Experience in integrative negotiations: What needs to be learned?

In this research we focus on the roles of experience and understanding in fostering integrative negotiation performance. We report on two experiments in which we distinguish between understanding opponents’ general priorities among issues versus understanding their specific gains for particular offers. Although experience enhanced integrative performance even in the absence of understanding, we found that understanding the specific gains had an incremental effect on performance. We conclude that while generally acknowledging opponents’ interests is not sufficient, the additional inferential step of assessing their specific gains throughout the negotiation process is advantageous.     

Recovered Memories of Child Abuse:

In this paper we exemplify the ongoing and inconclusive nature of empirical research examining the validity of adults' recovered memories of childhood abuse. In view of increasing evidence that the processes underlying traumatic memories differ in fundamental ways from those underlying memories for nontraumatic events, experimental studies of everyday memory processes are likely to have little relevance for our understanding of the memory processes underlying traumatic child abuse. Further, given ethical concerns, it is unlikely that research will ever establish a definitive 'scientific' conclusion regarding the accuracy of recovered memories. Nevertheless, both laypersons and professionals are taking a stand on the recovered memory issue. In this regard, we discuss social psychological research that suggests that people's beliefs about recovered memories and other aspects of child abuse are tied to their personal needs and sociopolitical interests rather than to science or social values. These personal needs and interests include people's inability to acknowledge the injustice of child abuse and their opposition to women's equality, both of which vary as a function of people's authoritarian inclinations. The implications of these findings for social action, as opposed to social research, are discussed.     

Gain–loss-frame in outcome-interdependence: does it influence equality or equity considerations?

Research suggests that framing outcomes as gains produces stronger concern for distributive justice than framing outcomes as losses. Unfortunately, however, this prior research manipulated own and other's outcomes only (and not own and other's input). Hence, it remained unclear whether framing affects concern with equality—everyone gets an equal share regardless whether one ‘deserves’ it or not—and/or equity—the share one gets is a function of the proportionality of one's own, and the other parties' inputs. The current experiment addressed this problem. Subjects (N = 94) read a scenario manipulating own and some co-workers' inputs, and subsequently rated satisfaction with pairs of outcomes providing themselves with more, equal or less outcomes than their co-worker. Outcomes to oneself exceeded expectation (gain-frame) or remained below it (loss-frame). Corroborating and expanding prior research, results showed that people are more concerned with both equality and equity when they have a gain- rather than loss-frame. In addition, results revealed evidence for a self-serving bias, in that people prefer equity or equality, depending on what serves best their own interests. It is concluded that frame affects the degree to which people are concerned about distributive justice.     

Are integrative or distributive outcomes more satisfactory? The effects of interest‐based versus value‐based issues on negotiator satisfaction

Negotiation research usually distinguishes between integrative and distributive outcomes. Integrative outcomes satisfy the negotiation parties' most important interests (by trading off less important for more important issues). In contrast, distributive outcomes require negotiators to give up their most important interests (as they make concessions on both less and more important issues). Integrative outcomes are more beneficial, but do they offer greater satisfaction? In this research, we hypothesized that satisfaction with integrative versus distributive outcomes depends on whether people negotiate interest‐based or value‐based issues. Three experiments consistently revealed that people in interest‐based negotiations were more satisfied with integrative outcomes, whereas those in value‐based negotiations tended to be more satisfied with distributive outcomes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interrogation,Interpretation and Integration of Spirituality: Insights from Sri Aurobindo for “Care for Creation”

This paper brings together three strands of enquiry – interrogation of spirituality, interpretation of spirituality and Sri Aurobindo's integrative spirituality – which form the three natural parts of the paper. In the first part I interrogate the idea and category “spirituality” and argue that this term came to be understood in opposition to the “material” only in medieval times, and thus the common notion of spirituality as opposed to materiality is misplaced. In the second part, in light of George Lindbeck's work, I will explore the question – is it possible for different traditions that interpret spirituality differently to hold a common unifying position? I will argue that if we are to arrive at an understanding of spirituality that will be acceptable to different traditions, then the very conception of spirituality must be informed by all. In the final part, I will argue that Sri Aurobindo's integrative spirituality offers a sufficient rationale for creation‐care by proposing a view of spirituality which, on the one hand, overcomes the spiritual‐material dichotomy, while on the other, contains an implicit guard against imposing its view of spirituality on other traditions. Finally, by bringing Sri Aurobindo into the dialogue I demonstrate how insights from another tradition can be drawn to enrich our understanding of spirituality.     

