The Objective Value of Subjective Value: A Multi-Round Negotiation Study (original) (raw)

2010, Journal of Applied Social Psychology

A 2-round negotiation study provided evidence that positive feelings resulting from one negotiation can be economically rewarding in a second negotiation. Negotiators experiencing greater subjective value (SV)-that is, social, perceptual, and emotional outcomes from a negotiation-in Round 1 achieved greater individual and joint objective negotiation performance in Round 2, even with Round 1 economic outcomes controlled. Moreover, Round 1 SV predicted the desire to negotiate again with the same counterpart, whereas objective negotiation performance had no such association. Taken together, the results suggest that positive feelings, not just positive outcomes, can evoke future economic success.j asp_593 690..709 Conventional wisdom holds that a favorable economic outcome is the sine qua non of successful negotiation performance. By contrast, how one feels afterward is considered a fleeting emotion, subject to heuristics and biases. Behavioral science researchers have traditionally portrayed negotiation as an economically motivated, one-shot interaction best practiced by rational, unemotional actors. However, an increasing number of recent studies have challenged this rationalist assumption, incorporating social psychological factors into the study of negotiation (for a review, see Bazerman, Curhan, & Moore, 2001). Extending this work, we ask the following provocative question: Is a positive subjective experience itself economically rewarding over time? 1 Preparation of this article was supported by National Science Foundation Award 0620207 to Jared Curhan. The authors thank Max Bazerman for his helpful comments on the project.