There are three general philosophical conceptions of how worldviews might impact negotiations—we can call them “meta” worldviews. At one extreme, actors negotiate, and are fully in charge; they can bypass any specific or “micro” worldviews they originally hold; they remain free agents in the final analysis. At the other extreme, “micro” worldviews shape protagonists' words and acts to such an extent that, even unbeknownst to them, they are themselves, in effect, being negotiated upon by the worldviews. In between these two poles, both agency and worldviews impact negotiations and influence protagonists on a continuum with various degrees of freedom. If we acknowledge the impact of “micro” worldviews on negotiators, we can study them as a set of interactive components—sociological, psychological, and biological—that mold the identity of an actor or group. This recognition of the impact of “micro” worldviews does not prevent us from offering proactive platforms to reinforce agency. When two people negotiate with each other they can acknowledge, unilaterally and hopefully jointly, how worldviews inhabit and influence each of them, and still dynamically deploy a series of moves to get things done responsibly across their respective worldviews.

Human beings are mistaken in thinking themselves free. This opinion is only made up because they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes that determine them.

Spinoza, Ethics, Part 2, Prop. 35, 1677

What is your stand on agency? Is agency real or fictitious? Many negotiators might be tempted to embrace agency as a vital force when they interact with others because they feel in charge, in the driver's seat, free to decide at any time what to say or do next, whatever their identity of departure. In brief, they are negotiating. But what if, incorporating Spinoza's insights, they were just fooling themselves, ignoring what causes them to act, such as the aggregated laws of their own human nature that permeate them? What if they were merely driven, in the passenger's seat, i.e., they are being negotiated by identity factors beyond their control?

Whether a person thinks they are actively negotiating or passively being negotiated upon, i.e., in control or controlled, captures upfront two opposite “meta” worldviews about negotiation agency: a promising one and a challenging one. We can call it a philosophical stance on negotiation that stems from, and impacts, life experience. But then, beyond this general worldview of how much power we feel we have in negotiation, we can unpack further “micro” worldviews that frame every person specifically and shape our power. We can then trace such worldviews back to multiple components of identity that affect our daily negotiation approach: a style or personality, a special trajectory, family, education, profession, organization, nation, religion, and so on. In a nutshell, “micro” worldviews might nurture our conscious or unconscious “meta” worldview of agency. Some people might feel free to negotiate, powerful, whereas others might feel coerced by factors beyond their control, as if they had no real choice, were powerless, negotiated.

Even if meta‐ and micro‐level worldviews end up generating negotiators' ideas and behaviors, the agency question remains central in the here and now: Are we stuck in our fragmented “positional” worlds of departure, our respective identities, or can we build bridges, downplaying and circumventing our initial stances and biases, however large the gap with the other side might be at the start?

The first philosophical part of this essay proposes alternative “meta” worldviews on negotiation and agency. The next descriptive part surfaces possible worldview constituents—sociological, psychological, and biological—and examines how they might interact with each other. The last part, without pretending to be normative or prescriptive, offers a proactive platform for potential agency beyond the identities prevailing originally. It enables a dynamic approach from which negotiators, unilaterally and hopefully jointly, acknowledge how worldviews inhabit each of them and influence their daily perceptions, words, and acts. Thus, despite knowing they are influenced by their worldviews, negotiators can deploy a series of moves that hopefully increase the likelihood of getting things done responsibly across worldviews, with identities serving as bridges and springboards for change.

In negotiation, agency often refers to “negotiating on behalf of others” (Mnookin and Susskind 1995), but we consider it here more broadly as the individual power to negotiate and to make decisions. Echoing Dilthey's seminal work (1911) and the complexity of the relevant literature on worldviews, we can understand worldview forms as oscillating between idealistic and materialistic poles of agency. Of course, behaviors, motivations, and reactions will remain more complex than what our approach suggests, and further empirical studies are required for validation, but we wish to offer three conceptions of how worldviews and agency might interact in negotiation.

A Powerful Worldview of Negotiation Agency

At one extreme, one philosophical conception considers that each of us negotiates the way we do at any moment with full agency without being caused to do so by any preconditioning, such as an inherited life experience from family, country, or any other source. In that idealistic and individualistic scenario of self in charge above all else, negotiation actions express free will; they end up being what they are but could be something different. In that optimistic view, any negotiator's move is up to them as decision maker to shape, or reorient, in one direction or another. This first conception offers maximum leverage and flexibility at the table and helps the negotiator feel powerful because they believe they are the source of all moves. Everything becomes possible, “just like that,” by personal fiat. Whatever past missteps led to the present quagmire, present and future actions have the potential to reopen the game. Nothing is ever written in stone, and anything can go right or left, forward or backward. For sure, such conception brings fresh air and hope to protagonists who are stuck in despair and deadlock. No conflict is intractable; and the light is at the end of the tunnel, even if the current situation looks bleak.