Affect from the top down: How powerful individuals' positive affect shapes negotiations

We tested the hypothesis that the positive affect of powerful negotiators shapes the quality of negotiation processes and outcomes more than the positive affect of less powerful negotiators. Findings from two studies supported the hypothesis: powerful individuals' trait positive affect was the best predictor of negotiators' trust for each other and of whether they reached integrative outcomes. Positive affect predicted joint gains above and beyond negotiators' trait cooperativeness and communicativeness. However, positive affect was unrelated to distributive outcomes; thus, there were no observed disadvantages of being positively affective.     

The Nature and Predictive Value of Mothers' Beliefs Regarding Infants' and Toddlers' TV/Video Viewing: Applying the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction

Viewing television and video programming has become a normative behavior among U.S. infants and toddlers. Little is understood about the extent of parents' decision making regarding their young children's viewing, although numerous organizations are interested in reducing time spent viewing among infants and toddlers. Prior research has examined parents' belief in the educational value of TV/videos for young children and the predictive value of this belief for understanding infant and toddler viewing rates, although other possible salient beliefs remain largely unexplored. This study employs the integrative model of behavioral prediction to examine 30 maternal beliefs about infants' and toddlers' TV/video viewing, which were elicited from a prior sample of mothers. Results indicate that mothers tend to hold more positive than negative beliefs about the outcomes associated with young children's TV/video viewing and that the nature of the aggregate set of beliefs is predictive of their general attitudes and intentions to allow their children to view, as well as children's estimated viewing rates. Analyses also uncover multiple dimensions within the full set of beliefs, which explain more variance in mothers' attitudes and intentions and children's viewing than the uni-dimensional index. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Alphabet Soup: ERP,CT, and ACT for OCD

The present article comments on the case conference presented in this issue, namely, Himle and Franklin's (Himle & Franklin, 2009) exposure and response prevention (ERP); Chosak and colleagues' (Chosak, Marques, Fama, Renaud, & Wilhelm, 2009) cognitive therapy (CT); and (Twohig, 2009) Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Two questions are addressed: (1) How different are these treatments? (2) What are the active vs. inert ingredients of each treatment? With regard to the first question, it is concluded that ERP and ACT appear more similar than dissimilar in terms of actual therapist/patient behaviors. CT shows more substantial differences from ERP and ACT, primarily in the therapist's direct efforts to target antecedent cognitions. With regard to the second question, examination of the likely active ingredients of each treatment suggests that interventions that encourage direct behavioral change (described as a characteristic feature of ERP and ACT and an incidental feature of CT) are most likely responsible for improvement in all three treatments, whereas evidence for the importance of altering antecedent cognitions (a characteristic feature of CT and an incidental feature of ERP) is less clear. Additional controlled research is recommended to identify which aspects of treatment are truly efficacious for OCD and other conditions.     

Can imagined intergroup contact change (internal) dialogues on differences between ingroup and outgroup?

Several positive functions have been ascribed to integrative internal dialogues (IDs), which are based on mutual openness to a partner's viewpoint and a readiness to consider his/her arguments in order to potentially modify one's own stance. As the technique of imagined intergroup contact (IIC) favorably influences attitudes towards outgroup members, it was hypothesized that IIC would have a beneficial impact on IDs with an outgroup member when the dialogue is focused on differences between ingroup and outgroup. In the experiment, 151 people (80 women) participated. It revealed that after IIC, both the dialogue author's confrontational attitude and the interlocutor's integrative attitude decreased. Thus, IIC made participants less inclined to gain an advantage over their imagined outgroup interlocutors and more inclined to give them freedom in IDs. However, the effect was significant only when the author's involvement in ID was high or medium.     

Gains in teacher-child interaction quality and children's school readiness skills: Does it matter where teachers start?

Teachers' initial level of interactional quality at the beginning of a school year (baseline) was examined as a potential moderating factor in the relation between change in interactional quality and change in children's school readiness skills throughout an academic year. Participants were 269 preschool teachers and 1179 children from low-income backgrounds. Teacher-child interactions and children's school readiness skills were measured in the fall and spring of the preschool year. Overall, improvements in the quality of teacher-child interactions across the year were not significantly related to children's skill development. Three important findings emerged; two main effects and one interaction effect. Gains in teachers' instructional support across the year were related to children's literacy and inhibitory control development. Additionally, the relation between gains in teachers' emotional support and gains in children's inhibitory control was moderated by teachers' initial level of emotional support at the beginning of the year. These findings provide limited evidence for the need to consider teachers' initial level of quality and how much they change across the year in understanding the relation between quality of teacher-child interactions and children's skill development.     

