Power of the Powerless
How we speak affects how powerful we appear to other people. Even seemingly minor variations in language can influence our status in groups. That is the conclusion of Alison R. Fragale who constructed a clever online experiment in which subjects responded to pre‐scripted statements from a supposed colleague.
This article describes two studies in which participants made judgments about an actor who used either a “powerful” or “powerless” speech style. Fragale found that when the actor did not work together with the subject to complete the task, powerful speakers were conferred more status, but when a group was perceived to be collaborating to complete the assigned tasks, powerless actors (those who hedged and hesitated) were perceived as having more status. In the highly communal setting, participants weighted communality more than power or agency.
Fragale concludes that powerless speech may be a useful communication behavior for those who wish to gain standing in interdependent groups. This challenges a current popular belief that powerless speech characteristics will brand you as being more “emotional” and less efficacious, which could stand in the way of getting the promotion you seek.
Source: Fragale, A. R. 2006. The power of powerless speech: The effects of speech style and task interdependence on status conferral. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101: 243–261.
That “Gut Feeling”
Some of the most rigorous elements of negotiation analysis arise from rational economic theories, notably game theory and decision analysis.
In recent years, however, there has been growing interest in intuitive decision making. Enthusiasts believe that complex choices cannot be completely captured in formal models and are often made in response to “gut feelings.” Skeptics warn, however, that to rely on intuition is to abandon discipline and live by whim.
Erik Dane and Michael Pratt review research on intuition in their recent article. While their piece does not deal with negotiation explicitly, it offers valuable insights for negotiation teachers and practitioners. Their article first focuses on the process of intuiting then turns to intuitive judgments — the products of intuiting. Dane and Pratt suggest that the primary methods for determining when an intuition will be effective involve the nature of schemas employed by the intuiter. Heuristic (mental shortcuts that reduce complex tasks to simpler shortcuts) intuition is more likely to lead to inaccurate intuitive judgments because it is “simple” and cannot process complex environmental stimuli. But “expert” intuition can lead to highly accurate intuitive decisions because it is more complex and domain relevant.
Source: Dane, E. and M. Pratt. 2007. Exploring intuition and its role in managerial decision making. Academy of Management Review 32(1): 1–6.
Undergrads as Military Decision Makers?
A recent study by Alex Mintz, Steven B. Redd, and Arnold Vedlitz may be chastening for negotiation researchers who draw overly broad conclusions from experiments in which the subjects are relatively inexperienced college undergraduates. The authors designed an experiment using a national security scenario dealing with counterterrorism in which subjects were presented with four real‐world alternatives. The subjects were university students and military officers.
Not surprisingly, there were significant statistical differences between the choices made and strategies utilized by the military officers and the students. The authors state that it is unrealistic to expect undergraduates to perform the roles of trained military decision makers. If the real‐world equivalent of a student sample is the general public, however, an experiment with students may tell us about the behavior of the public; this of course remains to be evaluated.
Source: Mintz, A., S. Redd, and A. Vedlitz. 2006. Can we generalize from student experiments to the real world in political science, military affairs, and international relations? Journal of Conflict Resolution 50: 757–776.
Sounds Good . . . But Is It Genuine?
What happens in negotiation when you extend the olive branch of understanding, but your empathy is spurned?
In a recent linguistic analysis of such rejections, Bilyana Martinovski, David Traum, and Stacy Marsella found that expressing empathy is not sufficient to realize empathy. They discovered that the less trust there is between the negotiating parties, the more unreceptive they will be to the other's expressions of empathy. But when the speaker is receptive to empathy, the negotiation proceeds more smoothly and with more trust. Thus, there is a circular relationship between trust and empathy: empathy increases trust, which in turn makes a negotiator more receptive to the other's empathic expressions.
Empathy is an interactive process in which speakers confirm each other's values and experiences. Empathic exchange can also be used as a strategy for increasing trust, and while rejecting empathy can complicate a negotiation, it usually does not cause a breakdown. The rejection provides information that can prolong the talks. Most importantly, each negotiating party should learn to take on the roles of both “empathizer” and “empathee,” which may be essential for effective communication.
Source: Martinovski, B., D. Traum, and S. Marsella. 2007. Rejection of empathy in negotiation. Group Decision and Negotiation 16: 61–76.
Ending the Free Ride
The prisoner's dilemma remains a source of fascination for economists and social psychologists, and it continues to offer insight into negotiation as well.
In a recent set of experiments, Anna Gunnthorsdottir and Ammon Rapoport found that free riding — known also as social loafing — within a group could be tempered by offering rewards for outperforming other groups. But the structure of the award system makes a difference. In this study, the authors compare egalitarian (prize shared evenly among the group members) and proportional (prize divided in proportion to individual contributions) profit‐sharing rules. Not surprisingly, they found that individual contribution under the proportional rule exceeded individual contribution under the egalitarian rule. However, the magnitude of the effect increases with the total number of competitors. This may be a result of increased opportunity for larger individual rewards. As group size increases, individual shares decrease under an egalitarian rule.
Also, the profit‐sharing rule is important if individuals are aware of it before making their group contributions. For example, United Way campaigns introduce interdepartmental competitions to increase individual contributions. But you would need to make sure the incentives for the competing groups are aligned with the goals of the organization before implementing them.
Source: Gunnthorsdottir, A. and A. Rapoport. 2006. Embedding social dilemmas in intergroup competition reduces free‐riding. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101: 184–199.
