Mara Olekalns

Sweet Little Lies: Social Context and the Use of Deception in Negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:24:28 PST

Social context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. In this research, we test how three dimensions of social context – dyadic gender composition, negotiation strategy, and trust – interact to influence one micro-ethical decision, the use of deception, in a simulated negotiation. To create an opportunity for deception, we incorporated an indifference issue – an issue that had no value for one of the two parties – into the negotiation. Deception about this issue was least likely to be affected by trust or negotiation strategy in all-male dyads, suggesting that dyads with at least one female negotiator were more sensitive to social context than all-male dyads. In mixed-sex and all-female dyads, trust and negotiation strategy interacted to affect the use of deception. A consistent picture emerged in mixed-sex dyads, which increased their use of deception when three forms of trust (affective, benevolent, deterrent) were low and negotiators used an accommodating strategy. However, a more complex pattern emerged in all-female dyads. When negotiators in all-female dyads competed, low benevolence-based trust increased whereas low deterrence-based decreased deception. When negotiators in all-female dyads accommodated, high affect-based trust increased deception. Jointly, these findings suggest that in all-female dyads, negotiators use multiple and shifting reference points in deciding when to deceive the other party.

With Feeling: How Emotions Shape Negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:48:38 PST

An increasingly popular topic in current research is how emotional expressions influence the course of negotiation and related interactions. Negotiation is a form of social exchange that pits the opposing motives of cooperating and competing against one another. Most negotiators seek to reach an agreement with the other party; they also strive for an agreement that serves their own goals. This dual concern is reflected in a process that consists of both bargaining and problem solving. A good deal of the research and practice literature concentrates on ways to perform these activities effectively. In earlier writing, emotions were viewed largely as factors that impede performance, preventing successful coordination from occurring. More recently we have learned that emotions can both help and hinder progress. Expressions may convey useful information about preferences; they can also signal dislike or malevolent intentions. Whether emotions move a negotiation forward or backward -- or improve/threaten a relationship -- depends on a variety of process and context variables. We explore these variables in more depth in this chapter.

But Can I Trust Her? Gender and Expectancy Violations in Negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:18:12 PDT

Women who negotiate incur social backlash, being perceived as more pushy and demanding than women who do not negotiate. In two experiments, we test the boundary conditions for this backlash effect. Using a simulated employment contract negotiation, we explore how the strategies that women use, who they negotiate with (E1) and the organizational context within which they negotiate (E2) affects one social outcome, women’s perceived trustworthiness. We compare the how men and women evaluate the use of a gender-congruent accommodating style or a a gender-incongruent, competing style (E1) in either an agentic or a communal organizational culture (E2). In both experiments, we show that women are more likely than men to reassess a female negotiator’s trustworthiness based on the whether she implements an accommodating or a competing strategy. In Experiment 1, we further demonstrate that in their negotiations with other women, female negotiators who accommodate preserve relational trust (identity, integrity) but prime the use of sanctions (deterrent trust) whereas those who compete erode relational trust but also reduce the salience of sanction. In Experiment 2, we show that the impact of strategy choice on a female negotiator’s perceived benevolence is attenuated in a communal culture but amplified in an agentic culture. Extending our E1 findings, in negotiation with women but not with men, female negotiators who implement an accommodating strategy in an agentic culture increase the salience of sanctions but those who implement a competing strategy in an agentic culture decrease the salience of sanctions.

Negotiating The Gender Divide: Lessons From The Negotiation And Organizational Behavior Literatures

Carol T. Kulik et al. — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 16:31:15 PDT

Employment relationships are increasingly personalized, with more employment conditions open to negotiation. Although the intended goal of this personalization is a better and more satisfying employment relationship, personalization may systematically disadvantage members of some demographic groups. This disadvantage is evident for women, who routinely negotiate less desirable employment terms than men. This gender-based gap in outcomes is frequently attributed to differences in the ways that men and women negotiate. We review the negotiation research demonstrating that women are systematically disadvantaged in negotiations and the organizational behavior research examining the backlash experienced by agentic women. We use the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) and Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT) to explain why traditional “best practice” negotiation behaviors benefit male negotiators but backfire for female negotiators. Gender counter-normative behaviors create negative expectancy violations for women, generating cognitive and emotional backlash and negatively affecting women’s economic and social outcomes. We use this integration to explain how individuals and their organizations can successfully negotiate employment terms that benefit both the female employee and her employer. Our SCM-EVT integration suggests two distinct avenues for enhancing women’s economic and social outcomes. The first strategy set ensures that agentic negotiation behaviors stay below a negotiation partner’s threshold for perceiving negative violations; the second strategy set ensures that behaviors signaling warmth and likeability exceed a partner’s threshold for perceiving positive violations. In addition to identifying individual-level tactics within each strategy set, our integration suggests organizational policies and practices that can minimize negative violations or maximize positive ones.

