact of immediately demurring in response to a counterpart's opening offer in an integrative bargaining task. The results indicate that negotiators who demurred claimed significantly more value than negotiators who did not demur. Surprisingly, demurring did not affect the impasse rate or the value created in negotiations. Negotiators in receipt of a demurral, however, perceived their outcomes as less favorable than negotiators who did not receive a demurral. Furthermore, demurring appeared to negatively affect the recipient's perception of the bargaining relationship. Mediation analyses revealed that the aforementioned effects of the demurral tactic are fully mediated by the recipients' perceptions of the demurring negotiators' behaviors. Mediation analyses did not support the hypothesis that the effects of the demurral tactic would be mediated by the recipients' perception of the demurring negotiators' anger. Implications of this research for negotiation theory and practice, and directions for future research, are discussed.
Mediator Tactics and Sources of Conflict: Facilitating and Inhibiting Effects
Industrial Relations, 2002
Sometimes mismatches between tactics used by mediators and causes of the dispute may reduce the likelihood of achieving a settlement. Data from collectivebargaining disputes suggest that when party inflexibility was a source of the dispute, added mediator pressure increased the likelihood of a settlement, but discussing alternatives reduced the likelihood of a settlement. However, mediation success improved in cases where there is a high level of interparty hostility and mediators focused on negotiation processes.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011
Previous negotiation research predominant ly focused on psychologica l factors that lead to suboptimal compromises as opposed to integrative agreements. Few studies systematically analyzed factors that impact the emergence of hurtful partial impasses (i.e., nonagreements on part of the issues). The present research investigates negotiators' egoistic motivation as a determinant for the emergence of partial impasses. In addition, the authors seek to demonstrate that perspective taking serves as a powelful tool to avoid impasses and to overcome egoistic impediments. Specitically, it was predicted that within an integrative context perspective-takers succeed to exchange concessions on low-versus high-preference issues (i.e., logroll), thereby increasi ng their individual profits without inflicting hurtful losses upon their cou nterparts. Three studies were conducted to test these predictions. Study I reveals that whereas negotiators' egoistic motivation increases the risk of pm1ial impasses, perspective taking alleviates this risk. Study 2 demonstrates that this beneficial effect of a perspective-taking mindset is limited to integrative negotiations and does not emerge in a distributive context, in which negotiators are constrained to achieve selfish goals by inflicting hurtful losses on their counterparts. Study 3 confirms the assumption that in an integrative context egoistic perspective-takers overcome the risk of impasses by means of logrolling. The findings of the present studies are discussed with respect to their contribution to research on negotiations, social motivation, and perspective taking.
The Science of Communication and Negotiation in Mediation
Challenges of the Knowledge Society, 2011
The present study proposes to contribute in clarifying a subject of great actuality and social importance: why does the contemporary society need such mediation and mediators and what are the psycho-social premises of making the process of mediaton more efficient. In the first part, this study keeps the track of identifying the connections and the distinctions between communication-negotiation and mediation. The intercession carries forward with the analysis of the communicational and negotiative abilities of the mediator-premises of efficient mediation. The final part consists in an argument towards the imperative need of mediation felt by the contemporary society at all its levels.
Initiation of negotiation and its role in negotiation research
Organizational psychology review, 2014
Most psychological studies about negotiation examine processes, strategies, and outcomes by providing a context with given roles, issues, and resources to the parties involved. We argue that this research is incomplete as psychological variables and processes, antecedent to the initiation of negotiation, are excluded. A theoretical model is developed which explains the initiation of negotiation by the key motivational process of discrepancy reduction, which arouses an emotional reaction. It integrates valence, expectancy and instrumentality considerations as moderating variables. The model serves as a research agenda for the psychological study of the prenegotiation phase, and for answering the questions of when and why people initiate (or suppress) negotiations, thereby offering grounds for probing how subsequent negotiations might be affected by characteristics of the prenegotiation phase. The overall aim is to foster our understanding about the psychological origins of negotiations to complement what is already known about the negotiation process. Keywords Cognitive-motivational process model, initiation of negotiation The broad field of negotiation research puts strong emphasis on studying the processes and outcomes of negotiation. Typically, experimental studies are conducted which place subjects into a social context that implies a negotiation. Thereby real-world factors and psychological processes are left out that are antecedent to a state of affairs where a negotiation may come into existence or
Does it Take Three to Make Two Happy? An Experimental Study on Bargaining with Mediation
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Mediation is a con ‡ict resolution method in which a third neutral party provides assistance to the con ‡ict parties. The process of mediation as well as any solution to the con ‡ict arising from it is implemented only by the consent of all con ‡ict parties. It is the role of a mediator to stimulate communication that leads to mutual understanding of the feasible con ‡ict outcomes, i.e. to complete information on solution consequences among the parties of the con ‡ict. This information is used by the parties of the con ‡ict to evaluate their own as well as the others' consequences of a proposed solution to the con ‡ict. However, it is not clear whether the information itself, or the way it was obtained (by voluntary participation in a process in which it was collected) leads to a con ‡ict resolution. This paper concentrates on the bargaining behavior in a con ‡ict, abstracting from the mediators' methods and techniques. We design an experiment where two-person con ‡icts are resolved in an unstructured bargaining and study whether the way of obtaining information on the relative payo¤s in ‡uences the con ‡ict resolution process. We also study the demand for such information by individuals with various types of social preferences. This allows us to address the role of self-selection in the mediation process.