NSDM week 1 - 1
Effects of experience and advice on process and performance
in negotiations (Steinel et al., 2007)
● Negotiator success is best defined in terms of the collective functionality of
agreements.
● Reaching integrative agreements fosters economic prosperity, strengthens
feelings of self-efficacy, increases satisfaction, and reduces the likelihood of
future conflict.
Effects of advice
● People have a general tendency to egocentrically discount the advice they
receive, because they are privy to the reasons supporting their own estimate, but
not to the reasons supporting the advisor’s estimates.
● Giving negotiators advice and cues challenging fixed-pie perceptions influences
their performance.
● Instruction-based advice may not change fixed-pie perceptions.
● Even after receiving full information about their opponents’ payoff schedules,
participants rarely abandoned their initial erroneous perceptions.
Effects of experience
● No effects of experience when negotiators engaged in different tasks over time.
They only observed an effect of experience when negotiators were provided with
feedback on their performance after each round.
● People recall superficial similarities more easily than structural ones.
Experience and advice in negotiation
● Expertise in negotiation is best achieved through experience and advice.
● Advice did not help negotiators to develop trade-off insights, unless the
negotiators had gained some experience before they received the advice.
● There are at least two reasons why combining experience and advice might
improve negotiation performance beyond the benefits of either advice or
experience alone:
○ Bargainers can compare the advice they receive with their own
experience from earlier negotiations. This would help them to transfer
the advice and adjust their negotiation behavior, which in turn should
improve their performance;
○ People (especially those with little negotiation experience) tend to view
negotiations as a game that one either wins or loses. This results in fixed-
pie perceptions and a generally competitive approach, which makes
integrative agreements unlikely.
● Joint outcomes are related to three types of negotiation tactics:
○ Distributive behavior: force opponents to make concessions → usually
leads to poorer joint outcomes;
, NSDM week 1 - 2
○ Information exchange and heuristic trial and error: help people to
identify mutually satisfying settlements → increase the likelihood of
reaching integrative agreements and high joint outcomes.
Results
● Participants rated the tips as useful, no matter whether they received them prior
to their first negotiation or prior to their second negotiation.
● Participants who received the tips prior to their second negotiation indicated a
marginally stronger intention to apply them than did participants who received
them prior to their first negotiation.
● In the advice-only condition requested or gave information in at least one
speaking turn. This is significantly more frequent than in the other two
conditions, where dyads received no advice before their first negotiation.
● Dyads reaching more profitable agreements needed less time to negotiate.
● Higher joint outcomes were related to more problem solving, less use of
contentious tactics, and more accurate judgments of the negotiation situation.
● Dyads that used problem solving tactics (including information exchange) had
more accurate judgments about each other’s preferences.
● The use of such tactics as threats, warnings, or positional statements was
associated with less accurate perceptions of the bargaining situation.
● The ‘baseline’ performance of the experience-only dyads and the experience-
and-advice dyads was about the same as the performance of dyads that received
advice prior to their first negotiation. → Advice by itself was not enough to
improve negotiation performance.
● Experience-and-advice dyads improved their joint outcomes significantly over
rounds. Experience-only dyads did not. → Experience by itself may not be enough
to improve negotiation performance.
● Experience-and-advice dyads achieved a higher joint outcome than did dyads in
the other two conditions.
● Dyads in the experience-and-advice condition reached agreement faster than did
dyads in the other two conditions.
● Experience-and-advice dyads engaged in more problem solving than did advice-
only and experience-only dyads.
● Dyads in the experience and-advice condition had more accurate perceptions of
each other’s interests than did dyads in the experience-only condition.
● Dyads in the experience-and-advice condition used less contentious tactics than
did dyads in the other two conditions.
● Experience-only dyads did not change their behavior from the first to the second
round of negotiation.
, NSDM week 1 - 3
● Experience-and-advice dyads did change their behavior across rounds → less
contending, more problem solving.
● Advice did not significantly reduce contentious behavior, in that advice-only
dyads engaged in as much contending as the two unadvised groups during the
first round.
● Advice led to slightly more problem solving.
● The effect of condition on joint outcomes was mediated by problem solving
behavior, contending and judgmental accuracy.
● Dyads with experience and advice reached higher joint outcomes through the
use of more problem solving and less contentious behaviors and through greater
insight into each other’s preferences.
Discussion
● Neither advice nor experience alone leads to more integrative negotiation. The
combination of the two, however, strongly affected problem solving behavior,
judgmental accuracy, and joint outcomes.
