Tactical anger in negotiation: The expresser's perspective

Presenting programmed angry messages to a negotiator has increased concession rates in a series of recent experiments. But observing responses to a computer or confederate counterpart cannot yield insight into the perceptions, reactions, and negotiation outcomes experienced by those who actually deploy anger as a tactic. We report five studies examining the anger expression decision using a range of different methods. In the fully interactive two-person integrative negotiation in Study 1, expressed anger generally degraded trust while damaging implementation of deals. That ultimately diminished value actually claimed by anger expressers. In the discrete choice experiment of Study 2, sending angry messages proved costly for expressers, who registered very high levels of measured disutility from using this tactic. In Study 3, survey respondents reported widespread unwillingness to misrepresent anger during negotiation. Recalling a past negotiation, anger correlated negatively with experienced success, indicating that disutility from expressing anger generalizes widely across different contexts. Study 4 revealed that negotiators generally consider the tactic to be unethical. More than just specific beliefs about the lack of efficacy, Study 5 revealed that the source of tactical disutility lies in generalized discomfort with the misrepresentation of anger. Implications for research, practice, and training are considered.     

Explaining Evidence Denial as Motivated Pragmatically Rational Epistemic Irrationality

This paper introduces a model for evidence denial that explains this behavior as a manifestation of rationality, and it is based on the contention that social values (measurable as utilities) often underwrite these sorts of responses. Moreover, it contends that the value associated with group membership in particular can override epistemic reason when the expected utility of a belief or belief system is great. It is also true, however, that it appears to be the case that it is still possible for such unreasonable believers to reverse this sort of dogmatism and to change their beliefs in a way that is epistemically rational. The conjecture made here is that we should expect this to happen only when the expected utility of the beliefs in question dips below a threshold where the utility value of continued dogmatism and the associated group membership is no longer sufficient to motivate defusing the counterevidence that tells against such epistemically irrational beliefs.     

Psychological distance boosts value-behavior correspondence in ultimatum bargaining and integrative negotiation

The present research examined how construal level and social motivation interact in influencing individuals’ behavior in social decision making settings. Consistent with recent work on psychological distance and value-behavior correspondence (Eyal, Sagristano, Trope, Liberman, & Chaiken, 2009), it was predicted that under high construal level individuals’ behavior is based on the social motivation they endorsed, no matter whether pro-social or pro-self. Two experiments involving ultimatum game (Experiment 1) and face to face negotiation (Experiment 2) supported the “increased value-behavior correspondence” hypothesis by showing that pro-socials were more cooperative and pro-selves were more competitive under high rather than low construal level. Implications for research on social decision making and psychological distance are discussed.     

Rational Moral Ignorance

What should a person do when, through no fault of her own, she ends up believing a false moral theory? Some suggest that she should act against what the false theory recommends; others argue that she should follow her rationally held moral beliefs. While the former view better accords with intuitions about cases, the latter one seems to enjoy a critical advantage: It seems better able to render moral requirements ‘followable’ or ‘action-guiding.’ But this tempting thought proves difficult to justify. Indeed, whether it can be justified turns out to depend importantly on the rational status of epistemic akrasia. Furthermore, it can be argued, from premises all parties to the moral ignorance debate should accept, that rational epistemic akrasia is possible. If the argument proves successful, it follows that a person should sometimes act against her rationally held moral convictions.     

Rational Illogicality

Many accounts of structural rationality give a special role to logic. This paper reviews the problem case of clear-eyed logical uncertainty. An account of rational norms on belief that does not give a special role to logic is developed: doxastic probabilism.     

When constituencies speak in multiple tongues: The relative persuasiveness of hawkish minorities in representative negotiation

Although constituencies often consist of opposing factions, we know little about the way such opposing factions influence the representative’s negotiation strategy. This study addressed this issue: Representatives negotiated as sellers on behalf of a group consisting of hawkish (competitive) and dovish (cooperative) factions. Experiments 1–3 showed that a minority of hawks was sufficient to influence the representatives to acting in a competitive way; only when all constituents unanimously advocated a cooperative strategy were representatives more conciliatory towards their negotiation partner. These tendencies did not differ as a function of the representatives’ pro-social versus pro-self value orientation, or the unanimity versus majority rule putatively used in the constituency to accept of reject the representative’s negotiated agreement. We conclude that hawkish minorities are persuasive and influential because representatives accord more weight to hawkish than to dovish messages.     

