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Psychological Bulletin1990, Vol. 108, No. 3,515-532
Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association,
Inc.0033-2909/90/$00.75
Negotiation Behavior and Outcomes:Empirical Evidence and
Theoretical Issues
Leigh ThompsonUniversity of Washington
This article examines the ability of the individual differences,
motivational, and cognitive ap-proaches of negotiation to account
for empirical research on dyadic negotiation. Investigators
havetypically focused on objective, economic measures of
performance. However, social-psychologicalmeasures are important
because negotiators often do not have the information necessary to
makeaccurate judgments of the bargaining situation. Negotiators'
judgments are biased, and biases areassociated with inefficient
performance. Personality and individual differences appear to play
aminimal role in determining bargaining behavior; their impact may
be dampened by severalfactors, such as homogeneity of subject
samples, situational constraints, and self-selection pro-cesses.
Motivational and cognitive models provide compelling accounts of
negotiation behavior. Apsychological theory of negotiation should
begin at the level of the individual negotiator andshould integrate
features of motivational and cognitive models.
Negotiation is a pervasive and important form of social
inter-action. Negotiation is necessary whenever conflict erupts
andthere are no fixed or established rules or procedures to
resolveconflict and whenever people want to search for
agreementwithout resorting to aggression or open fighting (Lewicki
&Litterer, 1985). Negotiation occurs in business and
academicenvironments and in informal social interactions such as
decid-ing with a friend or spouse where to dine or vacation.
Clearly,negotiation is essential for anyone who must interact with
otherpeople to accomplish their objectives.
There is broad interest in the study of negotiation
behavior.This interest is evident in the interdisciplinary history
of thestudy of negotiation in the fields of psychology,
economics,industrial relations, organization behavior, sociology,
and law.The theoretical goal is to predict the processes and
outcomes ofnegotiation. The practical or applied goal is to help
people nego-tiate more effectively (Bazerman, 1986; Raiffa, 1982).
The fun-damental and enduring questions raised by the growing body
ofresearch on negotiation behavior include the following:
Whatfactors lead to negotiation success or failure? Which
theoreticalperspective provides the best account of negotiation
behavior?What empirical findings must a theoretical approach to
negoti-ation explain? The purpose of this article is to address
thesetheoretical and empirical issues.
A variety of theoretical analyses of negotiation behavior
havebeen developed. An important theoretical distinction is
thatbetween normative and descriptive approaches (Neale
&Northcraft, in press; Raiffa, 1982). Normative models arebased
on axioms of individual rationality (cf. von Neumann &
I thank Max Bazerman and Reid Hastie for helpful comments
ondrafts of this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
toLeigh Thompson, Department of Psychology, University of
Wash-ington, Seattle, Washington 98195, or by bitnet to
Ithomp-son@max .acs.washington.edu.
Morgenstern, 1947) and prescribe how people should behave
incompetitive situations (Cross, 1965; Harsanyi, 1956;
Nash,1950,1953). Normative models have largely been the provinceof
economists and game theorists (cf. Cross, 1965; Harsanyi,1956;
Nash, 1950). As Raiffa (1982) stated, "Game theorists. . .examine
what ultrasmart, impeccably rational, superpeopleshould do in
competitive, interactive situations. They are notinterested in the
way erring folks like you and me actually be-have, but in how we
should behave if we were smarter, thoughtharder, were more
consistent, were all knowing" (p. 21). Nor-mative models have
advanced the understanding of conflictbehavior by providing
compelling analyses of optimal or ratio-nal behavior in competitive
situations.
In addition to prescribing how negotiators should behave,some
economic models were also intended to describe the ac-tual behavior
of negotiators (Nash, 1950). However, empiricalobservation
indicates that normative models do not adequatelydescribe the
behavior of most people in bargaining situations(Neale &
Bazerman, 1985a; Northcraft & Neale, in press;Thompson &
Hastie, in press). Specifically, bargainers do notbehave according
to principles of normative bargaining modelsand, in fact,
systematically violate key principles (Bazerman &Neale, 1983).
Primarily as a response to the inadequacy of nor-mative models to
account for empirical observation, purely de-scriptive theories of
negotiation behavior have developed. De-scriptive theories have
been largely the province of psycholo-gists and organization
theorists (cf. Bazerman & Carroll, 1987;Kelley, 1966; Pruitt
& Rubin, 1986). Descriptive theories exam-ine the influence of
individual characteristics, motivations,and cognitive processes on
judgment, behavior, and outcomesin negotiation. The focus of this
article is on descriptive ac-counts of negotiation behavior.
Because of the large volume of research on negotiation behav-ior
in many disciplines, it was necessary to restrict the scope ofthis
review in four ways. First, I examined negotiation or ex-plicit
bargaining (Chertkoff & Esser, 1976; Cross, 1965; Siegel
&
515
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516 LEIGH THOMPSON
Fouraker, 1960). This definition excluded research on
matrixgames such as the Prisoner's Dilemma (for reviews, see
North-craft & Neale, in press; Pruitt & Kimmel, 1977;
Smith, 1987).Pure negotiation situations differ from social
dilemmas interms of the communication between parties, the parties'
abil-ity to make provisional offers, the veto power that each
partyhas on any outcome other than the disagreement outcome,
andeach party's knowledge of the other's payoffs, interests,
andstructure of the task (Bartos, 1972; Chertkoff & Esser,
1976;Rapoport, 1968; Siegel & Fouraker, 1960). Second, the
focuswas on two parties, or dyadic negotiation, as opposed to
multi-party negotiation involving coalitional activity (for reviews
ofcoalitional bargaining, see Miller & Komorita, 1986;
Mur-nighan, 1986). The review was restricted to bargains in
whichnegotiators were monolithic (i.e., negotiators bargain for
theirown interests or, if representing a constituency, the
constitu-ency members have uniform interests; Raiffa, 1982). Third,
Iexamined three theoretical approaches: individual
differences,motivational, and cognitive models. These approaches
repre-sent the most common theoretical orientations in the study
ofnegotiation (Bazerman & Carroll, 1987; Neale &
Northcraft, inpress). However, they do not exhaust the set of
theoretical per-spectives in negotiation.1 Finally, third-party
interventions (e.g.,mediation, arbitration) are not discussed (for
reviews, see Ru-bin, 1980; 1986; Sheppard, 1984). This review
focused on theinterchange that occurs between two people attempting
to re-solve a conflict of interest.
In the sections that follow, I discuss the characteristics
andbasic features of negotiation, identify economic and
social-psy-chological measures of negotiation performance, review
themajor theoretical approaches to negotiation, and examinecurrent
empirical research. I conclude by proposing a theoreti-cal and
empirical research agenda.
DEFINITION OF NEGOTIATIONNegotiation is the process whereby
people attempt to settle
what each shall give and take or perform and receive in a
trans-action between them (Rubin & Brown, 1975). A
negotiationsituation has five characteristics: (a) People believe
that theyhave conflicting interests; (b) communication is possible;
(c)intermediate solutions or compromises are possible; (d)
partiesmay make provisional offers and counteroffers; and (e)
offersand proposals do not determine outcomes until they are
ac-cepted by both parties (Chertkoff & Esser, 1976; Cross,
1965;Schelling, 1960).
The basic features of negotiation include the negotiating
par-ties, their interests, the negotiation process, and the
negotiationoutcome (Thompson & Hastie, 1990). A party to a
negotiationis a person (or a group of persons with common
interests) whoacts in accord with his or her preferences. The
interests of negoti-ators are the preferences or utilities that
each person has for theresources to be divided (Walton &
McKersie, 1965). The struc-ture of the bargaining situation is
determined by the degree ofconflict between parties' interests.
Pure conflict exists whenparties' interests are perfectly
negatively correlated; that is, anyoutcome that increases one
party's utility decreases the otherparty's utility in a fixed-sum
fashion. Pure conflict situationsare known as fixed-sum or purely
distributive negotiations
(Walton & McKersie, 1965). Two people bargaining over
theprice of a used car for which the seller wants more money andthe
buyer wants to pay as little as possible is an example of
adistributive negotiation. Pure coordination situations existwhen
parties' interests are perfectly compatible; increasing oneparty's
utility also increases the other party's utility. A negotia-tion
over an orange in which one person desires only the peeland the
other desires only the juice is an example (Follett,1940). In
empirical investigations, researchers typically do notexamine
bargaining in pure coordination situations, althoughinteresting
questions concern whether negotiators are able torealize when their
interests are compatible with those of an-other (Hammond, Stewart,
Brehmer, & Steinmann, 1975;Thompson & Hastie, in press).
Sometimes parties' interests areneither completely opposed nor
purely compatible. Such situa-tions are known as variable-sum or
integrative negotiations(Walton & McKersie, 1965).2 In
integrative bargaining situa-tions, the gains of one party do not
represent equal sacrifices bythe other. Pruitt (1986) gave the
example of a couple in conflictover where to spend a vacation. The
husband prefers a cabin inthe mountains; the wife prefers a luxury
hotel on the seashore.The husband is primarily concerned with
location; the wife isprimarily concerned with accommodations. An
integrativeagreement is reached when the couple agree to vacation
in aluxury hotel in the mountains. Many researchers contend
thatmost negotiation situations are integrative (Pruitt &
Rubin,1986; Raiffa, 1982; Walton & McKersie, 1965). Although
thereis no empirical evidence to support this contention, two
logicalarguments support it. The deductive argument is that two
peo-ple are more likely to have different priorities, risk
preferences,and valuations of resources than they are likely to
have identi-cal preferences across such dimensions. Differences on
any di-mension define opportunities for integrative trade-offs
(Raiffa,1982). The inductive argument is based on the large volume
ofcase studies of negotiation situations in which opportunities
forintegrative agreements have been identified (Lax &
Sebenius,1985).