In that luminous configuration, interventions through negotiations or other means can shift things around for the best. Enemy factions, who have been fighting for as long as we remember, can negotiate not only ceasefires, but a sustainable peace, and even become best allies, if individuals undertake the right moves. Though such a radical turn of events seems rare between hereditary enemies, it can happen and when it does, the power of agency is demonstrated. If we pause the history of France and Germany in 1945, we have the worst‐case scenario as a starting point, with decades of sad passions, hatred, fear, two world wars, armistices, or capitulations. At that time, it was hard to conceive that the post‐war unfolding between these two nations could turn things around and yield a satisfactory peace. Still, despite the irreconcilability of French and German worldviews, generations later, “continual negotiations” (Richelieu 1688/1995) have led to a genuine partnership, building prosperity and a sense of common purpose. Today, the alliance between these two nations is deemed the backbone of the European Union. The negative “micro” worldviews that both people originally held toward each other and that seemed to preclude any rapprochement whatsoever have been replaced, “peace by peace,” by an authentic mutual understanding, along with new unexpected compatible worldviews. What triggered that shift? An ongoing negotiation conduit, channeled through new institutions and regular high‐level meetings, made the improbable occur. Breaking the ever‐shifting master–slave dialectic (Hegel 1807), the leadership of strong‐willed French President De Gaulle and German Chancellor Adenauer—as well as the enduring actions of their successors and of many citizens of both nations at all levels—accomplished a durable change of worldviews toward the best. Identities were reshaped to become positively related. Decades of initiatives consolidated cooperation and reconciliation. Thus, nothing seems to be written forever. The laws of human nature that led to decades of violence in the past can be twisted to install an enduring peace, and responsible negotiations are here to contribute. At least, this Franco‐German example proves that in the long term, responsible agency can transfigure worldviews and make negotiations a central piece of leverage for positive change. It takes good souls—mediators and parties—to prime the pump and start a landslide movement.

Unfortunately, however, history provides many counterexamples of the above. Two enemies, whose “micro” worldviews are fueled by ongoing mutual hatred for ages, are likely to let enmity drive their actions now and in the future, in this generation and in the next. This leads to the following conception of negotiation and worldview that is far more pessimistic.

A Tragic Worldview of Negotiation Reproduction

At the other extreme, repetitive patterns generate negotiation ideas and behaviors to such an extent that we only believe we negotiate whereas, actually, we are negotiated. Whether early experiences and interactions were idyllic or catastrophic, they serve as good predictors of future acts, including in negotiations. Because of our entrenched biases, we go on liking (or hating) negotiators we happened to like (or hate) before. In this materialistic worldview, every negotiation move is the result of necessity; we cannot do anything else than what we do and have done; freedom is just a lure. We are not “an empire within an empire” (Spinoza); we run like Pavlovian dogs, with laws of nature that rule us without us ever controlling them. What we think and do is the product of causation, and even if we hold onto an impression of agency in that scenario, it is just the belief thereof, a smoke screen created by our consciousness to act, in denial of what truly motivates us underneath.

This alternative “meta” worldview reduces, if not forestalls, the capacity for actors to maneuver or initiate the hundred‐eighty degree moves we alluded to in the first conception. It creates a rigid meta‐worldview anchored in micro‐worldviews. Parties strongly believe (meta‐worldview) in the fixity or perpetuity of their belief system (micro‐worldview), and reenact the latter again and again, as a ritual and proof of its eternal truth. If a negotiator with whom a party is dealing is viewed as congruent with the party's belief system (in‐group), they call them good and cooperate. If someone is cast outside (out‐group), they call them bad, and, in the usual “us versus them” dynamic, they compete. This distinction stems from a deep‐rooted psychological need to have allies and enemies (Volkan 1985).

In this case, “meta” and “micro” worldviews irrigate our brains in powerful ways, flooding thoughts and actions, either positively or negatively. We are like blindsided horses; our limited tunnel vision hinders our peripheral capacity to grasp the rest of reality that remains not only unseen to us, but unseeable. Even if we pretend to be rational agents, our views are restricted by our particular situation in time and space, constrained by our environment and limited by the information we have; we are literally stuck in what Simon (1955) defines as “bounded rationality.” This skewed perception of reality can also affect mediators who run

the risk of unconsciously shaping negotiations and mediations because of the natural boundaries of their worldview. The argument of the party more like us—often the more powerful party if we are mainstream culture representatives—might be so similar to our own norms and beliefs that it would be invisible as beliefs, and seem to be just the way things are.

(Goldberg 2009: 406)

Concretely, dissimilar tracks—like being born and educated in the Soviet Union or in the West—will prohibit authentic rapprochement. Whatever the protagonists' good intentions, their respective worldviews structure their negotiation approaches. A current Russian head of state who is a former KGB agent will conceive of the world the way he did fifty years ago with a similar rapport de forces between his country and its forever archenemy, the United States. In meetings, the inner voices of opposite sides will be reproducing ad infinitum diverging discourses, with their “brains at war” (Fitzduff 2021). If they find a zone of possible agreement, it is just at the surface of things, “transactionally,” leaving antagonistic worldviews intact and separate identities untouched. Here the long‐lived enmity remains vivid, whatever appearances might make one believe. If two groups or individuals have ingrained negative biases against each other that nurture their worldviews, their negotiation will carry on the trend. Even if diplomatic courteous tone can dissimulate their real sentiments, deep inside this is just bad theater. As the saying goes, “what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh.” Mutual hatred will persist from one negotiation session, or generation, to the next.

