Negotiation versus influence

The bargaining and minority influence literatures offer contradictory theories for the efficacy of compromise for influence. Assuming that the relative merits of these two classes of theories lie in their concentration on the public versus the private aspect of influence, we predicted that consistency (without compromise) would be more effective for attitude change but that compromise would be more effective for public concessions. We further predicted that the timing or context of the compromise could change the meaning and the consequences of that strategy. In particular, compromise ‘at the last minute’ was assumed to be a negotiating tactic that fostered both public concessions and private attitude change. The predictions were generally confirmed.     

On Getting Best of Both the Worlds

As continuing globalization brings psychological insights from varied backgrounds closer, the prospect for developing a richer psychology based on complementary insights and techniques opens up. Against this background, Prof. Rao’s paper correctly points out that time is now right for the convergence of traditional Indian Psychology (IP) and Positive Psychology (PP). What brings them together is their common aim to pursue the highest possible level of happiness. As pointed out by the author, the deeper philosophical foundations of Indian psychology (IP), and the expanding empirical studies of Positive Psychology (PP), are the strongest instances of their complementarity. Mutually enriching exchange between these fields can take place only on grounds of compatible principles. If this is correct, then a close examination of the basic ontological premises, epistemic principles, and convergent values is needed to ensure success in collaboration. At the same time it is important to recognize the points of conflict and possible fault lines so we could steer clear of them.     

Emotions Know Best: The Advantage of Emotional versus Cognitive Responses to Failure

Making mistakes or failing at tasks is a common occurrence in human life. People can respond to and cope with failure in many ways. In this research, we examine potential advantages of relatively emotional (versus cognitive) responses to failure. In particular, we study how effort and time spent in subsequent tasks depend on whether people predominantly focus on their emotions or their cognitions as they respond to a failure. We demonstrate that, left to their own means, people's cognitions upon a failure are mainly justificatory in nature and thus do not automatically have the commonly believed reflective, self‐improving qualities. We further argue and demonstrate that a relative focus on cognitions following a failure can prevent improvement in subsequent episodes, but a focus on emotions can allow for learning and, therefore, increased effort. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spiritual Intoxication: Getting Down to Earth

This article deals with a psychological process in which, unannounced and unsought, there is a shift in the relationship between everyday ego consciousness and the unconscious. The result can be a kind of spiritual intoxication, in which there is a change of perspective and an inflated sense of being special. Along with this can come a loss of connection with everyday life, with feeling-toned reality, with the body. Concrete examples are given of this experience of spiritual inflation and of the process of coming down to earth again.     

Efficiency of local versus standard MMPI norms: a comment

This note shows that evidence considered by Wooten (1984) to support claims of diagnostic superiority of standard over local MMPI norms, may mainly reflect the fact that a large proportion of the group tested by Wooten's consisted of persons with emotional, behavioral problems. Reevaluation of Wooten's data suggests a range of conditions under which Wooten's diagnostic criterion used with local norms is superior to the same criterion used with standard norms, and another range of conditions under which this criterion used with either local or standard norms is inferior to base rates.     

Getting it right: a reply to baum

In this reply to Baum, I emphasize that the failure to understand the processes associated with scientific verbal behavior may result in scientific statements like the generalized matching law that do not accurately reflect cause-and-effect relations.     

Splitting a Difference of Opinion: The Shift to Negotiation

Negotiation is not only used to settle differences of interest but also to settle differences of opinion. Discussants who are unable to resolve their difference about the objective worth of a policy or action proposal may be willing to abandon their attempts to convince the other and search instead for a compromise that would, for each of them, though only a second choice yet be preferable to a lasting conflict. Our questions are: First, when is it sensible to enter into negotiations and when would this be unwarranted or even fallacious? Second, what is the nature of a compromise? What does it mean to settle instead of resolve a difference of opinion, and what might be the dialectical consequences of mistaking a compromise for a substantial resolution? Our main aim is to contribute to the theory of argumentation within the context of negotiation and compromise formation and to show how arguing disputants can shift to negotiation in a dialectically virtuous way.     

The Impact of Alternatives to Settlement in Dyadic Negotiation

This study examines how differential power among negotiators (in the form of alternatives available to the individuals if the parties fail to reach a negotiated settlement) influences the parameters (e.g., the aspiration levels and reservation prices), the process, and the outcome of the negotiation. The results suggest that (a) the possession of an alternative increases one′s own outcome as well as joint outcome; (b) the more attractive or valuable the alternative, the greater the benefits regarding own and joint outcome; and (c) the better one′s own alternative relative to the other parties′ alternative, the larger one′s piece of the resource pie (i.e., one′s benefit increases).     

谈判中的时间因素

研究时间因素对谈判的影响有利于提高人们对时间重要性的认识,有效谈判策略的运用和整合结果的实现。时间因素对谈判者认知、行为和谈判结果的影响具体表现在：时间压力会降低谈判者的认知动机,使谈判者更加依赖认知启发式;暂停和中场休息是否会为谈判带来积极影响应该视不同的谈判事件和不同的心理状态而定;拉大谈判与结果实现之间的时间距离会提高谈判的共同结果,这可以从折扣效应和建构水平理论中得到解释。将来的谈判研究会进一步从时间向空间拓展     

Getting to know you: How we learn new faces

Previous work has shown an advantage for matching the internal features of familiar faces in contrast to an advantage for the external features of unfamiliar faces. In the current experiment, we tracked this shift towards an internal feature advantage as subjects were familiarized with a set of initially unfamiliar faces. They were asked to learn a set of 24 faces from video images and complete a face matching task on 3 consecutive days. Half of the faces were learned from moving images while the others were learned from static images to determine whether movement was necessary to produce the internal advantage found when matching familiar faces. We found that by the end of the 3 days, performance on the internal features had improved and was equivalent to performance on the external features. In contrast, matching of the external features remained at a relatively constant level across the experiment. Faces were learned equally well from moving and static images suggesting that movement is not necessary to promote learning of the internal features.     

Getting from situations to emotions: appraisal and other routes

Comments on the original article by S. Siemer and R. Reisenzein regarding the process of emotion inference. When processing situational information, people can reach emotional conclusions without explicitly registering corresponding appraisals. Does this mean that appraisal cues must be guiding inference in less obvious ways? If one assumes that the emotional meaning of any situation depends on the protagonist's relation to what is happening, then emotion inference can never entirely bypass relational information. However, not all relational information is specifically appraisal-based. Further, actual emotion causation, like emotion inference, can involve explicit or implicit appraisals or even no appraisals at all. Indeed, humans do not first learn to associate emotions with situations by extracting appraisal information.