Contextual Primes, Trust and Negotiators’ Reactions to a Crisis

Daniel Druckman et al. — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:45:35 PDT

Using a simulated bilateral negotiation over several security issues, we test the relationship between crises and turning points in negotiation. We explore how variations in the negotiation context influence negotiators’ reactions to an identical event – a crisis – during the negotiation. Negotiators were primed to focus on one of three features of the negotiating context (transaction costs, mutual dependence, shared identity) which we hypothesized would influence crisis-turning point relationship. In their roles as national representatives, negotiators in each condition were presented with a crisis and asked to decide whether to reach an immediate agreement, continue negotiating, or re-frame the issues. The results showed that high mutual dependence (unattractive alternatives) led to re-framing the negotiation (turning points) whereas high transaction costs led to a preference for continuing the negotiation. Shared identity did not affect negotiators preferences across alternative courses of action. Further analyses revealed that affective trust amplified the impact of dependence and transaction costs: the decision to re-frame was made more often by negotiators who reported low affective trust, whereas the decision to reach immediate agreement was made more often by negotiators who reported high affective trust. Finally, high cognitive trust encouraged negotiators to continue the negotiation if they had a shared identity or if transaction costs were high. These findings shed light on the conditions that shape interpretations of crises and the processes that lead to decisions. Implications are developed for analyses of real-world cases and suggestions are made for further research.

Turning Points in Negotiation

Daniel Druckman et al. — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:23:53 PDT

This manuscript will appear as a "State of the Art" Commentary about turning points in negotiation

Competent and Likeable?

Mara Olekalns et al. — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:20:42 PDT

Professional women earn less than their male counterparts and this salary gap largely results from the ways men and women negotiate employment terms. We integrate the Stereotype Content Model and Expectancy Violation Theory to explain why traditional “best practice” negotiation behaviors benefit male negotiators but backfire for female negotiators. Gender counter-normative behaviors create negative expectancy violations for women, generating cognitive and emotional backlash from their negotiation partners. We use this theoretical integration to identify alternative strategies that female employees and their employers can use to avoid negative expectancy violations and ensure that women are not disadvantaged in workplace negotiations.

Markov Chain Models of Negotiators’ Communication

Mara Olekalns et al. — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:18:11 PDT

This entry into the Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology provides an overview of the application of markov chain modelling to the analysis of communication patterns in negotiation

Psychological Aspects of Negotiating Strategies and Processes

Mara Olekalns et al. — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:15:10 PDT

This entry into the Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology proveis an overview of cognitive factors that shape negotiation processes

Negotiations and Trust

Mara Olekalns et al. — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:11:56 PDT

This forthcoming entry in the Encyclopaedia of Peace Psychology provides an overview of trust in negotiation

Power Profiles: The Power-Action Link in Negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:57:32 PDT

Characterizing negotiations as a series of micro-exchanges directs attention to the conditional relationships between negotiators’ strategy choices in consecutive speaking turns. In this research, we used a simulated employment contract negotiation to test how dyadic power profiles influenced these strategy sequences. We identified three distinct power profiles based on the level and distribution of power within a negotiating dyad - symmetric high, symmetric low and asymmetric – and linked these power profiles to differences in how negotiators responded to each other. Our analysis showed that each power profile was linked with a unique pattern of activation and inhibition of strategy sequences.

The Relational Foundations Of Strategic Choice In Negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:32:47 PDT

Representing negotiations as social exchanges highlights negotiators’ implicit obligations to honor exchanges and the risk that they will fail to do so. Based on their representation of the underlying relationship, negotiators are oriented to one of four relational risks (failures in reliability, predictability, benevolence or integrity). The salience of a specific relational risk shifts negotiators’ strategic focus and elicits a distinct strategic cluster (deterrence, co-ordination, obligation, collaboration) aimed at offsetting or neutralizing these relational risks.

Quantitative coding negotiation processes

Laurie Weingart et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:22:04 PDT

The examination of negotiation processes is seen by many researchers as an insurmountable task largely because the required methods are unfamiliar and labor-intensive. In this article, we shed light on a fundamental step in studying negotiation processes, the quantitative coding of data. Relying on videotapes as the primary source of data, we review the steps required to extract usable quantitative data and the lessons we’ve learned in doing so in our own research. We review our experience working with one large negotiation dataset, Towers Market II, to illustrate two steps within the larger research process: developing a coding scheme and coding the data. We then go on to discuss some of the issues that need to be resolved before data analysis begins.