As a facilitator between belligerents—Hutu or Tutsi, Israeli or Palestinian (Lempereur 2021; Lempereur et al. 2021)—I often have observed how much a party's micro‐worldview about “the other” triggers their negotiation perceptions, viewpoints, and moves, whether or not they admit it to themselves or others. With high predictability, a mediator can anticipate their scripts, as a broken record. For example, in a dialogue on this architectural construction between them, an Israeli will defend the “security barrier,” while the Palestinian will denounce the “wall.” On parallel tracks, each party carries on their own worldview, unencumbered by the other side's worldview; for each side, “their world view is their picture of the way things in sheer actuality are, their concept of nature, of self, of society” (Geertz 1957: 421). Negotiators will replay the same posturing again and again with little chance for positive change. Mirroring each other (meta‐worldviews), each side believes they are right and the other wrong, because their micro‐worldviews irrigate them with selected data to think that way. Their “excuser's bias” exonerates their side of everything they did, attributing it to unfortunate circumstance, while their “accuser's bias” attributes bad dispositions or intentions to the other (Allred 2000). When belligerents are similarly entrenched in their antagonistic worldviews, they develop a cynical “meta” conception of negotiations, reigniting in each “mini” occurrence some “mega” “clash of civilizations” (Huntington 1996). In this “eternal recurrence” (Nietzsche 1882), negotiators are just puppets, robots, machines (de La Mettrie 1748); they repeat the same story over and over, and anyone, negotiator or mediator, can write in advance the narrative each side will serve to the other and rehash indefinitely. Everyone becomes sadly predictable.

An Interactionist Worldview of Negotiation and Agency

Between these extremes of absolute necessity or liberty, a third “meta” conception asserts a continuum scenario, where worldviews and selves interact, each influencing the other and—to some extent—their negotiation moves. According to this paradigm, an agentic self of some or all the parties would be able to mitigate the worldview effects that trigger words and behaviors.

For instance, independently of their state of war, two belligerents who are unable to come up with lasting peace might extract themselves from their war‐dominated worldviews and twist their brains, even for just a moment, to engage in a humanitarian negotiation with the International Committee of the Red Cross. In a conflict mitigation setting, a shared humanitarian impulse would trigger the belligerents to allow safe passage of civilians through a humanitarian corridor, or even an exchange of prisoners across sides. The way an encounter is framed can therefore disrupt antagonistic (or friendly) determinisms, so that agency or an entrenched worldview might alternatively prevail, depending on the situation.

This third approach recognizes the power of determinisms on parties but allows some sweet spots for unlikely agency—for better or worse. Here, a meta‐worldview, which is reinforced by micro‐worldview components, exercises a stronghold on the parties like a rock, but somehow there is a crevice that allows some agency to take ground and bypass the initial micro‐worldviews. This approach introduces a marginal level of dynamic fluctuation in worldviews, and in the long run, if it is reinforced, might even lead to paradigm shifts. When it plays out, it can go both ways, either deteriorate a good situation, like a worm entering a fruit and rotting it little by little, or reversely, improve a deleterious situation, like a silver lining in a mess that can be a premise to a clear sky.

Facilitators from the Geneva‐based Center of Humanitarian Dialogue (Hd) will, for example, use humanitarian issues as an entry point for conversations with belligerents, gain their confidence, and build some trust with and between them. Through confidence‐building measures, if everything goes according to plan, antagonistic worldviews might be attenuated, and the conflict become ripe for peace negotiations between them. At that turning point, do positive micro‐worldviews replace negative ones? Not necessarily—there will be fluctuations, ebbs and flows, where the old negative components of worldviews are in constant tension with positive alternative ones, where agency shakes identity. What we are looking for is an inflection point where the negative automatic perceptions first become neutral and then possibly positive.

Let us represent the three outlined negotiation meta‐worldviews on an X‐Y axis, with the negotiator navigating from the X position of agency dominance on the left (idealistic), toward increased worldview dominance—the Y position on the right (materialistic) (Figure One).

Figure One

Negotiator's Approach to Agency and Worldview

Figure One

Negotiator's Approach to Agency and Worldview

Close modal

In complex settings, such as multiple‐level negotiation games, there are complementary causes of influence, such as mandate constraints issued by principals or other stakeholders in the usual sense of agency. However, even in such a case, worldviews might be determining factors of identity for principals. Thus, if we acknowledge the relevance of the impact of worldviews in any negotiation, we recognize that they are at least a partial cause of what we do and that although we negotiate, we are also negotiated to some degree on a continuum.

Conflict resolution practitioners have different worldviews about their own practice (Goldberg 2009). Right now, as a reader, you might be inclined toward one of the three suggested meta‐worldviews of negotiation or remain neutral. Each meta‐worldview can prove operational to question agency or the lack thereof at simultaneous or successive times. For instance, our worldview rooted in our family and community might contain unquestioned biases against another group and feed our internal voice at the beginning of exchanges with any of its members (worldview dominance). However, as the discussion proceeds, its impact unexpectedly leads us to question our micro‐worldview of our “early sense of self” (identity) about that person or group, and our “later adjusted sense of self” can even conceive of what it believes to be a “free” opinion (agency dominance). This perceived agency can surprisingly downplay the dominant micro‐worldview we held, causing us to consider the other as an exception to their group. But a few moments later, the other utters an unpleasant remark that brings back the early worldview about them—in that configuration, we fluctuate between our entrenched biases and our perceived capacity to overcome them (interactionism).