● Experience-only dyads continued to use only contentious strategies, and did not
raise their (low) levels of problem solving.
● Advice might not be comprehended when people have no actual experience with
a task → simple brief explanation in this experiment, so not the case.
● People are more motivated to listen to advice after they attempt to perform a
task, but fail. The experience of failure makes people more receptive to new
ideas and increases self-analysis, which leads to better retention of skills and
thereby facilitates learning.
● People who received the advice after the first round of negotiation reported a
greater intention to use it than did those who received the advice before the first
round of negotiation.
, NSDM week 1 - 4
Vicarious entrapment: Your sunk costs, my escalation of
commitment (Gunia et al., 2009)
Introduction
● Escalation is often driven by motivational processes fueled by the desire to
justify past decisions.
Separating decision-makers to de-escalate commitment
● Escalation of commitment occurs when a decision-maker allocates resources
toward a particular goal, and then learns that the goal has not been achieved.
● Because individuals are motivated to see themselves positively, feedback that
challenges this view creates self-threat that the decision-maker attempts to
reduce by increasing allocations towards the initial decision in an attempt to
prove that this decision was correct all along.
● Effort justification: rationalizing the importance of an accomplishment by the
amount of effort expended and hardships endured in pursuing it.
● Affirming one’s overall self-worth after a poor decision decreased escalation to
the failing course of action.
● Reducing personal responsibility helps reduce cognitive dissonance more
broadly and escalation of commitment more specifically.
Psychological connections and vicarious processes
● Individuals take on the properties of the person they feel connected to,
psychologically affording them ‘‘self” status.
● Individuals who construe the self as interdependent define themselves in terms
of their groups’ attributes.
● Blurred self-other boundaries, borne of psychological connectedness, can lead
individuals to experience and behave more consistently with others’ internal
states.
Perspective-taking and the failing division
● Participants who took the perspective of the first decision-maker invested more
in the originally invested division than participants who remained objective. →
Taking a previous decision-maker’s perspective leads participants to escalate on
that decision-maker’s prior commitments.
Perspective-taking and the failing employee
● Perspective-takers increased their investment in the previously chosen
candidate more than did control participants. → Perspective-taking fuels
escalation of others’ commitments.
● Individuals vicariously justify others’ decisions by escalating their own
commitment.
Effects of experience and advice on process and performance
in negotiations (Steinel et al., 2007)
● Negotiator success is best defined in terms of the collective functionality of
agreements.
● Reaching integrative agreements fosters economic prosperity, strengthens
feelings of self-efficacy, increases satisfaction, and reduces the likelihood of
future conflict.
Effects of advice
● People have a general tendency to egocentrically discount the advice they
receive, because they are privy to the reasons supporting their own estimate, but
not to the reasons supporting the advisor’s estimates.
● Giving negotiators advice and cues challenging fixed-pie perceptions influences
their performance.
● Instruction-based advice may not change fixed-pie perceptions.
● Even after receiving full information about their opponents’ payoff schedules,
participants rarely abandoned their initial erroneous perceptions.
Effects of experience
● No effects of experience when negotiators engaged in different tasks over time.
They only observed an effect of experience when negotiators were provided with
feedback on their performance after each round.
● People recall superficial similarities more easily than structural ones.
Experience and advice in negotiation
● Expertise in negotiation is best achieved through experience and advice.
● Advice did not help negotiators to develop trade-off insights, unless the
negotiators had gained some experience before they received the advice.
● There are at least two reasons why combining experience and advice might
improve negotiation performance beyond the benefits of either advice or
experience alone:
○ Bargainers can compare the advice they receive with their own
experience from earlier negotiations. This would help them to transfer
the advice and adjust their negotiation behavior, which in turn should
improve their performance;
○ People (especially those with little negotiation experience) tend to view
negotiations as a game that one either wins or loses. This results in fixed-
pie perceptions and a generally competitive approach, which makes
integrative agreements unlikely.
● Joint outcomes are related to three types of negotiation tactics:
○ Distributive behavior: force opponents to make concessions → usually
leads to poorer joint outcomes;
, NSDM week 1 - 2
○ Information exchange and heuristic trial and error: help people to
identify mutually satisfying settlements → increase the likelihood of
reaching integrative agreements and high joint outcomes.
Results
● Participants rated the tips as useful, no matter whether they received them prior
to their first negotiation or prior to their second negotiation.
● Participants who received the tips prior to their second negotiation indicated a
marginally stronger intention to apply them than did participants who received
them prior to their first negotiation.