The negotiation process is the interaction that occurs be-tween
parties before the outcome. Negotiation processes in-clude
communication between bargainers and behavioral en-actments of
bargaining strategies. The negotiation outcome isthe product of the
bargaining situation. Negotiations may endin impasse (i.e., the
parties fail to reach a mutually acceptableagreement) or in mutual
agreement. In integrative and purecoordination situations, outcomes
that result in mutual agree-ment may be examined in terms of the
efficiency of the out-come. A negotiation outcome is said to be
efficient or paretooptimal if there does not exist some other
feasible solution or setof solutions that would improve the utility
of one or both par-ties while not hurting either party (Nash,
1950). Finally, negotia-
1 At least two other approaches have been acknowledged: a
commu-
nications approach and a structural approach (for reviews, see
Chat-man & Sondak, in press; Neale & Northcraft, in press).
In general,these approaches are more piecemeal and less well
developed thanthose reviewed in this article.
2 Technically, the label integrative also includes purely
compatible
situations. In this discussion, integrative refers to situations
character-ized by a partial conflict of interest.
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NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES 517
tion outcomes are also examined in terms of the distribution
ofresources among bargainers.
MEASURES OF NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR
Measures of behavior and performance in negotiation maybe
grouped into two general categories: economic and
social-psychological measures. Economic measures focus on the
out-comes or products of the negotiation and are derived from
ax-ioms of individual rationality and normative analyses of
negoti-ation behavior (Nash, 1953). Social-psychological
measuresfocus on both the processes and the outcomes of
negotiationand are based on elements and processes of social
perception(Thompson & Hastie, 1990). Of course,
social-psychologicalmeasures may influence economic measures of
performance,and vice versa. The measures are distinguished here
becausemany research programs have not included both in their
analy-ses, and comparative analyses of behavior are difficult
wheninvestigators use different measures of performance.
Appar-ently inconclusive results and even contradictory findings
mayoften be traced to different measures of performance. The
keydistinction is one of perspective: Negotiators typically do
notperform a full, rational analysis of the negotiation
situationeither because the relevant information is not available
or be-cause they ignore or distort information (Thompson &
Hastie,1990). Negotiators' perceptions may differ substantially
fromobjective economic analyses (Thompson & Hastie, in
press).
Economic MeasuresEconomic measures are based on axioms of
individual utility
usually attributed to von Neumann and Morgenstern (1947)and on
Bayesian Decision Theory (deGroot, 1970) and repre-sent the most
well-formulated specifications of optimal negotia-tion performance.
Economic measures are primarily axiom-atic; that is, they focus on
the outcomes or products of negotia-tion and do not specify the
processes or methods necessary orsufficient to yield such outcomes.
Three measures of perfor-mance are specified by normative
bargaining models (Nash,1953).
Mutual AgreementAccording to most economic bargaining models,
negotiators
should reach a mutual agreement if the alternative (known asthe
disagreement outcome) is worse than what they couldachieve through
agreement with the other party.3 Simply stated,negotiators should
reach an agreement with the other party if itis in both their
interests to do so. The utility of a mutual agree-ment is
determined by the zone of agreement defined by negoti-ators'
reservation prices (Raiffa, 1982). A negotiator's reserva-tion
price represents the minimum that he or she will settle
for;anything less represents an outcome that is worse than the
dis-agreement outcome. Simply put, an individual's reservationprice
is the point at which he or she can achieve equal or greaterutility
by engaging in another course of action (e.g., dealing withanother
party or simply maintaining the status quo).4 Bargain-ing zones may
be positive or negative (Raiffa, 1982; Walton &McKersie, 1965).
A positive bargaining zone exists if negotia-
tors' reservation prices overlap; a negative bargaining zone
ex-ists if negotiators' reservation prices do not overlap. When
apositive bargaining zone exists, both negotiators gain from
mu-tual agreement; when a negative bargaining zone exists,
negotia-tors do not profit from mutual agreement. For example, if
abuyer's reservation price, or maximum amount that he or she
iswilling to pay for a used car is $700 and the seller's
reservationprice, or the minimum amount that he or she is willing
toaccept is $600, a positive bargaining zone exists. A
negativebargaining zone would exist if the buyer's reservation
price was$600 and the seller's reservation price was $700.
Creating Resources: Integrative BargainingWhen negotiators'
interests are not purely competitive, nego-
tiation involves not just dividing resources (distributive
bar-gaining) but identifying additional value, benefits, and
re-sources (integrative bargaining). The economic definition
ofintegrative bargaining is precise and refers to whether
nego-tiated outcomes are efficient, or pareto optimal. In
empiricalexaminations of negotiation behavior, researchers have
useddifferent operationalizations of this economic definition.
Typi-cally, negotiators' outcomes are summed to form a measure
ofjoint profit, which is used as a measure of integration.5
Integra-tive agreements allow negotiators to achieve greater
utility, al-low negotiators to avoid potential stalemates, are more
stableover time, foster harmonious relations between parties,
andcontribute to the welfare of the broader community (Pruitt
&Rubin, 1986). Pruitt (1983; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986)
identifiedseveral strategies for reaching integrative agreements,
includinglogrolling, in which negotiators make trade-offs between
issuesso that each party gets all or most of his or her preferred
out-come on important issues but concedes on issues of little
im-portance (Froman & Cohen, 1970). Thompson and Hastie
(inpress) noted that negotiators may reach integrative agreementsby
identifying compatible issues. Compatible issues are issuesfor
which negotiators have similar preferences.
Claiming Resources: Distributive BargainingAll negotiation
situations, except those in which parties have
completely compatible interests, involve a distributive
compo-
3 This is generally true, but subtleties arise depending upon
the par-
ticular task. For example, Myerson (1987) proved that impasses
occureven when there are gains to trade when bargainers do not have
com-plete information.
4 Whereas it is generally assumed that reservation prices are
stable
and exogenously determined (e.g., they do not change as a result
of thebargaining process), other closely related concepts, such as
compari-son level for alternatives (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959),
minimum necessaryshare (Kelley, Beckman, & Fischer, 1967),
reservation points (Walton& McKersie, 1965), and minimum
disposition (Ikle & Leites, 1962) aremore labile.
5 Lax and Sebenius (1987) argued that joint profit is not an
especially
sensitive measure of integration and developed a measure, called
theintegrative quotient, that measures the distance of the outcome
fromthe pareto optimal frontier. The few researchers who have used
thismeasure have reported high correlations between this measure
and thetypical measure of joint profit (Weingart, Thompson,
Bazerman, &Carroll, 1990).
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518 LEIGH THOMPSON
nent (Lax & Sebenius, 1985). The distributive component
re-flects the primary motivation of negotiators: to maximize
theirutility.6 A fundamental task for the negotiator is to divide
re-sources in such a manner that he or she keeps most of
thebargaining surplus. The bargaining surplus is the
differencebetween one's reservation price and the final
settlement(Raiffa, 1982; Walton & McKersie, 1965).
Social-Psychological MeasuresSocial-psychological measures of
negotiation performance
are based on concepts of social perception (Allport, 1955).
Theelements of social perception include most aspects of
per-ceivers' social worlds: people, their behaviors, and contexts
orsituations (Schneider, Hastorf, & Ellsworth, 1979). The
mostimportant elements of social perception in negotiation are
nego-tiators' perceptions of the bargaining situation, the other
partyor bargaining opponent, and themselves (Thompson &
Hastie,1990).
The key principles of social perception can be summarizedas list
of principles or features (Schneider et al, 1979; Shaver,1987).
People actively perceive their social world by
selecting,categorizing, interpreting, and inferring information.
For exam-ple, negotiators do not know what the interests of the
otherparty are but instead make inferences about their
opponent(Hammond et al, 1975; Harsanyi, 1962). In some sense,
negotia-tors may not be aware of their own interests and values
(Fisch-hoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, 1980; March, 1978) but
rely oncues to guide their behavior and choice (Bern, 1967). The
per-ception process is constructive and selective; that is,
perceptionis influenced by the salience of information and the
order inwhich information is presented, as well as by perceivers'
expec-tations, knowledge, and experience. Finally, people's
percep-tions influence their behavior.
The principles of social perception have special implicationsfor
negotiation situations. In most bargaining situations, negoti-ators
do not have the information necessary to perform an ob-jective
analysis of the bargaining situation. Consequently, nego-tiators'
perceptions of the bargaining situation may be quitedifferent from
that provided by an objective economic analysis(Bazerman &
Carroll, 1987; Thompson & Hastie, 1990, inpress). Negotiators'
perceptions may not only differ from objec-tive analyses but may
also differ from those of the other party.Thus two people involved
in the same conflict may have differ-ent perceptions about the
basis of conflict (Hammond et al.,1975; Pinkley, 1990). People may
perceive a conflict of interestwhen in fact none exists, or they
may fail to perceive conflictwhen it does exist (Hammond, et al.,
1975; Thompson & Has-tie, in press). A number of cognitive and
motivational heuristicshave been found to disturb the accuracy of
social informationprocessing in a variety of domains (Fiske &
Taylor, 1984; Mar-kus & Zajonc, 1985), and similar heuristics
have been found tobias judgment and affect behavior in negotiation
(Bazerman &Neale, 1983; Thompson & Hastie, 1990, in
press).