Concretely, if we return to an ordinary negotiation between an Israeli and a Palestinian, each might start with implicit negative prejudices against the other anchored in their respective rehashed worldviews. As they converse, they can surprisingly discover an underlying “good” Palestinian or Israeli and ascribe their new opinion to self‐agency; but then, if one unforeseen incident of damaging language happens on the way, they are not sure any longer, confused, balancing between their early antagonistic worldview and their subsequent perception of compatibility.

Thus, it may not matter much which of the three meta‐worldviews we adhere to as a negotiator. We and/or the other might be stuck in theirs, regardless. We need to face both worldviews and selves, on which both our identity and theirs are founded. Whoever is dominated by their worldview will deem themselves free notwithstanding, and the apparently freer might even be so because of a looser worldview (Gelfand et al. 2011). Therefore, we might need to keep these three meta‐worldview forms alive in our mind, as we move to reveal some possible constituents of micro‐worldviews.

How can we position negotiators on this continuum between liberty and inevitable necessity? No matter who they are, it is likely that the more we get to know them and observe their modus operandi, the more we will spot patterns of behavior and speech, and sometimes the determining factors that cause them (the patterns we assumed about them or the dissonant ones we uncovered). In this way we start having access to their micro‐worldview. They can become more predictable to us, giving us the impression that our adjusted worldview about them wins out over their perceived agency. Individuals might be overrated in negotiation: they tend to overestimate their individuation and agency by “negocentrism” (Lempereur 2016), whereas after second thoughts and observations, they exhibit implicit consummate worldviews the influence of which they underestimate.

Our usual interest‐based analysis of the various stakeholders in a negotiation preparation is nothing else than an anticipation exercise in underlying worldviews. What are the motivations of each side? What is driving them, causing them to speak or act? The more we see right through someone, the more we grasp their identity, the better we strategize and anticipate their power of agency. In the planning stage, our profiling needs to engage a movement of double empathy toward ourselves and the other, entering two worlds of passions (of pathos) to elucidate both our own determinisms and those of our interlocutors. Socrates summarized the first move as “know thyself:” use self‐empathy to surface the underlying causes of your own desires or demands, the so‐called interests. This first move is prolonged by a second move of outer empathy to hypothesize (and then check at the table) where others are speaking from and what their interests are, to comprehend what they desire.

Similarly, mediators who imagine in their preparation what motivates each party, i.e., their worldviews or interests or identities, can anticipate with good accuracy the script of each side, develop their approach and—once with the parties—finetune it. In negotiation or mediation, this undertaking of human cognition issues an “identity card” with worldview factors that induce the parties' ideas and behaviors, and that sociology, psychology, and biology contribute to unpack.

Sociological Factors

First, generally, if we learn the country, state, city or village, and even community a negotiator is from; their age, language, gender, sexual orientation, and social class; where, what, and how long they studied; their potential or proven philosophical, religious, or political affiliation; for which organization they work(ed); their professional status and profession; their degree of wealth and marital status, this abundant set of data can draw a fairly accurate abstract sociological picture of a party and sketch a significant part of their prospective micro‐worldview.

Other data can stem from ensuing meetings, as we observe whether a person conforms to, or deviates from, a statistical or ideal type. This accumulation of data helps refine a more concrete and precise picture of a negotiator, away from stereotypes. The sociological components of a negotiator's worldview, the social or cultural part of their identity, go a long way in explaining a negotiator's past or current moves, and can help predict their future moves. Many behaviors, attitudes, values, and norms of an interlocutor will hardly surprise any longer; we understand them, because we trace them back to the sociological sources of their production.

How can we increase our sociological knowledge of a negotiator, including ourselves? When we learn some relevant information about a person, we can consider it in light of the negotiation literature on various aspects of social identity (culture, gender, status, etc.) and consider how these aspects of identity may interrelate (their intersectionality). We may discover strong correlations (if not causations) that aid in forecasting a probabilistic influence of worldviews on specific interlocutors. We can learn, for example, how negotiators from various cultures think, speak, or behave (Brett 2014) and how they are influenced by forms of value creation or negotiation scripts that vary across cultures (Brett et al. 1998; Adair et al. 2004). Of course, the literature on negotiation and culture contains many gaps and limitations, and individuals rarely fit the ideal type we might construct. However, preparatory and ongoing efforts to understand another's culture help us predict a set of orientations that shape another's internal thoughts and feelings, as well as external behaviors. We may also anticipate how others might react to someone with our own personal sociological background and prepare for the interactions between us in more appropriate ways.

Psychological Factors

Second, if, besides the above social determinisms, specifically we ask advice from those who know this negotiator personally or if we observe them for some time around others in context, we can also assess how their personality situates itself on further axes that mold identity at an individual level. Are they more of an extravert or an introvert, empathetic or self‐centered, a talker or a listener? Do they like to schmooze or not, to interact with people or sit things out? If we examine their problem‐solving style, we can observe if they are positional or flexible, rather competitive or cooperative, risk‐averse or risk‐seeking. Do they withhold or volunteer information, develop zero‐sum or positive‐sum strategies? Are they creative or imitative when seeking options? In terms of process, we can further refine their negotiation identity card by adding their tendency to be prepared and ordered, or improvising and free‐flowing, if not messy; detail‐ or big‐picture‐oriented; inclined to do one thing at a time (monochronic) or many things simultaneously (polychronic); dominate discussions or empower others; and so on.