Reducing Responsibility: An Evidentialist Account of Epistemic Blame

Abstract: This paper argues that instances of what are typically called ‘epistemic irresponsibility’ are better understood as instances of moral or prudenial failure. This hypothesis covers the data and is simpler than postulating a new sui generis form of normativitiy. The irresponsibility alleged is that embeded in charges of ‘You should have known better!’ However, I argue, either there is some interest at stake in knowing or there is not. If there is not, then there is no irresponsibility. If there is, it is either the inquirer's interests—in which case it is a prudential shortcoming—or someone else's interests are at stake—in which case it is a moral shortcoming. In no case, I argue, is there any need to postulate a form of normativity in epistemology other than the traditional epistemological norm that one's attitudes should fit the evidence one has.     

Studying Stereotype Accuracy from an Integrative Social‐Personality Perspective

This article proposes an integrative framework for understanding the accuracy and inaccuracy of stereotypes. Specifically, we highlight research issues and traditions from social and personality psychology that do not often intersect, but which can be mutually informative. Within this framework, the social psychologist's interest in the accuracy of group stereotypes is conceptually much like a personality psychologist's interest in the accuracy with which perceivers can identify types of individuals, for example extraverts. Both fields make use, implicitly or explicitly, of personal attributes and behaviors (cues) in assessing accuracy of beliefs about group or individual traits. By using Brunswik's lens model perspective in combination with concepts from signal detection theory, judgments of stereotypes can be discovered to be accurate or inaccurate depending on how perceivers judge or use the cues. In drawing on research traditions and theoretical frameworks from both social and personality psychology, researchers can go beyond an all‐or‐nothing stance regarding stereotype accuracy to achieve a more nuanced understanding of when, how, and to what extent stereotypes are accurate.     

Negotiating interests or values and reaching integrative agreements: the importance of time pressure and temporary impasses

Negotiation research and theory tends to focus on interests and ignores values. This experiment compared the influence of negotiations about interests with negotiations about values under low or high time pressure. Results showed that (1) individuals got locked into early impasses more often under low than high time pressure, (2) getting locked into early impasse produced a switch from low levels of integrative behaviour early in the negotiation to high levels late in the negotiation, but only when interests rather than values were negotiated, (3) individuals reached higher joint outcomes when interests rather than values were negotiated, especially when time pressure was low rather than high, because of (4) the relatively greater switch to high levels of integrative behaviour in the case of low time pressure and conflict of interest. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sex-Role Stereotypes in Medicine

I argue for compatibility between feminism and medicine by developing a model of the physician-other relationship which is essentially egalitarian. This entails rejection of (a) a paternalistic model which reinforces sex-role stereotypes, (b) a maternalistic model which exclusively emphasizes patient autonomy, and (c) a model which focuses on the physician's conscience. The model I propose (parentalism) captures the complexity and dynamism of the physician-other relationship, by stressing mutuality in respect for autonomy and regard for each other's interests.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Mental Causation and the Mind-Body Problem

Marx may be taken to hold that productive forces (e.g. the steam engine) explain productive relations (e.g. capitalism) more than the other way on, and that productive relations explain superstructures (e.g. the legal system) more than the other way on. There are no satisfactory standard causal understandings of these claims about explanatory primacy. That is, no standard causal understanding saves Marx from the traditional objection that relations very greatly affect forces, and superstructures very greatly affect relations. One satisfactorily articulated attempt to save Marx has been the attempt to understand the claims teleologically. Three such understandings can be distinguished, but they do not work. The first fails since it attempts to explain events by way of abstract objects. The second fails since it attempts to explain a thing by means of that thing. The third fails for a related reason. Each understanding also fails for another reason as fundamental. So‐called teleological explanations are in fact claims that standard causal explanations exist, which relevant explanations conflict with the ruling idea of Marx's philosophy, that history is somehow independent of men's consciousness and wills. There may be no evidence that Marx himself intended historical materialism to be understood teleologically. There may be evidence against.     