● In the advice-only condition requested or gave information in at least one
speaking turn. This is significantly more frequent than in the other two
conditions, where dyads received no advice before their first negotiation.
● Dyads reaching more profitable agreements needed less time to negotiate.
● Higher joint outcomes were related to more problem solving, less use of
contentious tactics, and more accurate judgments of the negotiation situation.
● Dyads that used problem solving tactics (including information exchange) had
more accurate judgments about each other’s preferences.
● The use of such tactics as threats, warnings, or positional statements was
associated with less accurate perceptions of the bargaining situation.
● The ‘baseline’ performance of the experience-only dyads and the experience-
and-advice dyads was about the same as the performance of dyads that received
advice prior to their first negotiation. → Advice by itself was not enough to
improve negotiation performance.
● Experience-and-advice dyads improved their joint outcomes significantly over
rounds. Experience-only dyads did not. → Experience by itself may not be enough
to improve negotiation performance.
● Experience-and-advice dyads achieved a higher joint outcome than did dyads in
the other two conditions.
● Dyads in the experience-and-advice condition reached agreement faster than did
dyads in the other two conditions.
● Experience-and-advice dyads engaged in more problem solving than did advice-
only and experience-only dyads.
● Dyads in the experience and-advice condition had more accurate perceptions of
each other’s interests than did dyads in the experience-only condition.
● Dyads in the experience-and-advice condition used less contentious tactics than
did dyads in the other two conditions.
● Experience-only dyads did not change their behavior from the first to the second
round of negotiation.
, NSDM week 1 - 3
● Experience-and-advice dyads did change their behavior across rounds → less
contending, more problem solving.
● Advice did not significantly reduce contentious behavior, in that advice-only
dyads engaged in as much contending as the two unadvised groups during the
first round.
● Advice led to slightly more problem solving.
● The effect of condition on joint outcomes was mediated by problem solving
behavior, contending and judgmental accuracy.
● Dyads with experience and advice reached higher joint outcomes through the
use of more problem solving and less contentious behaviors and through greater
insight into each other’s preferences.
Discussion
● Neither advice nor experience alone leads to more integrative negotiation. The
combination of the two, however, strongly affected problem solving behavior,
judgmental accuracy, and joint outcomes.
● Experience-only dyads continued to use only contentious strategies, and did not
raise their (low) levels of problem solving.
● Advice might not be comprehended when people have no actual experience with
a task → simple brief explanation in this experiment, so not the case.
● People are more motivated to listen to advice after they attempt to perform a
task, but fail. The experience of failure makes people more receptive to new
ideas and increases self-analysis, which leads to better retention of skills and
thereby facilitates learning.
● People who received the advice after the first round of negotiation reported a
greater intention to use it than did those who received the advice before the first
round of negotiation.
, NSDM week 1 - 4
Vicarious entrapment: Your sunk costs, my escalation of
commitment (Gunia et al., 2009)
Introduction
● Escalation is often driven by motivational processes fueled by the desire to
justify past decisions.
Separating decision-makers to de-escalate commitment
● Escalation of commitment occurs when a decision-maker allocates resources
toward a particular goal, and then learns that the goal has not been achieved.
● Because individuals are motivated to see themselves positively, feedback that
challenges this view creates self-threat that the decision-maker attempts to
reduce by increasing allocations towards the initial decision in an attempt to
prove that this decision was correct all along.
● Effort justification: rationalizing the importance of an accomplishment by the
amount of effort expended and hardships endured in pursuing it.
● Affirming one’s overall self-worth after a poor decision decreased escalation to
the failing course of action.
● Reducing personal responsibility helps reduce cognitive dissonance more
broadly and escalation of commitment more specifically.
Psychological connections and vicarious processes
● Individuals take on the properties of the person they feel connected to,
psychologically affording them ‘‘self” status.
● Individuals who construe the self as interdependent define themselves in terms
of their groups’ attributes.
● Blurred self-other boundaries, borne of psychological connectedness, can lead
individuals to experience and behave more consistently with others’ internal
states.
Perspective-taking and the failing division
● Participants who took the perspective of the first decision-maker invested more
in the originally invested division than participants who remained objective. →
Taking a previous decision-maker’s perspective leads participants to escalate on
that decision-maker’s prior commitments.
Perspective-taking and the failing employee
● Perspective-takers increased their investment in the previously chosen
candidate more than did control participants. → Perspective-taking fuels
escalation of others’ commitments.
● Individuals vicariously justify others’ decisions by escalating their own
commitment.