This second set of factors provides a critical psychological component of a negotiator's worldview, adding a more personal set of traits that defines their specific identity. These psychological determinisms complement, qualify, accentuate, or mitigate the social ones discussed above. We can now come to a psychosociological understanding of a negotiator's worldview that might prove more accurate.

Sociologically, in a rather formal culture, where strict rules of etiquette apply, negotiators will often address each other by their official titles. However, a specific negotiator from such a culture, who studied abroad in an informal culture where the use of first names without titles is widespread, might have a personality integrating tight and loose aspects of both worldviews (Gelfand et al. 2011). As such case illustrates, even a personality that is apparently atypical according to a particular social and cultural worldview might defy expectations because of alternative sociological factors of influence that were initially ignored and later uncovered. However, psychological traits can also contradict or cancel the usual sociological traits due to causes that can be traced back to the development of an individual's psyche. Maybe a negotiator from a more formal culture hated a rigid father demanding “yes sir” responses and built a loose personality in opposition to him (and his surrounding culture) as to become the coolest person in a cold‐fish context?

Biological Factors

Third, another set of important factors is determined by our general or personal biology and potentially activates aspects of worldview dominance. Whatever their minds, negotiators are bodies first. When they are tired, hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable, or triggered by negative emotions, such as fear or anger, these often‐underestimated natural factors cause them to revert to what Kahneman (2011) calls “system 1 thinking,” which is automatic, instinctive, and stereotypical. Such biological factors impacting the body lead to impulsive perceptions or behaviors, and most likely, negotiators regress toward their “usual” socio‐psychological worldview as fallback position. “An instinct is always and inevitably linked to something like a philosophy of life” (Jung 1942: 81). A triggered negotiator is hardly able to step back and leverage “system 2 thinking,” which is slower, more effortful, rational, and logical.

We can further zoom into negotiators' personal biological factors to reveal their multiple forms of intelligence, which activate different parts of their brain (Gardner 2006) and which we can connect to specific negotiators (Gardner 2000). Depending on the individual, they might be endowed with variable logical or verbal skills (intelligence quotient or “IQ”) that affect their problem‐solving and communication capacities. They may have lower or higher interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence (emotional quotient or “EQ” [Goleman 2006]), which proportionately exacerbates or attenuates many determining factors. Next to these four well‐known intelligence forms, Gardner adds spatial, musical, spiritual, and bodily ones. Some people excel at one single form of intelligence (they are “laserlight intelligent” like Mozart in music), while others diligently master several of them (they are “searchlight intelligent”) (Gardner 2006). All these variable forms of intelligence constitute “credit lines,” which might help decrease or increase worldview influence in negotiation. For example:

  • Because of their propensity for introspection, a negotiator endowed with higher intrapersonal intelligence will question more easily their own worldview, and might be able to bracket it, as well as their starting position. This person with a stronger self‐questioning identity might be able to trigger more agency or greater deviance with respect to their social norms.

  • A negotiator with higher interpersonal intelligence might be able to leverage their worldview more constructively, to show empathy toward someone else's worldview and flexibility toward both sides' identities, as to build inclusive bridges between them, but they might not be capable of structuring complex solutions because of weaker analytical skills.

  • In contrast, a negotiator with higher logical intelligence but lower emotional intelligence (“a brain on a stick”) might come up with more astute technical solutions that cohere with their worldview but become so overwhelming in their interactions with others that their perceived arrogance prevents them from getting adhesion and reaching a deal.

Every negotiator needs to evaluate their own personal intelligence endowment, the forms at which they excel and those with which they struggle. Assessing the intelligence endowments of parties with whom we are dealing at the negotiation table is also key. Such assessment helps us to determine which negotiators will be more or less likely on a worldview continuum to fit the dominant structuring worldview or to exhibit deviant traits, as the cocktail of social, psychological, and biological elements shapes their identity and makes it more or less open to reshaping through agency.

Every negotiator's innate or acquired “intelligence” profile can influence the psychosociological components of their micro‐worldview, and reversely. Though it can be hard to assess anyone's intelligence profile, there is sociological evidence easily obtainable that betrays what someone is good at, and the kind of intelligence that they probably possess. It suffices to consult a LinkedIn page to collect clues. If a negotiator has a PhD in physics from a prestigious university, though we do not know their exact test scores, it is reasonable to hypothesize higher‐than‐average analytical competencies for complex problem‐solving and lower‐than‐average comfort with schmoozing or chitchat. When we meet them, we can assess if their psychological makeup aligns with our sociobiological hypothesis and if they fit the statistics. On the contrary, practicing psychotherapists are deemed to rely on a worldview identity that requires stronger‐than‐average interpersonal skills that often facilitate relationships with patients, but this may not say much about a specific individual. When we meet them, we will check the extent to which we were prejudiced or on target and will refine the identity card that we had pictured.

To summarize, the more information a negotiator acquires about the sociological, psychological, and biological endowment of themselves or others, the more they can predict the worldviews that are likely to appear at a negotiation table. They can assess more easily what will trigger them or others to do and say such and such and why, because they better understand what lies in the background of their own minds and those of others.