Perceptions of the Negotiation SituationPerceptions of
negotiation situations involve the judgments
that people make about the bargaining process and outcome.
Negotiators' judgments of the fairness of the procedures
andoutcomes of negotiation and their expectations and
perceivednorms concerning appropriate behavior are examples of
socialperception in negotiation (Schelling, 1960; Thibaut &
Walker,1975; Tyler, 1986). Negotiators' perceptions of bargaining
situa-tions are influenced by their implicit theories of
bargaining,conflict, and negotiation (Carroll & Payne, in
press). Thesemental structures are typically represented as lists
of features oras temporal sequences of events, or scripts, with
specific fea-tures, variables, and default values (Abelson, 1976).
Bazermanand Carroll (1987) described several examples of
bargainingscripts, such as "the car-buying script," "the bidding
war script,"and so forth. Negotiators' perceptions of bargaining
situationalso include their views of the structure of the
bargaining task:purely competitive, cooperative, or integrative
(Thompson &Hastie, 1990). Pinkley (1990) noted that
negotiators' percep-tions of conflict are multidimensional and may
be character-ized by three bipolar dimensions, or "conflict
frames": relation-ship-task, emotional-intellectual, and
compromise-win.
Perceptions of the Other PartyPerceptions of one's negotiation
opponent include many of
the processes and elements associated with the more
generalprocess of person perception and impression formation.
Animportant and powerful aspect of person perception is evalua-tion
or liking (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957).
Relevantdimensions in negotiation include negotiators' liking and
at-traction to the other party and their perceptions of the
otherparty's trustworthiness and fairness. Perceptions of the
otherparty include the trait inferences that negotiators make
aboutthe other party's intelligence, sociability, expertise, skill,
ability,cooperativeness, and competitiveness. Perceptions of the
otherparty also include the attributions that negotiators make to
ex-plain the behavior of their bargaining opponent and the
predic-tions they make about the opponent's future behavior.
Percep-tions of the other party include negotiators' behavioral
inten-tions, such as their willingness to interact with the other
partyin the future. Perceptions of the other party are hypothesized
tobe mentally represented in memory as a person or role
schema(Taylor & Crocker, 1981), in which a person node with the
labelassociated with the opponent is connected to a list of
features orcharacteristics describing the person (Bazerman &
Carroll,1987; Hastie & Kumar, 1979).
Perceptions of the SelfPerceptions of the self include many of
the dimensions rele-
vant to perceptions of the bargaining opponent, such as
skill,cooperativeness, fairness, and so forth. Self-perceptions
alsoinclude negotiators' judgments of their own interests,
values,goals, and risk preferences (Fischhoff et al., 1980); social
com-parisons between the self and the other party (Zechmeister
&
6 In most cases, the maximization of utility is assumed to be
equiva-
lent to maximizing one's own gains. Most economic models
assumethat people seek to maximize their own gain. However, some
descrip-tive approaches do not assume that negotiators' goals are
to maximizeself-gain.
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NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES 519
Druckman, 1973); self-evaluations; and
self-presentationalconcerns (Brown, 1968; Hiltrop & Rubin,
1981; Pruitt & John-son, 1970). The hypothesized mental
structures used to repre-sent self-perceptions are self-schemata
(Markus, 1977).
THEORETICAL APPROACHES AND MODELS
Most descriptive theories and approaches of negotiation
be-havior may be classified into one of three broad domains:
indi-vidual differences, motivational, and cognitive models
(Bazer-man & Carroll, 1987; Carroll & Payne, in press;
Neale & North-craft, in press). I now describe each approach
and examineempirical research on economic and social-psychological
mea-sures of performance.
Individual Differences ApproachThe individual differences
approach is an attempt to identify
stable characteristics of people that reliably affect their
bar-gaining behavior and performance. The individual
differencesapproach does not represent a single, well-established
theory.Rather, it is a collection of disparate hypotheses,
predictions,and low-level theoretical statements. Two general
classes of the-oretical models characterize the individual
difference ap-proach: direct-effect models and contingency models.
Accord-ing to direct-effect models, individual differences directly
influ-ence social behavior. The hypothesis that women
perceiveconflict differently than do men is an example of a
direct-effectmodel (Pinkley & Northcraft, 1989). In empirical
research, in-vestigators commonly use standardized personality
assessmenttechniques to measure characteristics of negotiators.
Individualdifferences that have received the most attention in the
negotia-tion literature include relationship orientation
(Machiavellian-ism; cooperative-competitive orientation); cognitive
ability(cognitive complexity; perspective-taking ability), and
gender/sex role orientation (Rubin & Brown, 1975).7 These
characteris-tics are the primary focus of my analysis.
According to contingency models, negotiation behavior
isdetermined by specific characteristics of persons and particu-lar
features of the situation. Situational factors in contingencymodels
have included communication modality and the pres-ence or absence
of bargaining constituents (Zechmeister &Druckman, 1973). The
hypothesis that a Machiavellian bar-gainer will take advantage of a
non-Machiavellian bargainingopponent when the interaction occurs
face to face, but notwhen a barrier obstructs their visual contact,
is an example of acontingency model (Fry, 1985). In the next
section, researchstudies on the impact of individual differences on
economicand social-psychological measures of performance are
dis-cussed.
Economic CriteriaMutual Agreement
Fry (1985) proposed a contingency model relationship be-tween
negotiator Machiavellianism and visual accessibility. Fryreasoned
that "low-Machiavellian" bargainers would bearoused by and
distracted in the presence of "high-" but notlow-Machiavellian
bargaining opponents. Fry paired low-low,
high-high, and low-high Machiavellian people and allowedsome to
bargain face to face; others bargained through a barrierthat
obstructed visual contact. Fry hypothesized that the low-high pairs
negotiating face to face would be most likely to fail toreach
agreement because the low-Machiavellian bargainerwould be
susceptible to the strong emotional appeals advancedby the
high-Machiavellian bargainer. The hypothesis was sup-ported.
Failure to reach mutual agreement was attributed to
thelow-Machiavellian bargainer, who suggested significantly
fewerpotential solutions when negotiating face to face with a
high-Machiavellian bargainer.
Joint OutcomesCognitive ability. Integrative bargaining
situations often re-
quire problem-solving behaviors to maximize joint gain(Pruitt,
1983; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986). This analysis has led
someresearchers to speculate that cognitive reasoning ability
mayfacilitate the problem-solving behavior necessary to reach
inte-grative outcomes. Pruitt and Lewis (1975) hypothesized
thatcognitively complex negotiators entertain more alternative
con-ceptions of bargaining situations and gather and integrate
moreinformation during bargaining. Therefore, cognitively
complexnegotiators should be more likely to find mutually
beneficialsolutions than would less cognitively complex
negotiators. How-ever, this hypothesis was not supported. Neale and
Bazerman(1983) examined another measure of cognitive
functioning:perspective-taking ability (Davis, 1981). They
hypothesizedthat failure to understand one's bargaining opponent is
a pri-mary cause of suboptimal negotiation performance.
However,perspective-taking ability did not affect joint
performance, asmeasured by the number of issues resolved.
Gender. Other researchers have hypothesized that the
sexcomposition of the dyad may affect integrative bargaining
out-comes (Kimmel, Pruitt, Magenau, Konar-Goldband, &
Carne-vale, 1980; Rubin & Brown, 1975; Turnbull, Strickland,
&Shaver, 1976). For example, Kimmel et al. (1980)
hypothesizedthat men seek to maximize their own gains, whereas
womenrespond to the interpersonal aspect of the situation.
However,there was no support for this prediction.
Individual OutcomesMachiavellianism. In general, Machiavellian
bargainers
claim more resources than do non-Machiavellian bargainers(Fry,
1985; Huber & Neale, 1986). According to Fry's (1985)analysis,
low-Machiavellian negotiators lose to high-Machiavel-lian
negotiators because they are susceptible to the arousing,emotional
appeals put forth by high-Machiavellian bargainers.However,
Greenhalgh and Neslin (1983) found that Machiavel-lian bargainers
performed worse than non-Machiavellians. Thenegotiation task and
measures of individual performance usedby Greenhalgh and Neslin
differed in many respects from theones used by Fry and by Huber and
Neale, and so this apparent
7 In many analyses of individual differences, such as Kelley and
Sta-
helski's (1970) study of cooperators and competitors,
researchers haveused the Prisoner's Dilemma paradigm, and those
studies are not cov-ered in this review.
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520 LEIGH THOMPSON
inconsistency may be attributable partly to the task. These
re-sults also suggest that trait Machiavellianism may not
directlyinfluence negotiation behavior but may instead interact
withsituational and task constraints to influence performance.
Cognitive ability. Cognitive reasoning skills have been
pre-dicted to increase negotiators' ability to claim resources.
Forexample, Neale and Bazerman (1983) reasoned that negotiatorswith
high perspective-taking ability would be able to persuadetheir
opponents to settle close to their reservation price andtherefore
claim most of the bargaining surplus for themselves.Results
supported the hypothesis: Negotiators with high per-spective-taking
ability earned higher outcomes than did thosewith low
perspective-taking ability. Neale and Bazerman con-cluded that
bargainers with high perspective-taking ability areable to learn
more information about their opponent, whichallows them to
accurately assess their opponent's goals, expec-tations, and
reservation price. However, Greenhalgh and Nes-lin (1983) found
that perspective-taking ability was not predic-tive of individual
utility. Again, the task and the dependentmeasure of performance
were different from those used byNeale and Bazerman. The impact of
perspective-taking abilityon performance may depend in part on the
particular bargain-ing situation.