有限理性信任观:对理性计算和非理性态度的整合

信任是理性的还是非理性的,一直是信任研究中争论的焦点。在对理性信任观和非理性信任观进行比较分析之后,在"有限理性"和"心智成本"的框架下,提出了信任的有限理性观点,对信任的理性观和非理性观点做一整合。     

Get angry, get out: The interpersonal effects of anger communication in multiparty negotiation

Research on multiparty negotiation has investigated how parties form coalitions to secure payoffs but has not addressed how emotions may affect such coalition decisions. Extending research on bilateral negotiations which has generally argued that it is beneficial to communicate anger, we argue that it constitutes a considerable risk when there are more than two people present at the negotiation table. Using a computer-mediated coalition game we show that communicating anger is a risky strategy in multiparty bargaining. The main findings of three studies were that participants: (1) form negative impressions of players who communicate anger and therefore (2) exclude such players from coalitions and from obtaining a payoff share, but (3) make considerable concessions on those rare occasions that they choose to form a coalition with an angry player, or (4) when they had to form a coalition with an angry player. We discuss the implications of these results for theorizing on emotions, negotiations, and coalition formation.     

Reflection-in-action as a collective process: findings from a study in teaching students of negotiation

Real-time reflection-in-action is a critical capability for effective practitioners, just as the more common reflection-on-action is critical for learning. Reflective practice is typically regarded as an individual activity. However, to be an effective negotiator involves real-time reflection-in-action. Results from a Masters-level Negotiation unit show that reflection in negotiation contexts is emergent rather than sudden, is collective, and typically occurs in a break from the negotiation action. We develop the work of Schön and Yanow and Tsoukas to propose a framework of reflection-in-action that better fits the interactive context of negotiation and explore some implications for the teaching of negotiation and other similar professional situations.     

Early words that work: When and how virtual linguistic mimicry facilitates negotiation outcomes

We hypothesized that in online, virtual formats, negotiators receive better outcomes when mimicking their counterpart's language; furthermore, we predicted that this strategy would be more effective when occurring early in the negotiation rather than at the end, and should also be effective across both independent and interdependent cultures. Results from two experiments supported these hypotheses. Experiment 1 was conducted in Thailand and demonstrated that negotiators who actively mimicked their counterpart's language in the first 10 min of the negotiation obtained higher individual gain compared to those mimicking during the last 10 min, as well as compared to control participants. Experiment 2 replicated this effect in the United States (with Dutch and American negotiators) and also showed that trust mediated the effect of virtual linguistic mimicry on individual negotiation outcomes. Implications for virtual communication, strategic mimicry, and negotiations are discussed.     

Peer Disagreement and Two Principles of Rational Belief

This paper presents a new solution to the problem of peer disagreement that distinguishes two principles of rational belief, here called probability and autonomy. When we discover that we disagree with peers, there is one sense in which we rationally ought to suspend belief, and another in which we rationally ought to retain our original belief. In the first sense, we aim to believe what is most probably true according to our total evidence, including testimony from peers and authorities. In the second, we aim to base our beliefs only on objective evidence and argumentation, even if that lowers the probability of their being true. The first principle of rational belief tends to serve the short-term epistemic interests of individuals, while the second tends to serve the long-term epistemic interests of both individuals and groups. The best way to reconcile these principles in cases of peer disagreement is to associate them with two corresponding species of belief, here called perception and opinion.     

Rational Thought And Rational Behavior: A Review Of Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox.

Standard economic theory says that the rational approach to a decision is to weigh all alternatives on all relevant dimensions and then to select the one with the highest weight. Such a procedure would maximize subjective expected utility. But, because of constraints on time and available information, people and other animals often bypass this process by using “fast and frugal” heuristics to make decisions. Rationality is thus said to be “bounded” by time and information constraints. The articles in this book describe and organize common heuristics. They show that use of such heuristics is generally the best approach to many real world problems and therefore not irrational. Heuristics evolved, they say, not as deviations from rationality but as aids to rationality in cases where the standard model would have proved to be too slow or inefficient. Although the approach of almost all of the authors of these papers is that of cognitive psychology—a focus on internal cognitive mechanisms—their findings and even their theories may be interpreted in terms of reinforcement and punishment acting on behavioral patterns.     