The three sets of determining factors we analyzed above articulate a person's micro‐worldview, a subconscious determining base or substructure (negotiation “hardware”) that causes a negotiator to act just like an embedded superstructure (negotiation “software”). The negotiator could deem themselves a free agent in the same way that an apple can consider itself free after it falls from a tree, but neither can deny from where they came.

Three premises may be discerned from the first two parts of this article. First, a person's micro‐worldview is built on a complex aggregation and intersectionality of the outer and inner components we have outlined. Second, this worldview strongly accounts for a negotiator's predictable words and behaviors. Third, because all the worldview components of a negotiator are, by definition, impossible to account for, making absolute predictions based on the components we know of remains forever risky. Therefore, we need to proceed with caution as we still navigate through uncertainty.

Considering these three premises, let us imagine a negotiator who wishes to increase their awareness of determinisms, theirs and others, and their chance of acting responsibly. How should they proceed in practice? The third part of this article offers two answers to this question: First, help a negotiator (who is meta‐ and micro‐worldview‐affected) “negotiate” their own worldview, and second, anticipate the effects of someone else's worldview to determine how to “negotiate” with it. For agents to exercise their liberty of action and engage in positive change (Mayer 2019), they must deeply question their existing worldviews and those of others. Even if they do so, the path through the forest of their differences remains narrow. We can only suggest here some proactive moves that negotiators can undertake to ease their way through the morass.

Away from the first idealistic conception of meta‐worldview (absolute liberty), leveraging starts with the serene acceptance of some inevitable necessity, i.e., the elucidation of unfree causations in self and others. It is only after recognizing how worldview‐affected (biased) are our perceptions, words, and moves that we might move somehow “with” or “beyond” them, in full acknowledgment of how they radiate in ourselves and in others. Using this as the baseline of “necessity,” in the here and now of possible bifurcations of existence, we can rely on “free necessity” and try to make personal choices. Paraphrasing Sartre (1952), we need to decide what we can do with what we have been done.

What I am and what the other is in negotiation is first and foremost the product of past necessity or worldviews. Nobody could think or do anything except what they thought and did because of the causes that produced the action or thought. But a progressive understanding of these chains of causes, of our “chains,” is itself a cause for rejoicing and for potential adjustments. The more we learn about our respective usual causations, the more we might allow ourselves to organize our next encounter not to escape the usual chain of causes, but to avoid its happening and instigate an alternative path.

Let us imagine that we predict that our usual move (a) produced by our worldview (A) is likely to lead to (or follow) their move (b) produced by their worldview (B), and that the (a‐b) interaction, whoever starts it, implacably elicits “our f” (negotiation failure). We can continue to do (a) and hope that (b) will not happen, but the quote misattributed to Einstein warns us that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Instead, using our “system 2 thinking,” we might circumvent the usual chain of production and short‐circuit our (a), having observed its inability to produce success. Promoting agency from within our adjusted worldview (A') and in awareness of the other's worldview (B) means constructing an altered (a') that might more easily connect to (or even produce) a slightly different (b’), and maybe derive “our s” (negotiation success). If (a') does not work, we can assess whether (a) or (a') failed less and then try (a”), by trial and error, and we repeat the same process for as long as it takes to work.

The question becomes: How do we mitigate the risks of painful (abf) chains of events and maximize the chance of joyful (a'b's) alternatives? Let us examine which moves to undertake to deter the former and proactively to multiply the latter (Lempereur, Colson, and Pekar 2010).

First Move: Know Thyself (A)

The first part of this article has amply developed how to build a self‐diagnostic, to increase empathy toward self and assess what determines us to think or act the way we do. Rather than assuming oneself free, it is useful to step back and diagnose how predictable we are, sociologically, psychologically, and biologically, and what our micro‐worldview components are. How have we been shaped by our culture and society, family and community, study and profession, social class, race, gender, religion, etc.? How do all these social factors of identity continue to inform our perceptions, biases, thinking, and behaviors? And what is our personality like? What are our usual moves on people, problems, and processes? How easy is it for us to build trust, solve problems, be creative, get prepared, and facilitate complex processes? If we assess our personal forms of intelligence, how good are we with introspection, emotions, numbers, the big picture, etc.? What do we like or hate in negotiation, and why? When does our body exult, or on the contrary, get tired and need a break? What are our true motivations, our underlying interests? How can we fulfill them and grow our joy and power? We do not need to embody a super‐negotiator that we can never be, but we can better accept our own identity as a starting point and work immanently from its core outward.

The goal here is to heighten the consciousness of one's real strengths and likely challenges, to identify available compensatory mechanisms, and to take on the possible and discard the impossible, without ever telling ourselves fairy tales about ourselves. If, for example, we have noticed that we are terrible with numbers in negotiations, we may need to accept our limitation rather than deny it; we will not wake up tomorrow as a math genius, but in awareness of our inability, we can compensate at the negotiation table by getting outside help from someone with strong mathematical skills. By admitting the truth about ourselves and rejecting the ideal of ourselves as superbeings, we better grasp our worldview (A), we feel closer to who we are, and we leverage our genuine negotiation identity. We can then be more serene and authentic at the table.