Social-Psychological MeasuresInvestigators of individual
differences on social-psychologi-
cal measures have primarily explored the direct effects ofgender
and sex role orientation on perceptions.
Perceptions of the Bargaining SituationAlthough there is no
clear evidence suggesting that men are
more or less effective negotiators than are women, men
mayperceive conflict differently than do women (Gilkey &
Green-halgh, 1984; Pinkley, 1990; Zechmeister & Druckman,
1973).In general, men are more concerned with winning and
maxi-mizing their outcomes, whereas women are more concernedwith
maintaining the relationship. For example, Pinkley foundthat women
were more likely than men to interpret a conflictsituation in
relationship terms, whereas men were more con-cerned with the
exchange of resources. Zechmeister andDruckman (1973) reported that
men rated "coming out favor-ably" as more important than did
women.
Perceptions of the OpponentWomen tend to perceive their
opponents as similar to them-
selves, whereas men perceive themselves as fundamentally
dif-ferent from their opponents (Gilkey & Greenhalgh, 1984;
Zech-meister & Druckman, 1973). Zechmeister and Druckman(1973)
found that women rated themselves as more similar totheir opponents
in terms of attitudes toward racial problems(the subject of the
negotiations) after negotiation than did men;Gilkey and Greenhalgh
(1984) measured negotiators' sex roleorientations and found that
"feminine" negotiators were moreempathic than were "masculine"
negotiators.
Perceptions of the SelfThere is some evidence for sex
differences in terms of negotia-
tors' evaluations of their own performance (Kimmel et al.,1980;
Turnbull et al., 1976). Women engage in more self-deroga-tion
during negotiation than do men (Kimmel et al, 1980).Men perceive
themselves as more powerful than do women(Turnbull et al, 1976).
Again, although men evaluate them-selves more favorably than women
evaluate themselves, there isno clear evidence suggesting that men
actually perform betterthan women.
Discussion
On the basis of the studies examined in this review, there
issome suggestion that certain individual differences may be
re-lated to bargaining behavior. The clearest relationships
appearamong cognitive reasoning ability and individual
performanceand among gender and perceptions of negotiation.
However,these conclusions are based on a small number of studies
andshould therefore be viewed as tentative. A further caveat is
thatresearchers have not been consistent in their reporting of
sexdifferences; many report sex difference effects as a
secondaryanalysis. The implication is that in a large number of
studies,the researchers also performed secondary analysis and did
notfind or did not report null results for gender.
The scant number of clear relationships observed in this re-view
is consistent with Hamner's (1980) conclusion that thereare few
significant relationships between personality and nego-tiation
outcomes. Some researchers have even stated this moreforcefully:
"From what is known now, it does not appear thatthere is any single
personality type or characteristic that is di-rectly and clearly
linked to success in negotiation" (Lewicki &Litterer, 1985, p.
276). However, this conclusion is incompleteand overly simplistic.
It is only reasonable to assume that indi-vidual characteristics
influence bargaining behavior. People ex-hibit a great deal of
consistency across situations, and this sug-gests that personality
is an important influence on social behav-ior (Staw & Ross,
1985).
So, why do individual differences not appear to play a
centralrole in experimental investigations of negotiation? There
areseveral possible explanations (Lewicki & Litterer, 1985).
First,individual differences are often measured with a
homogeneoussample of subjects, usually college students. The
failure to ob-serve relationships between individual differences
and bargain-ing behavior may be attributed partially to the narrow
range ofindividual differences within subject populations
(Hamner,1980). A second possibility concerns the assessment of
individ-ual differences. Most individual differences are assessed
bymeans of paper-and-pencil measures. However, the key depen-dent
variables of interest in negotiation are typically
behavioralmeasures of performance. Given the inconsistency between
at-titudes and behavior and the unreliability of self-report
mea-sures, behavioral assessment of individual differences mayyield
more reliable and consistent relationships with social be-havior
(Staw & Ross, 1985). A third explanation is that otherfactors
may outweigh the more subtle effects of personality inbargaining
(Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989). Monson, Hesley, andChernick
(1982) suggested that personality is more predictive
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NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES 521
of behavior in ambiguous situations than in settings in
whichthere are strong prescriptions for behavior. Fourth,
personalitymay not exert main effects on negotiation performance
butrather may interact in complex ways with situational factorsand
characteristics of the particular task (Fry, 1985;
Harnett,Cummings, & Hughes, 1968). This alternative suggests
that acontingency approach may have more predictive validity than
adirect-effect model. Fifth, the absence of a comprehensivetheory
relating individual differences to negotiation behaviormakes it
difficult to identify clear relationships. Finally, it maybe that
individual characteristics of bargainers exert their im-pact on
prenegotiation behaviorsthat is, factors that predis-pose people to
avoid or engage in negotiation, rather than onbargaining behavior
per se (Emmons & Diener, 1986). In thissense, individual
differences act as an important self-selectionprocess in
negotiation that is not captured by extant measuresof negotiation
behavior and performance.
Motivational ApproachesMotivational models of bargaining
behavior examine the in-
fluence of aspirations and goals on bargaining behavior
andoutcomes. Two general theoretical approaches have
developedwithin this broad area. According to one approach,
aspirationis a continuous, unidimensional concept ranging from low
tohigh (Hamner & Harnett, 1975; Siegel & Fouraker, 1960).
Aspi-ration is denned in terms of utility theory, and a
negotiator'saspiration level is represented as a position on his or
her bar-gaining utility function (Siegel, 1957). In general, the
memberof the bargaining pair who has a higher level of aspiration
ob-tains a larger share of the joint profit (Siegel & Fouraker,
1960).Negotiators with high aspirations make smaller
concessions,make larger demands, take longer to reach agreement,
and earnhigher profits than do negotiators with low aspirations
(Siegel &Fouraker, 1960).
The second approach differs from aspiration-level theoriesby
positing that bargaining goals are not unidimensional andthat the
maximization of gain is not the primary goal of bar-gaining (Blake
& Mouton, 1962; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986). Accord-ing to the
Dual Concern Model (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986), negotia-tors' goals
are determined by two independent factors: negotia-tors' concern
for themselves and their concern for the otherparty. This approach
also differs from aspiration-level theoriesin that utility
functions are not continuous but are modeled asdiscrete functions.
In the model, concern is either high or lowfor each factor (self;
other party), and the resulting product is afour-cell matrix
specifying the strategies associated with eachgoal orientation. A
key prediction of the Dual Concern Modelis that negotiators who
have a high degree of concern for them-selves coupled with a high
degree of concern for the other partywill reach more integrative
outcomes than will negotiators whoare concerned only with
maximizing their own outcomes, nego-tiators who are concerned only
with the other party, and negotia-tors who are not concerned with
themselves or the other party.
Economic CriteriaMutual Agreement
A key prediction of aspiration-level models is that high
aspira-tions block opportunities for mutual agreement and
increase
the likelihood of an impasse. Two separate lines of
evidencesupport this prediction: studies of constituency pressure
andexplicit goal setting.
Constituency pressure. The first line of support is based
onstudies in which researchers examined aspirations
indirectly,typically by manipulating the amount of constituency
pressureon bargainers (Carnevale, Pruitt, & Britton, 1979). The
hypoth-esis is that negotiators who represent a larger group or
constitu-ency feel accountable to their constituency and pressured
tomeet their goals and, consequently, adopt higher aspiration
lev-els and remain firmer in their aspirations than do
negotiatorswho are not under constituency pressure (Neale, 1984;
Pruitt &Lewis, 1975; Tjosvold, 1977). Tjosvold (1977) found
that negoti-ators under constituency pressure to maximize gains
weremore likely to reach impasses than were those whose
constitu-encies encouraged them to reach a fair outcome. In a
similarstudy, Neale (1984) told some negotiators that their
outcomeswould be determined by evaluations of their performance
thatwere made by constituency members (high constituency-pres-sure
group); others were not told that their outcomes were con-tingent
on constituency evaluations (low constituency-pressuregroup).
Impasses occurred more often when constituency pres-sure was
high.
Explicit goal setting. The second line of support is based
onstudies in which researchers attempted to manipulate
negotia-tors' aspirations by providing them with a specific goal or
tar-get value to achieve. Most of this research has been
conductedusing the experimental bargaining market paradigm (cf.
Bazer-man, Magliozzi, & Neale, 1985). In experimental
bargainingmarkets, several buyers and sellers interact under the
instruc-tion that they should complete as many profitable
negotiationsas possible in a fixed amount of time. Negotiators are
given aspecific goal to achieve in the negotiation. This is
typicallyoperationalized by instructing negotiators to meet or
exceed agiven payoff level. In general, negotiators who are given
spe-cific, challenging, or demanding goals complete fewer
success-ful transactions than do those not given challenging goals
(Ba-zerman et al, 1985; Huber & Neale, 1987; Neale &
Bazerman,1985a, 1985b; Neale, Northcraft, & Barley, 1988). One
explana-tion of this finding is that negotiators with high
aspirationshave more unsuccessful transactions (i.e, reach more
impasses)than do negotiators with lower aspirations. However, an
equallyplausible interpretation is that negotiators with high
aspirationsdo not make as many attempts to negotiate as do those
with lowaspirations, perhaps because negotiators with high
aspirationsspend a longer time negotiating (Neale & Bazerman,
1985b).Unfortunately, the number of transactions attempted, the
num-ber actually completed, and the time to complete them werenot
reported; so it is not possible to determine whether
highaspirations are related to higher impasse rates or simply
fewerattempts to negotiate. If high aspirations lead to more
frequentimpasses, a central question concerns the mechanism
involved:Specifically, do high aspirations prevent negotiators from
dis-covering viable agreements, or are negotiators with high
aspira-tions more reluctant to agree to proposals that barely
exceedtheir reservation price (cf. Kelley et al, 1967)? Stated
anotherway, do bargainers become committed to positions and
refuseto move away from their demands, or are bargainers
reluctantto adopt feasible solutions?