Interests without history? Some difficulties for a negative Aristotelianism

This paper focuses on 3 features of Freyenhagen's Aristotelian version of Adorno. (a) It challenges the strict negativism Freyenhagen finds in Adorno. If we have morally relevant interests in ourselves, it is implicit that we have a standard by which to understand what is both good and bad for us (our interests). Because strict negativism operates without reference to what is good, it seems to be detached from real interests too. Torture, it is argued, is, among other things, a violation of those interests. (b) Freyenhagen identifies the “impulse” in Adorno as an untutored yet moral reaction to morally demanding situations. The plausibility of this primitivism and its compatibility with Adorno's general worries about immediacy are considered. (c) The disruptive character of Adorno's version of the categorical imperative, its willingness to complicate action through wholesale reflection on the norms of what we are committing ourselves to, is set in contrast with Freyenhagen's Aristotelian claim that certain notions, such as “humanity,” cannot be intelligibly questioned.     

When do children begin to understand logical inference as a source of knowledge?

Previous research (Sodian & Wimmer, 1987) suggests that it is not until about 6 years of age that children come to recognize that one can gain knowledge through inferential rather than direct means. However, a great deal of research suggests that children have a sophisticated understanding of other aspects of knowledge, such as perception and communication around age 4. Three experiments were carried out in which we made important task information more salient in order to determine whether children's performance in previous research on their understanding of inference had underestimated their abilities. The design included controls to ensure that children's attribution of knowledge to the story character could not be based on an egocentric tendency to attribute their own knowledge. Results indicated that (a) enhancing the salience of important information significantly improved children's performance; (b) by 4 or 5 years of age children begin to understand inference as a source of knowledge, around the same time they evidence an understanding of knowledge gained through perception and communication; and (c) that their performance lagged slightly behind that exhibited on a standard false-belief task.     

Our Followers Are Lions,Theirs Are Sheep: How Social Identity Shapes Theories About Followership and Social Influence

Two studies examine how self‐categorization theory can be used to refine our understanding of people's implicit theories about followership and social influence. Results from Study 1 show that perceivers regard followers of a group they themselves identify strongly with (rather than not at all) to be more representative of the prototype of effective followers (displaying enthusiasm, industry, good citizenship) and to be less representative of the antiprototype of effective followers (displaying conformity, incompetence, and insubordination). Results are replicated in a second experiment in which we compare the views of those self‐categorizing as either Republican or Democrat responding to followers of the Republican and Democratic Party. Results of Study 2 replicate those of Study 1 and also reveal qualitative differences in the preferred influence strategy for dealing with followers. Specifically, respondents seek to engage in persuasion when trying to change the behavior of ingroup followers, while resorting to coercion when trying to change the behavior of outgroup followers. Our results are the first to provide evidence that perceivers' theories about what followers are like and how they are influenced most effectively are structured by perceivers' identification (and dis‐identification) with the particular groups that leaders are championing.     

The Functions of Integration and Confrontation in Internal Dialogues

While integrative and confrontational internal dialogues (IDs) are often treated as opposing and numerous positive functions are ascribed to the former, this paper assumes that integration and confrontation are not mutually exclusive but independent processes. When exploring IDs that simulate social relationships and are described by different configurations of integrative and confrontational characteristics, canonical correlation analysis revealed that in competitive dialogue, the strong confrontational attitude of the dialogue's author is accompanied by the weak integrative attitudes of both ID parties. The more the ID is based on a rivalry between the parties, the lower the levels of bond, support, and insight functions are and the higher the level of substitution is. In persuasive dialogue, the confrontational attitude of the dialogue's author is combined with the integrative attitudes of both parties. The more the ID is based on persuasion, the higher the intensity of substitution, insight, bond, support, and self-guiding is. The findings suggest a synergistic effect of co-occurring integrative and confrontational attitudes in one ID.     

Intuitive Political Theory: People's Judgments About How Groups Should Decide

Societies must make collective decisions even when citizens disagree, and they use many different political processes to do so. But how do people choose one way to make a group decision over another? We propose that the human mind contains an intuitive political theory about how to make collective decisions, analogous to people's intuitive theories about language, physics, number, minds, and morality. We outline a simple method for studying people's intuitive political theory using scenarios about group decisions, and we begin to apply this approach in three experiments. Participants read scenarios in which individuals in a group have conflicting information (Experiment 1), conflicting interests (Experiment 2), and conflicting interests between a majority and a vulnerable minority who have more at stake (Experiment 3). Participants judged whether the group should decide by voting, consensus, leadership, or chance. Overall, we find that participants prefer majority‐rule voting over consensus, leadership, and chance when a group has conflicting interests or information. However, participants' support for voting is considerably diminished when the group includes a vulnerable minority. Hence, participants showed an intuitive understanding of Madison's concerns about tyranny of the majority.