Second Move: Know Thy Co‐Negotiator (B)

Any new negotiator with whom we interact is an unknown entity—a question mark. Thus, we need to form a distinct and clear idea of them and try to grasp their worldview. As we studied ourselves as specimens of worldviews, this time we redirect our curiosity to discover their worldviews by empathy and by running our three‐component checklist. How is this person's worldview determined by general and specific sociological, psychological, and biological factors? What can we expect them to think, say, or do? What gaps do we have in our understanding of their motivations? How wide is the gap between our respective worldviews? How many a priori common or separate grounds can we identify? How can we seek more information to start drawing a more precise identity card of them ahead of our meeting and recalibrate our understanding as the negotiation proceeds?

Asking the above questions helps us to know the other and the determinisms of their micro‐worldview (B), both its potentials and limitations. This work of perpetual empathy toward the other is essential in our preparation and continues in our interactions; it is needed whether the other is in our company or absent, and whether or not their worldview is close to ours. In this way, from hypothesis and clues to probing and facts, we get more answers about the other's identity, we reduce the uncertainty that surrounds them, and though we still acknowledge we cannot know them thoroughly, we discern better and better the other's micro‐worldview. This work increases our serenity when we meet them because we accept who they are or at least who we think they are. We are not trying to change them. We recognize that—like any human being—they cannot be otherwise than who they are right here, right now.

Third Move: Plan Thy Interactions (a‐b)

The more the first two moves allow us to understand the micro‐worldviews of ourselves (A) and of the other (B), the more we can anticipate the discussion to come, the chains of causations where our moves (a) and theirs (b) are likely to interact with each other in a satisfactory fashion or not. Working from Jung's understanding of worldview in psychotherapy, we can adapt it to a relationship in negotiation, in which “each will be driven to a discussion of his philosophy of life, both with himself and with his partner” (Jung 1942: 179). We often bargain “in the shadow” of uncovered worldviews. But our negotiations, if we become more aware of the influence of worldviews, can become an avenue for both sides to increase the potential for mutual understanding and success. In that respect, ahead of time, we can develop a (plan a), a clear step‐by‐step process to organize our future interactions so as to increase the likelihood of success. (Plan a) in our tested micro‐worldview always starts with “thebest move: Put people first, create a safe space for the concrete other to be at ease, and make deliberate efforts to make the other feel good in the early instants so that they open up. Because “negotiators are people first” (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1991/2001: 19), we proactively start with relational moves across worldviews, not to assert ours, but to acknowledge theirs. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (135) advised, if a dispute has arisen between two protagonists, approach the conversation by considering the other as your brother or sister first:

Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold on the action by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be carried; but by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you; and thus you will lay hold on it, as it is to be carried.

(Proposition 43)

In such a plan, the relational handle comes first to lift up the other and this gesture of good will primes the pump and lays the foundation for the transactional handle of hot topics to deal with later. Gradually, if everything goes according to plan, and if the negotiator observes the creation of a modicum of trust across the table, they can leverage it as a platform for transactional moves, a search for a zone of possible agreement, for healing. If negotiators are on board as people across diverse worldviews, from this early common ground they can go on and address problems in an organized way, dig deeper about their respective motivations, seek yessable solutions, and anchor such solutions in justification criteria that bridge worldviews.

We often consider negotiation as a process of problem‐solving in which the parties undertake transactional moves to try to bring solutions (2.) to problems (1.), so as to create transactional (or objective) value. This approach overlooks the gap between people's worldviews (“people problems”). Here, the issue is to “separate the people from the problem” (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1991/2001) and even to “put people first,” as in Epictetus's first handle. A responsible process can proactively sequence relational moves first to create a connection (3.), a working relationship, a bond between the parties, and hopefully some degree of trust (relational value) as a substratum to proceed with problems next. Whatever the problem, building connection first (moving from (1.) to (3.), rather than instinctively from (1.) to (2.), aims at smoothing out the problem‐solving part, laying the groundwork for a sustainable partnership second (4.) that allows for the resolution of many problems over time rather than a one‐shot resolution of this problem now (2.). Making relational moves to put people first—before the transaction—in order to bridge worldviews can be captured in the following responsible negotiation matrix (Lempereur 2018). Here the process takes place in the following order (1.) → (3.) → (4.), as depicted in Figure Two below:

Fourth Move: Twist Thy Interactions: If (a) → (f), Then (a′)

The goal of the three preparatory moves above is mutual understanding; they are designed to organize the encounter and to increase its likelihood of success once such moves are implemented at the table. But they need ongoing adjustments when confronted with the reality of exchanges with another person. From this perspective, worldviews—whatever their substance and possible contradictions—are conceived as factors that enable the bridging of differences between protagonists.

However, at any moment, worldviews can become hindering factors as well, and act like unforeseen minefields in the middle of the action. Worldviews are facts of nature, like the sea and its winds; we cannot fully predict their strength and direction, nor can we dominate them. At best, we can navigate them when they happen to raise tensions. When the winds are favorable, everything flows; we fully benefit from them and move forward smoothly. When the winds turn, we can adapt, zigzag, and still arrive, but it takes more time and energy. Sometimes, we cannot even take to sea at all because the storm is out and too powerful to maneuver. How do we conduct ourselves in the face of these shifting forces of nature?

