Research Digest

Negotiation texts urge us to create gain by exploring interests and weighing options. Advocacy must be coupled with honest inquiry. A team of researchers has found, however, that seemingly innocent hypothetical questions can actually influence people's subsequent decisions and behaviors.

Through a series of studies in which researchers manipulated factors known to enhance and attenuate knowledge accessibility, they demonstrated how the directed use of hypothetical questions influenced an individual's voting choices, legal decision making (jury duty), and consumption behavior. They found that hypothetical questions can strongly influence judgments and behaviors, often without an individual's knowledge and consent. What seem to be simple questions are not necessarily so — they can be designed to manipulate an individual's decisions and behaviors, and people should be made aware of the biasing effects of this type of questioning.

Source: Moore, S. G., D. Neal, G. Fitzsimons, and B. Shiv. 2012. Wolves in sheep's clothing: How and when hypothetical questions influence behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 117(1): 168–178.

The more information we have in a negotiation, the better able we will be at determining whether there is room for agreement and how value can be generated. Much of modern contemporary negotiation theory and practice are built on this idea.

But studies by a quartet of researchers suggest that it matters how we come upon the information. Specifically, we make better use of it if we have actually sought it out rather than if it is more easily accessible. And if we find it on our own, we have higher expectations for our outcomes in the final negotiation and end up with higher final settlements compared with those who had immediate access to the same information.

Why is this? The researchers found that the act of searching for less accessible information can cause people to perceive the underlying issue as more important, which causes them to seek a better outcome

Source: Young, M. J., C. Bauman, N. Chen, and A. Bastardi. 2012. The pursuit of missing information. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 117(1): 88–95.

According to a recent study, we should cross our fingers that our counterparts have gotten a good night's sleep before negotiating with us. Otherwise, they may not be trustworthy.

Researchers used a combination of laboratory and field studies to test their hypotheses that employees are less likely to resist temptation to engage in unethical behavior when they have not slept enough. Drawing from the Ego Depletion model and research on sleep physiology, they were able to predict a relationship between an individual's lack of sleep and unethical behavior. Their findings highlight the role of sleep deprivation in diminishing self‐control, which in turn reduces the inhibition of unethical behavior.

Given their results, the researchers argue that researchers and theorists of behavioral ethics need to look at the effects of fatigue on unethical behavior. They also suggest one practical implication of their findings: managers and organizations may play a larger role in inciting unethical behavior through increased work demands, which lead to a sleepy employee who is more likely to engage in unethical behavior.

Source: Barnes, C. B., J. Schaubroeck, M. Huth, and S. Ghumman. 2011. Lack of sleep and unethical conduct. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 115(2): 169–180.

As negotiators, we often strive to read the minds of our counterparts. If we expect others to collaborate, we extend an olive branch. If not, we may wield a heavy club before we get whacked ourselves.

In this study, three researchers looked at how such judgments can be context‐dependent. Sometimes we imagine what we would do if we were in our counterpart's shoes, other times we make guesses about that person's intentions based on stereotypes. It all depends on our beliefs and assumptions about our counterparts.

Strategic interaction revolves around each side's assumptions about the other side. This matters because it impacts an actor's own behavior, whether it is in an armed conflict between nations or a one‐on‐one business negotiation. In their four studies of strategic interactions, researchers looked at how “mind‐reading” — intuiting another party's preferences and intentions — can affect behavior. They found the perception of similarity between the negotiator and his or her counterpart moderated the use of projection and stereotyping in mind‐reading and that higher levels of perceived similarity were associated with greater projection and less stereotyping. More importantly, they found that these subjective beliefs about similarity were not related to actual similarity.

Source: Ames, D. R., E. Weber, and X. Zou, 2012. Mind reading in strategic interaction: The impact of perceived similarity on projection and stereotyping. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 117(1): 96–110.