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522 LEIGH THOMPSON
Dual Concern Model. The Dual Concern Model (Pruitt &Rubin,
1986) suggests that the relationship between aspirationand
bargaining outcomes is more complex and requires consid-eration of
negotiators' concern for the other party in addition totheir own
level of aspiration. According to the Dual ConcernModel, high
concern for oneself coupled with low concern forthe other party
increases the likelihood of an impasse becauseboth parties will
engage in contentious behavior rather than theproblem-solving
behavior hypothesized to be necessary for in-tegrative agreement.
In contrast, negotiators who have high aspi-rations coupled with
concern for the other party should bemore likely to engage in
problem solving that results in mutualagreement (Pruitt &
Rubin, 1986). The empirical evidencebearing on this hypothesis is
mixed. Two studies have foundclear support for the model's
predictions (Carnevale & Lawler,1986; Pruitt & Lewis,
1975). For example, Pruitt and Lewis(1975) manipulated negotiators'
aspirations by instructingthem to meet or exceed either a high or a
low payoff; theymanipulated concern for the other party by
instructing negotia-tors to adopt either an individualistic or a
cooperative orienta-tion. Negotiators with high aspirations and
individualistic ori-entations were most likely to reach an impasse.
Two direct testsof the model were equivocal: The effects were in
the predicteddirection, but not significant (Ben Yoav & Pruitt,
1984a, 1984b).One study did not support the predictions of the
model (Pruitt,Carnevale, BenYoay, Nochajski, & Van Slyck,
1982).
Whereas "concern" for the other party per se does not
consis-tently influence the likelihood of impasse, negotiators
doappear to be sensitive to overt attempts by the other partyto
exploit or manipulate them. For example, Cruder (1971)found that
negotiators who bargained with "exploitative" oppo-nentspeople who
misrepresented their reservation pricewere more likely to reach an
impasse than were negotiators whobargained with "fair" opponents.
Tjosvold (1978) similarlyfound that negotiators who interacted with
a partner who indi-cated an intention to control rather than
collaborate were morelikely to reach an impasse.
Joint OutcomesExplicit goal setting. The research on explicit
goal setting is
derived from aspiration-level theories (Siegel &
Fouraker,1960). In general, higher aspirations are predicted to
lead togreater joint profit. The reasoning is that negotiators with
highaspirations are more likely to explore ways of maximizing
theiroutcomes because simple compromises do not satisfy theirgoals,
whereas negotiators with low aspirations are more likelyto settle
for obvious solutions yielding low joint payoffs (Kelley&
Schenitzki, 1972). In some experiments, negotiators are givena
specific payofflevel or target value to achieve, others are
givenlower targets, and a control group that is not given a target
valueor goal instruction is often included. In general,
negotiatorswith high target levels are more likely to reach
integrative agree-ments (Bazerman et al., 1985; Huber & Neale,
1986,1987; Mc-Alister, Bazerman & Fader, 1986; Neale &
Bazerman, 1985b;Neale & Northcraft, 1986; Neale, Northcraft,
& Early, 1988;Scholz, Fleischer, & Bentpup, 1982). However,
there is an im-portant qualification. Explicit goals increase the
profitabilityof negotiation outcomes as well as the time required
to com-
plete negotiation transactions, which results in fewer
transac-tions completed within a fixed amount of time (Neale &
Bazer-man, 1985b). Thus a curvilinear relationship between goal
dif-ficulty and total profitability exists when total profitability
isthe product of the number and the value of completed
transac-tions. Again, this is an instance in which apparently
contradic-tory findings may be traced to different measures of
perfor-mance.
Dual Concern Model. According to the Dual ConcernModel, the
relationship between goals and outcomes is morecomplex and requires
consideration of negotiators' attitudes to-ward the other party
(Pruitt & Rubin, 1986). The prediction isthat high aspirations
will increase joint outcomes only whenthe negotiator is concerned
with the interests of the other party.The first empirical
examination bearing on this hypothesis (al-though not intended as a
test of the model) was a study in whichnegotiators were instructed
either to maximize their own gains(individualistic orientation) or
to maximize joint gains (teamorientation; Kelley & Schenitzki,
1972). Furthermore, negotia-tors were told that their monetary
payoffs would depend eitheron their own outcomes or on the joint
amount of resourcesachieved. The paradoxical result was that
negotiators with anindividualistic orientation achieved higher
joint outcomes thandid those with a team orientation. However, this
effect wasobtained only when negotiators communicated through
writ-ten messages; the effect disappeared when negotiators
commu-nicated face to face. Schulz and Pruitt (1978) hypothesized
thatnegotiators with a team orientation would reach higher
jointoutcomes if given an opportunity to divulge information
abouttheir interestssomething they were not allowed to do in
Kel-ley and Schenitzki's study. Negotiators were instructed to
adopteither an individualistic or a team orientation; some pairs
com-municated freely, and others were restricted to truthful
infor-mation exchange. In contrast to Kelley and Schenitzki's
find-ing, and in support of the Dual Concern Model, negotiatorswith
a team orientation achieved higher joint profits than didpairs with
individualistic orientations; the communicationconditions did not
affect joint profitability.
In subsequent studies, Pruitt and his colleagues have
testedpredictions of the Dual Concern Model by independently
ma-nipulating negotiators' concern for themselves and concern
forthe other party. They manipulated concern for the self by
in-forming negotiators that they were accountable to a larger
con-stituency (Ben-Yoav & Pruitt, 1984b) or by providing
negotiatorswith an explicit goal to reach (Ben-%av & Pruitt,
1984a). Theyoperationalized concern for the other party by
providing negoti-ators with a small gift (Carnevale & Isen,
1986; Pruitt et al.,1982), leading some negotiators to expect
cooperative futureinteraction with their opponent (Ben-Yoav &
Pruitt, 1984a,1984b), or by encouraging negotiators to adopt a
cooperativeorientation (Carnevale & Lawler, 1986). The
prediction thathigh concern for oneself coupled with high concern
for theother party leads to higher joint outcomes has generally
beensupported (Ben-Yoav & Pruitt, 1984a, 1984b).
Individual OutcomesAspirations also improve distributive
bargaining behavior.
Bargainers who have specific, explicit goals achieve higher
indi-
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NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES 523
vidual outcomes than do bargainers not given explicit goals
toachieve (Huber & Neale, 1986,1987; McAlister et al,
1986)."One complication with providing negotiators with an
explicitgoal is that the goal may not be adopted by the subject or
thegoal may provide clues to subjects about the structure of
thenegotiation task. Simply put, a negotiator who is told to
maxi-mize joint gain rather than individual gain may realize that
theexperimenter's game does not contain a fixed amount of
re-sources. Similarly, the bargainer who is instructed to try to
earna large amount of profits may similarly (and accurately)
reasonthat there may be more resources available than a
fixed-sumsituation would dictate. One solution to these cuing
problems isto measure goals, rather than to manipulate goals. For
example,Hamner and Harnett (1975) measured negotiators'
aspirationsand found that bargainers with higher aspirations were
moresuccessful than were those with lower aspirations.
Social Psychological MeasuresA small number of researchers have
examined the implica-
tions of constituency pressure on negotiators' perceptions
ofbargaining. In general, constituency pressure is hypothesizedto
increase negotiators' aspirations (Carnevale et al, 1979).
Perceptions of the Bargaining SituationNegotiators under
constituency pressure view bargaining sit-
uations as more competitive and less productive than do
bar-gainers who do not represent a constituency or at least do
notfeel pressured to maximize profits for a constituency (Druck-man
& Zechmeister, 1973; Tjosvold, 1977; Zechmeister &Druckman,
1973). Negotiators whose constituencies pressurethem to maximize
individual profits report less willingness tocompromise, fewer
efforts to be just, and fewer feelings of gen-erosity than do
negotiators whose constituencies are committedto "justice"
(Tjosvold, 1977). Negotiators who confer with theirconstituency to
formulate arguments before negotiation aremore likely to view
negotiation as a win-lose, competitive en-terprise than are
negotiators who spend time with members ofthe other party before
negotiation (Druckman & Zechmeister,1973). Thus constituency
pressure in the form of sanctions andevaluations reduces the
bargainer's perception of personal con-trol and satisfaction with
the bargaining process, but it does notnecessarily hinder the
quality of the economic outcomes andmay even improve performance
when constituents provide ne-gotiators with specific goals to
achieve.
Perceptions of the Other PartyTjosvold (1977) found that
negotiators under pressure from
their constituencies to maximize gains perceived themselves
asmore dissimilar to their opponents than did negotiators whowere
not under pressure to maximize gains.
DiscussionAspirations play an important role in determining
bargain-
ing behavior and performance. The research findings are clearbut
complex: Higher aspirations increase profitability but de-crease
negotiators' willingness to concede from their target
points. Thus high aspirations may improve individual and
jointoutcomes in some situations but lead to an unnecessary
im-passe in other situations. Economic bargaining theory
cannotaccount for these empirical findings because aspirations or
tar-get values are theoretically independent of reservation
prices,and it is reservation price that determines the size of the
bar-gaining zone and hence the likelihood of impasse. The
empiri-cal evidence suggests, however, that aspiration values and
reser-vation price are not independent and that increasing the
negoti-ators' target value also affects their reservation price.