Worldviews in their negativity—when they multiply biases and prejudices—are entrenched in our minds; they are hiding in our brains as our collective and individual unconscious, always ready to jump in and let our intimate passions surreptitiously run the show. We do our best to control their influence by carefully knowing them and reorienting them so that we can negotiate in peace despite them (Lempereur 2019). But they seem to be in waiting for something wrong to happen and suddenly, when our ego does not expect it and does not know why, they are triggered and take command; they start ruling us like tempests. From negotiator we become negotiated. Things go downhill. Hours of sensitive efforts spent working with people and problems through careful planning and implementing can get lost in seconds. “Hence reason is often not sufficient to modify the instinct” (Jung 1942: 178). A wrong word has been spoken or a name mispronounced, or some microfacial expressions came across as contemptuous or aggressive; and worldviews, as a potential seat of antagonisms, make their wild comeback. Then the negotiation halts—the bodies get rigid, with arms crossed, eyes red, and the mouth showing its teeth. What our knowledge and our rational planning led us to believe we were responsibly negotiating forward becomes unnegotiable; we have lost the other and ourselves. Agency becomes insurgency. What can be done?

It is a time when one of our (a) moves, linked to their possible (b) move, had negative unintended consequences, and failed terribly when it landed on the other side. The interplay between our moves (a‐b) was disappointing and creates a risk of general failure (f). At crucial moments like this, awareness matters, and the words of my late friend, ambassador Howard Wolpe, come to mind: “If you put yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Even if agency is just a lure, we can summon it here as a good ghost, make a U‐turn, alter the (a) and try some (a'). If our “organized plan (a)” comes up against a hurdle (as it often does) in the ebbs and flows of negotiation, panic is unnecessary, but immediately stepping back and taking responsible action are indispensable to manage the unexpected.

When negative emotions—mine or theirs—take over, if worldview biases are suddenly running high, let us not exacerbate the impasse and argue further. Instead, we can take a different track and embrace a Stoic attitude that turns the process back to people. We can “go to the balcony” (Ury 1991), suggest a process break, enjoy a cup of coffee, or just rest and reconvene the next day. Rather than simply wait for a “mutually hurting stalemate” (Zartman 2000), we can remember, as Roger Fisher once told me, that “the situation is always ripe for something.” Call the (plan a') move when (plan a) fails. Hopefully, (plan a') was itself planned, but if it was not, reflect on the situation on the spot, turn the conversation away from the line of sad passions, and politely reenergize the discussion to get it back on track on the line of joy and mutual satisfaction.

Fifth Move: Act Thy Success

Even though worldviews hide in the mind, and always seem on standby to suppress our agency through toxic emotions and biased perceptions of reality, responsible negotiation moves can have appeasing effects on them. There is nothing that the mind likes more than two bodies enjoying themselves, getting along with each other, finding good solutions through a smooth process. Negotiators can mutually foster the four dimensions of what Curhan, Elfenbein, and Eisenkraft (2010) describe as “subjective value”—i.e., feel good about self, the relationship, the instrumental outcome, and the process. The more negotiators foster such subjective value, the greater the likelihood that they can declare success and not only work out the conflict across worldviews through an agreement on substance (objective value) but engage with each other over the long run in a sustainable partnership as depicted in the responsible negotiation matrix above (Figure Two).

Figure Two

Responsible Negotiation Matrix

Figure Two

Responsible Negotiation Matrix

Close modal

A responsible process combines both relational and transactional moves—“getting together” (Fisher and Brown 1989) and “getting to yes” (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1991/2001). Step‐by‐step, such a process can lead to a successful outcome, with many indicators of such success, e.g., a pleasurable process, a stronger relationship, the generation of creative solutions, and a fair allocation of value. The Medici had a prescription for this progressive approach: “Festina lente” (hurry up slowly). Negotiators or mediators construct many bridges across worldviews, brick by brick. They can verbalize these bridges with a “we dominance of inclusion”: “What a powerful agenda we built!” / “We seem to understand each other.” / “We are progressing.” / “We found a fantastic solution.” / “Are we ready to put this in writing?” / “We have a great action plan.” / “We have accomplished so much together.”

Moreover, negotiation can in this way be more than getting an agreement, even one in writing. It is about getting things done as partners, translating words into the reality of our future actions. This is also why, whenever we get to the end of a meeting, before self‐congratulations for the work that we accomplished, we need to incorporate implementation, the next steps, the monitoring aspects that materialize the agreement. We thus increase the chance that negotiation is negotiaction.

Worldviews are, of course, acted upon by words and deeds, and this is nowhere truer than in negotiation. Building bridges across worldviews is not simply having a nice conversation in which we compose words with others until we reach an agreement. Building bridges is truly achieved after the negotiation, when we are crossing daily the bridge we have built, until we forget that we even have built it, that there ever was a divide.

We hope to have shown that whatever worldview components negotiators start with and are influenced by, there is potential for agency. It starts with awareness—concerning both oneself and others—ahead of the negotiations and at the meetings themselves. It continues with flexibility, a capacity to change gears whenever antagonisms manifest themselves in a conversation. Worldviews greatly contribute to our identity, but they also hold the potential to allow us to connect with others and with our humanity when we create a common space that can support a more encompassing identity and a more inclusive worldview.

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