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April 01 2003

The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations

Leaf Van Boven,

Leaf Van Boven

Leaf Van Boven is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Campus Box 345, Boulder, Colo. 80309. Email: [email protected].

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Thomas Gilovich,

Thomas Gilovich

Thomas Gilovich is a Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, Department of Psychology, Ithaca, N.Y. 15850. Email: [email protected].

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Victoria Husted Medvec

Victoria Husted Medvec

Victoria Husted Medvec is the Adeline Barry Davee Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Ill. 60201. Email: [email protected].

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Author and Article Information

Leaf Van Boven

Leaf Van Boven is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Campus Box 345, Boulder, Colo. 80309. Email: [email protected].

Thomas Gilovich

Thomas Gilovich is a Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, Department of Psychology, Ithaca, N.Y. 15850. Email: [email protected].

Victoria Husted Medvec

Victoria Husted Medvec is the Adeline Barry Davee Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Ill. 60201. Email: [email protected].

First Publication: July 02 2007

Online ISSN: 1571-9979

Print ISSN: 0748-4526

© 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation

2003

Plenum Publishing Corporation

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For a full description of the license, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Negotiation Journal (2003) 19 (2): 117–131.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1571-9979.2003.tb00771.x

Abstract

The authors examined whether negotiators are prone to an “illusion of transparency,” or the belief that their private thoughts and feelings are more discernible to their negotiation partners than they actually are. In Study One, negotiators who were trying to conceal their preferences thought that their preferences had “leaked out” more than they actually did. In Study Two, experienced negotiators who were trying to convey information about some of their preferences overestimated their partners' ability to discern them. The results of Study Three rule out the possibility that the findings are simply the result of the curse of knowledge, or the projection of one's own knowledge onto others. Discussion explores how the illusion of transparency might impede negotiators' success.

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© 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation

2003

Plenum Publishing Corporation

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For a full description of the license, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.