This ofcourse suggests that reservation price is not exogenously
deter-mined but a psychological value. The most likely
psychologicalexplanation of this relationship is the anchoring and
adjust-ment heuristic in which one estimates a value or a position
on adimension by starting with some initial value (anchor) and
thenadjusting it (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Typically,
adjust-ment is insufficient (e.g, the judgment of the new position
is tooclose to the initial value).
The primary theoretical concerns with motivational ap-proaches
are the operationalization and measurement of aspira-tions. The
common method used to examine aspiration is toinstruct negotiators
to meet or exceed an explicit, fixed payofflevel. However,
experimenter-provided goals may not act as anaspiration as intended
but may instead provide subjects withunintentional information
about the structure of the bargain-ing task (e.g, a variable-sum
structure). Furthermore, there istypically no assessment to
indicate whether bargainers acceptthe experimenter-provided goals.
Another problem is that nego-tiators' goals may change during the
course of bargaining(Werner & Tietz, 1982), yet in empirical
analyses researchershave assumed goals are stable throughout
bargaining.
The Dual Concern Model represents a dramatic shift
fromtraditional bargaining theories that view aspiration as a
continu-ous, unidimensional concept in which the primary
objectiveattributed to negotiators is that of maximizing individual
gain.A key concern with the Dual Concern Model is the experimen-tal
incentives and the theoretical concepts. Subjects are typi-cally
instructed to earn as many points as they can in a negotia-tion
task in which they know only their own preferences. Thisaspect of
the experiment is designed to induce a high concernfor oneself.
Then subjects are told that they should expect tointeract with the
other party in the future (Ben%av & Pruitt,1984a, 1984b) or are
given a small gift from the experimenter(Pruitt et al, 1982). This
aspect of the experiment is designed toheighten negotiators'
concern for the other party. However, it isunclear whether this
manipulation actually produces greaterconcern for the other party;
no manipulation checks are re-ported. Furthermore, even if subjects
are motivated to careabout the other party, it is not clear how
they transform theirmotivation into behaviors and strategies, given
that they do notknow the interests of the other party.
A more serious concern with the model is that the experimen-tal
manipulations used to induce concern for the other party
8 A methodological complexity is the fact that the higher joint
out-
comes obtained in the high-aspiration conditions are confounded
withthe measure of individual profit. A pure measure of individual
profitwould require a comparison of outcomes within each bargaining
pair.
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524 LEIGH THOMPSON
also contain unintentional clues about the variable-sum
struc-ture of the task. Simply put, if negotiators are told to
maximizejoint outcomes, they may logically conclude that the task
is nota fixed-sum game. Thus the goal orientation is confoundedwith
information about the structure of the task.
The model also has difficulty accounting for how negotiatorswho
have individualistic orientations (e.g., no or little concernfor
the other party) reach integrative outcomes (Bazerman et al,1985;
Kelley, 1966; Kimmel et al, 1980; Thompson & Hastie, inpress).
According to the Dual Concern Model, integrative out-comes are
reached through joint problem-solving in which bothparties are
concerned with each other's welfare. However, highjoint outcomes
may be reached without problem-solving ef-forts, through the
efforts of each party to pursue his or her owninterests (Kelley
& Schenitzki, 1972). The model has similardifficulty explaining
how negotiators who are presumablyhighly concerned with their
opponents' welfare (e.g., partners inromantic relationships) fail
to reach mutually beneficial out-comes (Fry, Firestone, &
Williams, 1983).
Finally, the model is restrictive and difficult to
generalize.Concern for oneself and another is modeled in an overly
sim-plistic fashion: either high or low. It is possible that
negotiatorshave more complex goals, such as a desire to reach a
fair out-come (Loewenstein, Thompson, & Bazerman, 1989;
Schelling,1960). These alternative goals are not captured by the
model.Furthermore, the model's predictions are limited to
situationsin which negotiators have the same bargaining
orientation. It isnot clear what predictions would be made for
situations inwhich negotiators have different motivational
orientations.
Cognitive ApproachAccording to the cognitive approach,
negotiation is a com-
plex decision-making task in which negotiators are faced
withalternative courses of action, and choices among behavioral
al-ternatives are determined by negotiators' judgments of the
task(Bazerman & Carroll, 1987). Negotiators construct mental
rep-resentations of the negotiation situation and their
opponent,and their behavior is influenced by their judgments of the
otherparty, their own bargaining role, and the bargaining
situation.
The basis of the cognitive approach is information-process-ing
theory (Bazerman & Carroll, 1987; Carroll & Payne,
inpress). Cognitive information-processing theory is a theory ofthe
mind of the individual actor. The essential elements of
theinformation-processing approach are presented as a list of
gen-eral principles briefly described here (see Anderson, 1985,
andHastie, 1986, for more extensive treatments). The
fundamentalmaterial of the information-processing approach is
informa-tion. Information is typically represented as a list of
features;concepts are represented as nodes labeled with a word or
aphrase, and relations between idea nodes are symbolized
theo-retically as links in a network. Information is stored in
memoryin one of several alternative structures. The most common is
alist of concepts, wherein each concept is linked to one or
twoadjacent nodes. Information is available according to
simplespreading-activation principles. Activation spreads from
acurrently active location in a knowledge structure to othernearby
locations; the spread is rapid, and the amount of activa-tion of
proximate locations is inversely related to the number of
locations, and it diminishes sharply with the distance from
thesource of activation (Anderson, 1985). An executive
monitorcontrols the information-processing system by operating
ongoals and plans organized into a control structure hierarchy.The
larger information-processing system comprises a series ofcomponent
locations that are referred to as independent memo-ries. The
information-processing system tends to behave eco-nomically to
accomplish it goals by expending a minimumamount of time and
processing resources. This tendency givesrise to heuristics or
cognitive shortcuts that facilitate informa-tion processing but
often produce inaccurate judgments andbiases (Tversky &
Kahneman, 1974).
Researchers have enhanced theoretical development of
thecognitive approach by identifying the judgment tasks that
nego-tiators face (Carroll & Payne, in press; Thompson &
Hastie,1990), examining negotiators' mental representations of
thetask and their opponent (Carroll, Bazerman, & Maury,
1988;Pinkley, 1990; Thompson & Hastie, in press), examining
theaccuracy of negotiators' judgments (Bazerman & Carroll,
1987;Thompson & Hastie, in press), and exploring the
relationshipbetween judgment and behavior (Thompson & Hastie,
inpress). Methodologies, such as recall and think-aloud measuresare
used to examine information processing and judgment innegotiation
(Carroll et al, 1988; Thompson & Hastie, 1990, inpress). A
number of judgment errors have been identified innegotiation
(Bazerman & Neale, 1983; Thompson & Hastie,1990, in press),
and heuristic information processes similar tothose identified in
individual decision-making tasks are hy-pothesized to guide social
judgment and behavior in negotia-tion.
Economic Criteria
Mutual Agreement
Neale and Bazerman (1985a) derived a prediction from pros-pect
theory to examine whether a negotiator's mental represen-tation of
the task, or cognitive frame, influences bargainingbehavior.
According to prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky,1979), people
have different utility functions for gain and loss,and objectively
identical decision tasks produce differentchoices among identical
options when the reference point de-fining gain and loss is
altered. The hypothesis was that negotia-tors who were risk averse
would be more likely to make conces-sions to avoid an impasse; in
contrast, risk-seeking negotiatorswould be less likely to make
concessions and more likely to riskan impasse. Neale and Bazerman
examined two factors thatthey thought would affect risk aversion:
the framing of negotia-tion payoffs and negotiators' judgments of
the probability thattheir offer would be selected by a neutral
third party underfinal offer arbitration. They manipulated
reference points byinstructing some negotiators to "maximize gain"
and providingnegotiators with payoff schedules containing positive
numbers;negotiators with a negative frame were instructed to
"minimizeloss" and were provided with a payoff schedule containing
nega-tive numbers. Of course, the negotiation tasks were
objectivelyidentical. Neale and Bazerman further hypothesized that
nego-tiators who believed that an arbitrator would choose their
offerunder final offer arbitration would be less likely to
compromise
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NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES 525
and more likely to risk reaching an impasse than would
negotia-tors who were less confident that their offer would be
selected.They therefore instructed half of the negotiators in their
sampleabout the overconfidence judgment error; the remaining
halfwere not given training. As predicted, negotiators who
viewednegotiation in terms of minimizing loss and who believed
thattheir offer would be chosen in the case of final offer
arbitrationwere more likely to reach an impasse. Neale and
Bazermanconcluded that framing affects negotiation behavior in a
man-ner similar to that observed in individual
decision-makingtasks.
Joint OutcomesFraming of negotiation payoffs. Predictions
derived from
prospect theory have also been tested to examine joint
profit-ability in negotiation (Bazerman et al, 1985; Neale &
Bazer-man, 1985a; Neale, Huber & Northcraft, 1987; Neale &
North-craft, 1986). The prediction is that negotiators with a
positiveframe (who view negotiation in terms of maximizing
gain)should be risk averse, whereas those with a negative frame
(whoview negotiation in terms of minimizing loss) should be
riskseeking. Risk aversion should lead to more concessionary
be-havior and higher joint outcomes; risk seeking should lead
tomore contentious behavior and more impasses, resulting inlower
joint outcomes. This prediction has received support in anumber of
studies (Bazerman et al, 1985; Neale & Bazerman,1985a; Neale et
al, 1987; Neale & Northcraft, 1986). However,there is an
important qualification. Most of this research isbased on market
simulations in which negotiators make a num-ber of transactions.