Markov chain analyses of communication processes in negotiation

Philip L. Smith et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:18:29 PDT

Markov chain analysis provides a way to investigate how the communication processes in dyadic negotiations are affected by features of the negotiating context and how, in turn, differences in communication processes among dyads affect the quality of the final settlement. In Markov models, the communication process is represented as a sequence of transitions between states, which describes how tactics are used and how they are reciprocated during the course of a negotiation. This article provides an introduction to Markov chain analysis and shows, using simulated data, how Markov chain models may be analyzed using widely-available loglinear modeling software. Model selection, assessment of the order of a chain, analysis of residuals, and sample size are discussed.

Markov chain analyses of communication processes in negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:15:28 PDT

Communication and conflict

Mara Olekalns et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:08:35 PDT

Communication is central to the experience and management of conflict. It is through communication that people express their desires, realize differences, and attempt to resolve those differences. While there is a rich tradition of research on conflict in organizational settings, the focus on the role communication is more recent. In 1987, Putnam and Poole wrote one of the first reviews of this literature, noting that “communication constitutes the essence of conflict in that it undergirds the formation of opposing issues, frames perceptions of the felt conflict, translates emotions and perceptions into conflict behaviors, and sets the stage for future conflicts” (p. 552). However, they also noted that studies of communication in conflict were relatively scarce at that time. Now, almost 20 years later, we readdress this literature. Our goal in this chapter is to review the advances made in the last 20 years in the arena of communication and conflict, assess progress made, and present options for future research.

Cognitive representations of negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:04:28 PDT

Using a bilateral negotiation, we examined the relationship between motivational orientation, cognitive maps and negotiators’ outcomes. Cooperative and competitive negotiators bargained with a counterpart who held either the same or a different orientation. Compared to negotiators in mixed dyads, those in same-orientation dyads placed greater emphasis on cooperation, flexibility and trust; and, less emphasis on competition. Flexibility was critical to joint gain when at least one negotiator held competitive goals, but detrimental when both negotiators held cooperative goals. Negotiators in same orientation dyads reported a more positive experience than negotiators in mixed-orientation dyads.

Moments in Time: Metacognition, Trust and Outcomes in Negotiation

Mara Olekalns et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:02:08 PDT

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). Pre-negotiation affective trust predicted subsequent turning points whereas pre-negotiation cognitive trust did not, suggesting that different cues influence the two types of trust. Post-negotiation 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.

Conflicting Social Motives in Negotiating Groups

Laurie Weingart et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:59:02 PDT

Negotiators’ social motives (cooperative versus individualistic) influence their strategic behaviors. This study used multi-level modeling and analyses of strategy sequences to test hypotheses regarding how negotiators’ social motives and the composition of the group influence group members’ negotiation strategies. Four-person groups negotiating a 5 issue mixed-motive decision making task were videotaped, transcribed, and coded. Group composition included two homogeneous conditions (all cooperators and all individualists) and three heterogeneous conditions (3 cooperators/1 individualist; 2 cooperators/2 individualists; 1 cooperator/3 individualists). Results showed that cooperative negotiators adjusted their use of integrative and distributive strategies in response to the social motive composition of the group, but individualistic negotiators did not. Results from analyses of strategy sequences showed that cooperators responded more systematically to others’ behaviors than individualists. They also redirected the negotiation depending on group composition.

Resolving The Empty Core: Trust As A Determinant Of Outcomes In Three-Party Negotiations

Mara Olekalns et al. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:54:35 PDT

This research examined how trust affected resource allocation in a 3-party negotiation. Negotiators were presented with an empty core problem in which their theoretical share of resources exceeded the resources available for distribution. We tested which of three components of trust – reliability, predictability and empathy – predicted negotiators’ outcomes. We distinguished between absolute and relative trust. We found that relative trust was a more consistent predictor of individual outcomes than absolute trust and that the most trusted party in a network obtained the highest individual outcomes. This finding highlights the importance of social context in shaping trust judgements. The component of trust that predicted individuals’ outcomes was affected by structural power. High and low power negotiators benefited from conveying empathy (identity-based trust), whereas moderate power negotiators benefited from conveying predictability (knowledge-based trust). Low power parties also benefited from appearing unreliable (low calculus-based trust).