The basic building blocks of all social encounters are:
Perception
Cognition
Framing
Cognitive biases
Emotion
Perception defined:
The process by which individuals connect to their
environment.
A complex physical and psychological process of
"sense-making"
Perception is
the process of ascribing meaning to messages and events.
It is strongly influenced by the perceiver's current state
of mind, role, and comprehension of earlier communications.
- People
interpret their environment in order to respond appropriately
- The
complexity of environments makes it impossible to process all of the
information
- People develop shortcuts to process information and these shortcuts
can create perceptual errors
PERCEPTUAL DISTORTION
• Four major perceptual errors:
■ Stereotyping
■ Halo
effects
■ Selective
perception
■ Projection
Selective perception:
■ Perpetuates
stereotypes or halo effects
■ The
perceiver singles out information that supports a prior belief but filters out
contrary information
Projection:
■ Arises
out of a need to protect one's own self-concept
■ People
assign to others the characteristics or feelings that they possess themselves
FRAMING
Frames:
■ Represent
the subjective mechanism through which people evaluate and make sense
out of situations
■ Lead
people to pursue or avoid subsequent actions
■ Focus,
shape and organize the world around us
■ Make
sense of complex realities
■ Define
a person, event or process
■ Impart
meaning and significance
TYPES OF FRAMES
•Substantive
•Outcome
•Aspiration
•Process
•Identity
•Characterization
•Loss-Gain
HOW FRAMES WORK IN NEGOTIATION
•Negotiators can use more than one frame
•Mismatches in frames between parties are sources of
conflict
•Particular types of frames may lead to particular types of
arguments
•Specific frames may be likely to be used with certain types
of issues
•Parties are likely to assume a particular frame because of
various factors
INTERESTS, RIGHTS, AND POWER
Parties in conflict use one of three frames:
• Interests: people talk about their
"positions" but often what is at stake is their underlying interests
• Rights: people may be concerned about who is
"right" - that is, who has legitimacy, who is correct, and what is
fair
• Power: people may wish to resolve a conflict
on the basis of who is stronger
THE FRAME OF AN ISSUE CHANGES AS THE NEGOTIATION EVOLVES
Negotiators tend to argue for stock issues or concerns that are raised
every time the parties negotiate
Each party attempts to make the best possible case for his or her
preferred position or perspective
Frames may define major shifts and transitions in a complex overall
negotiation
Multiple agenda items operate to shape issue development
SOME ADVICE ABOUT PROBLEM FRAMING FOR NEGOTIATORS
•Frames shape what the parties define as the key issues and
how they talk about them
Both parties have frames
Frames are controllable, at least to some degree
Conversations change and transform frames in ways
negotiators may not be able to predict but may be able to control
Certain frames are more likely than others to lead to
certain types of processes and outcomes
COGNITIVE BIASES
Irrational escalation of commitment
Mythical fixed-pie beliefs
Anchoring and adjustment
Issue framing and risk
Availability of information
The winner's curse
Overconfidence
The law of small numbers
Self-serving biases
Endowment effect
Ignoring others' cognitions
Reactive devaluation
IRRATIONAL ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT AND MYTHICAL
FIXED-PIE BELIEFS
Irrational escalation of commitment
Negotiators maintain commitment to a
course of action even when that commitment constitutes irrational behavior
Mythical fixed-pie beliefs
Negotiators assume that all
negotiations (not just some) involve a fixed pie
ANCHORING AND ADJUSTMENT AND ISSUE FRAMING AND RISK
Anchoring and adjustment
The effect of the standard (anchor)
against which subsequent adjustments (gains or losses) are measured
The anchor might be based on faulty or
incomplete information, thus be misleading
Issue framing and risk
Frames can lead people to seek, avoid, or
be neutral about risk in decision making and negotiation
AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION AND THE WINNER'S CURSE
Availability of information
Operates when information that is
presented in vivid or attention-getting ways becomes easy to recall.
Becomes central and critical in evaluating
events and options
The winner's curse
The tendency to settle quickly on an item
and then subsequently feel discomfort about a win that comes too easily
OVERCONFIDENCE AND THE LAW OF SMALL NUMBERS
•Overconfidence
The tendency of negotiators to
believe that their ability to be correct or accurate is greater than is
actually true
The law of small numbers
The tendency of people to draw conclusions
from small sample sizes
The smaller sample, the greater the
possibility that past lessons will be erroneously used to infer what will happen
in the
future |
SELF-SERVING BIASES AND ENDOWMENT EFFECT
Self-serving biases
People often explain another person's
behavior by making attributions, either to the person or to the situation
The tendency, known as fundamental attribution error, is to:
The tendency, known as fundamental attribution error, is to:
Overestimate the role of
personal or internal factors
Underestimate the role
of situational or external factors
Endowment effect
The tendency to overvalue something you
own or believe you possess
IGNORING OTHERS' COGNITIONS AND REACTIVE DEVALUATION
Ignoring others' cognitions
Negotiators don't bother to
ask about the other party's perceptions and thoughts
This leaves them to work with
incomplete information, and thus produces faulty results
Reactive devaluation
The process of devaluing the
other party's concessions simply because the other party made them
MANAGING MISPERCEPTIONS AND COGNITIVE BIASES IN NEGOTIATION
The best advice that negotiators can follow is:
Be aware of the negative
aspects of these biases
Discuss them in a
structured manner within the team and with counterparts
MOOD, EMOTION, AND NEGOTIATION
The distinction between mood
and emotion is based on three characteristics:
Specificity
Intensity
Duration
Negotiations create both positive and negative emotions
Positive emotions generally
have positive consequences for negotiations
They are more likely to lead
the parties toward more integrative processes
They also create a positive
attitude toward the other side
They promote persistence
They set the stage for
successful subsequent negotiations
Aspects of the negotiation process can lead to positive
emotions
Positive feelings result from
fair procedures during negotiation
Positive feelings result from
favorable social comparison
• Negative emotions generally have negative consequences for
negotiations
They may lead parties to
define the situation as competitive or distributive
They may undermine a
negotiator's ability to analyze the situation accurately, which adversely
affects individual
outcomes
They may lead parties to
escalate the conflict
They may lead parties to
retaliate and may thwart integrative outcomes
Aspects of the negotiation process can lead to negative
emotions
Negative emotions may result
from a competitive mind-set
Negative emotions may result
from an impasse
Negative emotions may result
from the prospect of beginning a negotiation
Effects of positive and negative emotion
Positive emotions may generate
negative outcomes
Negative feelings may elicit
beneficial outcomes
Emotions can be used strategically as negotiation
gambits