Positively framed negotiators completemore transactions than do
negatively framed negotiators, whichresults in greater total
profit; however, negatively framed negoti-ators earn more per
transaction (Bazerman et al, 1985; Neale &Bazerman, 1985b;
Neale et al, 1987; Neale & Northcraft, 1986).Again, this is an
example of how different measures of perfor-mance appear to yield
inconsistent results.
Judgment accuracy. Thompson and Hastie (1990, in
press)hypothesized that misperceptions of the other party are a
pri-mary cause of suboptimal outcomes in negotiation. They
rea-soned that a key judgment that negotiators make concerns
theirperception of the other party's interests and the structure of
thebargaining task (e.g., purely competitive or integrative;
Thomp-son & Hastie, 1990, in press). Thompson and Hastie
identifiedtwo critical judgments that negotiators make about the
otherparty's interests: compatibility judgments and priority
judg-ments. When negotiators make compatibility judgments,
theydetermine whether all or only some of their interests are
incom-patible with those of the other party. The tendency to
perceiveconflict when none exists is referred to as incompatability
error(Thompson & Hastie, in press). Priority judgments
concernnegotiators' perceptions of the other party's evaluation of
therelative importance of the to-be-negotiated issues. If the
twoparties have different evaluations of the relative importance
ofthe issues, then an integrative solution is possible (Pruitt
&Rubin, 1986; Raiffa, 1982). Simply put, when negotiators
havedifferent values, each has something to offer that is
relativelyless valuable to them than to those with whom they are
bar-gaining. The tendency for negotiators to assume that the
other
party places the same importance on, or has the same
prioritiesfor, the negotiation issues as they do when in fact
negotiatorshave different priorities is referred to as the
fixed-pie error (Ba-zerman & Neale, 1983; Thompson &
Hastie, in press). Thomp-son and Hastie (1990, in press) measured
negotiators' percep-tions several times during negotiation and
found that judgmentaccuracy was strongly related to negotiation
outcomes: negotia-tors who made accurate priority and compatibility
judgmentsattained higher joint outcomes than did those who made
fixed-pie and incompatibility errors. The conclusion was that
negotia-tors' perceptions influence their behavior and the quality
oftheir outcomes.
Claiming ResourcesFraming of negotiation payoffs. Buyers tend to
outperform
sellers in symmetric bargaining tasks (Bazerman et al,
1985;Eliashberg, LaTour, Rangaswamy, & Stern, 1986; Huber
&Neale, 1986; McAlister et al, 1986; Neale & Northcraft,
1986).This effect is perplexing because the roles of "buyer"
and"seller" in these laboratory tasks are objectively identical;
nei-ther party has an inherent advantage. Neale et al. (1987)
hy-pothesized that this phenomenon may be interpreted as a fram-ing
effect. They reasoned that buyers view negotiation in termsof
losing resources or giving up something, whereas sellers
viewnegotiation in terms of gaining resources. This
interpretation,in light of prospect theory's prediction that people
have differ-ent utility functions for gain and loss, suggests that
buyers arerisk seeking and sellers are risk averse. Neale et al.
hypothesizedthat the more risk seeking the negotiator is, the
higher the pre-mium he or she would demand for a negotiated
settlement andthe greater amount of resources he or she would
claim. To testtheir hypothesis, Neale et al. had some negotiators
complete atraditional negotiation task involving buyer and seller
roles; theother subjects completed a task that was objectively
identicalexcept that the context was changed: the labels buyer and
sellerwere changed to mythical names that presumably would notlead
to different gain/loss frames. When role information wasabsent
(mythical roles), task characteristics influenced meanprofit per
transaction: Negatively framed bargainers outper-formed positively
framed bargainers. However, when role infor-mation was present
(buyer-seller roles), role information in-fluenced mean profit per
transaction: Buyers outperformedsellers. The conclusion was that
there are multiple sources offraming bias in negotiation: those
that are responses to taskdemands and those that are contextually
elicited by roles.
Judgment accuracy. Thompson and Hastie (1990, in
press)hypothesized that the accuracy of negotiators' perceptions
ofthe other party's interests should play a large role in
determin-ing outcomes. The reasoning was that negotiators who
makeinaccurate judgments about the other party assume that theother
party's interests are completely opposed to their own, andthey
therefore overlook opportunities for mutual gain and settlefor
suboptimal solutions. In a series of studies, the
relationshipbetween the accuracy of priority and compatibility
judgmentsand bargaining performance was examined. A strong
relation-ship between judgment accuracy and payoffs emerged:
Negotia-tors who made more accurate judgments about the other
party'sinterests earned higher individual payoffs.
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526 LEIGH THOMPSON
Social Psychological Criteria
Perceptions of the Bargaining SituationBazerman and Neale (1983)
speculated that negotiators bring
a fixed-pie, or win-lose, perception to negotiation. They
fur-ther argued that the fixed-pie perception represents a
faultyjudgment when negotiation situations are truly integrative
orprovide opportunity for joint gain. Thompson and Hastie(1990)
measured negotiators' perceptions immediately before, 5min into,
and immediately after an integrative negotiation task.The majority
of negotiators entered negotiation with a fixed-pieperception of
the task. As the negotiation progressed, somenegotiators learned
that the other party's interests were not com-pletely opposed to
their own. However, misperceptions afternegotiation were still
substantial. For example, after negotia-tion, most negotiators
(85%) failed to realize that they had inter-ests on one issue that
were perfectly compatible with those ofthe other party, and a
majority (68%) had a fixed-pie perception.The conclusion is that
negotiators bring a win-lose, competitiveexpectation to negotiation
that is remarkably resistant tochange.
Perceptions of the OpponentNegotiators tend to perceive the
other party as completely
dissimilar to themselves. For example, negotiators expect
theother parties' interests to be completely opposed to their
own(Thompson & Hastie, 1990). This expectation persists
evenafter bargains in which negotiators have some interests that
arecompletely compatible with those of the other party (Thomp-son
& Hastie, in press). The existence of the fixed-pie and
in-compatibility perceptions suggests that negotiators often
usetheir own interests to make an inference about those of theother
party. The typical inference process is to assume that theother
party's interests are completely opposed to one's own.
A complementary psychological process was suggested byOskamp
(1965) and Stillinger and Ross (1987). Stillinger andRoss
hypothesized that negotiators reason that proposals of-fered by
their opponent must be less advantageous for them-selves and more
advantageous to the adversary than they ap-pear to be. Simply put,
negotiators reason that whatever is goodfor their opponent must be
bad for themselves. This suggeststhat proposals and offers
suggested by opponents may be deval-ued in negotiation. To examine
this hypothesis, Stillinger andRoss had some negotiators rate the
value of an opponent's con-cession before it was actually made;
others rated the value afterthe concession was offered. Negotiators
engaged in reactive de-valuation: They devalued the concessions
after they were of-fered by their opponent.
The Thompson-Hastie analysis differs from the Stillinger-Ross
effect in terms of the locus of the inference process.Thompson and
Hastie (1990, in press) posited that negotiatorsmake inferences
about their opponent's interests on the basis oftheir own values;
Stillinger and Ross (1987) suggested that nego-tiators make
inferences about their own values on the basis ofthose articulated
by the other party. Are these inference pro-cesses contradictory? I
believe that both processes characterizesocial inference in
negotiation and that the occurrence of eachprocess depends on the
strength, clarity, and commitment of
negotiators' values and the other party's interests. When
negoti-ators are uncertain about their own interests or have
conflictinginterests, then reactive devaluation processes most
likely char-acterize bargaining behavior. However, when
negotiators' owninterests are available and clear, then fixed-pie
and incompati-bility inferences characterize bargaining behavior.
The impor-tant implication is that both inference processes lead to
theperception of conflict between parties.
Perceptions of the SelfSelf-serving evaluations. Negotiators
make self-serving attri-
butions and evaluations in bargaining (Brandstatter, Kette,
&Sageder, 1982; Turnbull et al, 1976). For example,
negotiatorswho are unable to reach mutually acceptable agreements
blametheir opponent for the failure, whereas they usually
attributesuccess to themselves (Brandstatter et al, 1982). This
pattern ofresults is consistent with research in other social
domains thatsuggests that people make self-serving attributions for
successand failure (McFarland & Ross, 1982) and make
self-enhancingdownward social comparisons (Wills, 1981).
Overconfidence. Overconfidence in judgment is closely re-lated
to self-serving processes and is pervasive in bargaining.For
example, Neale and Bazerman (1983) examined negotia-tors'
perceptions that an arbitrator would favor their proposalover the
proposal suggested by their adversary. The majority ofnegotiators
believed that an arbitrator would favor their pro-posal. Neale and
Bazerman reasoned that negotiators wereoverconfident when they made
probability estimates greaterthan 50% because, on average,
negotiators should expect thattheir offer will be selected by a
neutral third party about half ofthe time.
DiscussionThe cognitive approach is especially appealing because
it is
an attempt to predict behavior across a broad range of peopleand
situations. Another advantage of the approach is that itprovides
methodological tools, such as recall and think-aloudmeasures that
have proved useful in identifying constructs,measuring variables,
and exploring implications of the ap-proach. Finally, the cognitive
approach provides conceptuallinks to other social-cognitive
theories at different levels of sci-entific analysis. The approach,
however, is not complete. Itshares all of the disadvantages
associated with more generalcognitive information-processing models
(cf. Hastie, 1986) andalso has some unique shortcomings. First, the
cognitive ap-proach is still in its infancy. Although this is not a
disadvantageper se, a coherent, internally consistent, falsifiable
theory of thenegotiator has not been developed, and the approach
does notreadily suggest testable implications. Second, the current
ap-plication of methodological tools is incomplete. Research
meth-odologies often fall short of a thorough
information-processinganalysis (Carroll & Payne, in press).
Judgment processes andproducts are often inferred on basis of
negotiation outcomesrather through direct examination. Some
exceptions areCarroll et al.'s (1988) think-aloud study of
decision-making pro-cesses in competitive situations and Thompson
and Hastie's(1990, in press) think-aloud analysis of judgment error
in negoti-
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NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES 527
ation. The aim of information-processing approach is to obtaina
"picture" of the negotiator's mindto understand its pro-cesses and
products. In order to accomplish this, it is necessaryto move away
from comparing negotiators' behavior with pre-dictions derived from
normative models and, instead, focus onthe cognitive processes of
negotiators. This approach, of course,requires that researchers
include social-psychological measuresin their investigations of
bargaining behavior to examine negoti-ators' perceptions.
A unique set of problems arises from the imperfect mappingof
cognitive information processing theory onto the study
ofnegotiation. One limitation of the cognitive approach is
theimpoverished treatment of motivational factors. Although
con-cepts of utility, aspiration, and goals are acknowledged,
theirrepresentation and relationship to judgment and decisions
arenot well specified. This task becomes even more complicatedwhen
models posit the existence of goals more complex thansimple
economic utility maximization.
An implicit assumption of the cognitive approach is thatmany of
the judgment phenomena that occur in individualdecision-making
tasks may be extended to the interpersonaltask of negotiation.
Consequently, many of the phenomenastudied have been those explored
in individual judgment tasks.This reasoning however, constrains the
scope of theoreticalanalysis. In extending individual judgment
phenomena to nego-tiation tasks, researchers often ignore the
interactive nature ofnegotiation. It is assumed that negotiators'
perceptions andjudgments are relatively static and do not change as
a functionof the influence of the other party. Furthermore, such
assump-tions often constrain the focus of analysis: Individual
judgmentphenomena that may be easily extended to negotiation
situa-tions are most often studied.
Finally, the identification of judgment errors and biases
isproblematic. Judgment errors and biases are hypothesized to bethe
major cause of ineffective negotiation behavior and subopti-mal
outcomes. An analysis of judgment error and bias
requiresconsideration of three elements: a judgment, a standard or
acriterion of truth, and a rule specifying a correspondence
rela-tion between the judgment and the criterion (Hastie &
Ra-sinski, 1988). It has been hypothesized that negotiators
ignorerelevant information and distort otherwise accurate
informa-tion (Carroll et al., 1988). However, it is also possible
that negoti-ators may not have the necessary information to make
accuratejudgments of the other party because of insufficient or
decep-tive information exchange (Pruitt & Lewis, 1975;
Thompson, inpress-a). Under such circumstances, it is not
appropriate toview inaccuracy as indicative of bias (Funder,
1987).
CONCLUSIONS
Theoretical IssuesIt was clear before I wrote this article that
normative models
do not adequately account for empirical observations of
bar-gaining. My argument is that psychological theories of
negotia-tion provide the best approach for understanding
negotiationbehavior. The descriptive approaches examined in this
articleoffer important insights for understanding negotiation,
buteach also contains shortcomings and limitations. In this
review,
I made clear distinctions among the individual
differences,motivational, and cognitive approaches. However, I do
notmean to imply that these theoretical approaches are
necessarilycontradictory. The approaches focus on different
constructs,and few researchers have attempted to pit one approach
againstanother. Instead, investigators in recent analyses have
at-tempted to integrate these approaches by developing frame-works
that include personality, motivation, and cognitive pro-cesses
(Bazerman & Carroll, 1987; Neale & Northcraft, inpress).
These frameworks are primarily structural and servechiefly to
organize the large literature on negotiation ratherthan to derive
implications and testable predictions.
The purpose of this article is not to propose a new theory
ofnegotiation behavior but to identify the elements and
processesthat should be included and the phenomena that must be
ex-plained by a psychological theory of negotiation. First,
thetheory should be accessible to objective, economic analysis;that
is, the theory should provide a way of measuring conceptssuch as
the bargaining zone, integrative outcomes, and distribu-tive
bargaining outcomes. Second, a theory of negotiationshould explain
the perceptual experience of negotiators andtheir judgment
processes. The most enduring and robust per-ceptions include the
fixed-pie perception, self-serving attribu-tions, and gain and loss
frames of reference. Third, a theoryshould explain the
relationships between judgment and behav-ior in negotiation, such
as those between fixed-pie perceptionsand outcomes and between
gain/loss frames of reference andperformance. Fourth, in addition
to explaining the correspon-dences between judgment and behavior,
the theory should ex-plain discrepancies. Discrepancies occur on
the general levelbetween social-psychological and economic
measures. For ex-ample, although most negotiators fail to realize
that their inter-ests may be completely compatible with those of
their oppo-nent, many are able to reach optimal agreements on these
issuesanyway (Thompson, 1990, in press-a). Discrepancies also
occuron a more local level; for example, aspiration levels affect
per-ceptions of reservation price. Finally, motivation and goals
areessential ingredients in a theory of negotiation. The
fundamen-tal elements of negotiation imply the existence of
motivation(e.g, interests, utilities), and aspirations are clearly
empiricallyrelated to behavior and performance. In economic
analyses,researchers typically assume that negotiators' primary
motiva-tion is to maximize their own gain. However, negotiators'
goalsare undoubtedly more complex, and they are clearly
concernedwith the outcomes of the other party as well as their own
(Loe-wenstein et al, 1989; Messick & Sentis, 1985; Schelling,
1960).The theory should provide a way of capturing alternate
goals.
The list of theoretical imperatives outlined here is not
ex-haustive. The temptation facing theoreticians is to develop
con-ceptual frameworks that encompass all the features and
charac-teristics of negotiation and apply to several levels of
analysis.However, I think that the most powerful theory of
negotiationbehavior will begin at the level of the individual
negotiator.This view, of course, is most consistent with the
information-processing theory that is the basis of the cognitive
approachoutlined in this article. In advocating this model as a
basis forconstructing a theory of the negotiator, I do not suggest
that theinterpersonal aspect of negotiation be ignored. I believe
thatthe theoretical task of understanding communication will be
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528 LEIGH THOMPSON
facilitated once an understanding of the individual
negotiator'smind is developed. Also, I do not suggest that the
cognitiveapproach is incompatible with motivational and
aspirationmodels of behavior. Quite the contrary. As noted earlier,
a psy-chological theory of negotiation behavior will need to
includemotivational factors as well as social judgment
processes.
It may help to clarify the relationship between motivationaland
cognitive models if I suggest an illustrative relation. Acurrent
theoretical and empirical hole in negotiation researchconcerns how
negotiators develop goals in bargaining. In mostof the studies
addressing the goal-performance relationship,investigators
experimentally manipulate goals by providing ne-gotiators with a
performance level to achieve or exceed. In theabsence of
performance constraints imposed by experimenters,what determines
the goals that negotiators adopt? One hypoth-esis is that
negotiators' goals are guided by their judgments ofthe amount of
available resources and the other party's inter-ests. Thus
judgments influence bargaining aspirations, whichguide behavior.
The suggestion that goals guide behavior is notnew; in some of the
earliest and most important analyses ofnegotiation behavior,
researchers hypothesized that goals guidesearch and behavior (cf.
Schelling, 1960; Siegel & Fouraker,1960). What is new about
this view is the role of judgment innegotiation and the
relationship between judgment and aspira-tions. Researchers have
already begun to explore the assump-tions that negotiators bring to
negotiation and how perceptionschange during negotiation (cf.
Thompson & Hastie, 1990, inpress). The next important step is
to explore the relationshipbetween judgments and goals.
Empirical IssuesExamination of the matrix created by the
intersection of
theory and research in this review highlights areas that are
inneed of development. In general, economic measures of
perfor-mance have been used more extensively than
social-psychologi-cal measures. I do not suggest that
social-psychological mea-sures replace objective analysis; it is
important to include bothmeasures in research programs. There are
at least three reasonsfor this. First, negotiators typically do not
have the informationnecessary to make objective judgments of the
bargaining situa-tion; their understanding of the bargaining
situation is basedon their perceptions. A "picture" of the
negotiator's perceptualexperience seems to be important for a
theory of negotiation.Second, it is useful to compare negotiators'
perceptions withobjective measures. Some of the most enduring
questions inpsychology have to do with the study of accuracy of
judgmentand perception (Funder, 1987; Hastie & Rasinski, 1987;
Kru-glanski, 1989). Researchers in other domains such as
personperception have been forced to rely on indirect methods
thatinfer error from subjects' tendencies to rely on "bad cues"
andto ignore "good cues" or their failure to match the output of
anormative model (e.g., Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Negotiation
withits well-defined, objective task structure provides an ideal
set ofcriteria from which to examine the accuracy of
negotiators'perceptions (Thompson & Hastie, 1990). Finally,
negotiators'perceptions are important to examine because they
influencebehavior in negotiation (Thompson & Hastie, in
press).
Negotiation performance (in terms of economic criteria) is
frequently less than optimal. Although this empirical
realitysuggests that the normative model of negotiation does not
ful-fill a descriptive function, one can argue that the paradigm
onwhich descriptive research is based does not provide an
appro-priate testing ground