Suicide is Neither Rational nor Irrational

Richard Brandt, following Hume, famously argued that suicide could be rational. In this he was going against a common ‘absolutist’ view that suicide is irrational almost by definition. Arguments to the effect that suicide is morally permissible or prohibited tend to follow from one’s position on this first issue of rationality. I want to argue that the concept of rationality is not appropriately ascribed – or withheld – to the victim or the act or the desire to commit the act. To support this, I explore how the concept is ascribed and withheld in ordinary situations, and show that it is essentially future-oriented. Since the suicide victim has no future, it makes no sense to call his act rational or irrational. The more appropriate reaction to a declared desire for suicide, or to the news of a successful suicide, is horror and pity, and these are absent from Brandt’s account, as is a humble acknowledgement of the profound mystery at the heart of any suicide.

社会两难行为理性特点的实验分析

本研究运用定量和定性的方法探讨了动态适应性学习条件下两难行为的理性特点及其影响因素。72名杭州本科生参加了本实验,结果发现:1、在有限次重复的两难博弈实验中,人们的两难行为不符合纳什博弈理论,进一步的定性分析指出,这种两难行为体现出“社会理性”的特征;2、在高奖罚的条件下,人们更容易做出接近“纳什均衡点”决策;3、群体规模和反馈方式对人们的对策行为影响不显著,但是,进一步的定性分析部分支持了群体规模的社会理性解释。     

Familiarity-Matching: An Ecologically Rational Heuristic for the Relationships-Comparison Task

Previous studies have shown that people often use heuristics in making inferences and that subjective memory experiences, such as recognition or familiarity of objects, can be valid cues for inferences. So far, many researchers have used the binary choice task in which two objects are presented as alternatives (e.g., “Which city has the larger population, city A or city B?”). However, objects can be presented not only as alternatives but also in a question (e.g., “Which country is city X in, country A or country B?”). In such a situation, people can make inferences based on the relationship between the object in the question and each object given as an alternative. In the present study, we call this type of task a “relationships-comparison task.” We modeled the three inference strategies that people could apply to solve it (familiarity-matching [FM; a new heuristic we propose in this study], familiarity heuristic [FH], and knowledge-based inference [KI]) to examine people's inference processes. Through Studies 1, 2, and 3, we found that (a) people tended to rely on heuristics, and that FM (inferences based on similarity in familiarity between objects) well explained participants' inference patterns; (b) FM could work as an ecologically rational strategy for the relationships–comparison task since it could effectively reflect environmental structures, and that the use of FM could be highly replicable and robust; and (c) people could sometimes use a decision strategy like FM, even in their daily lives (consumer behaviors). The nature of the relationships–comparison task and human cognitive processes is discussed.     

Metaphysics, History, And Rational Justification A MacIntyrean Response to Franklin Gamwell's Critique

This article addresses Franklin Gamwell's critique of Alasdair MacIntyre's account of the nature of rational justification. I argue that MacIntyreans have good reasons to take seriously Gamwell's critique, and thus to reformulate MacIntyre's position to make clear that that position does not rest on a denial of all a priori claims. The author outlines such a reformulation, drawing heavily on MacIntyre's account (in his 1990 Aquinas Lecture) of the place of a priori claims within the development of rational traditions of inquiry. When thus rethought, MacIntyre's position grounds a twofold response to Gamwell's critique.     

Negotiation, Persuasion and Argument

Argument is often taken to deal with conflicting opinion or belief, while negotiation deals with conflicting goals or interests. It is widely accepted that argument ought to comply with some principles or norms. On the other hand, negotiation and bargaining involve concession exchange and tactical use of power, which may be contrasted with attempts to convince others through argument. However, there are cases where it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between bargaining and argument: notably cases where negotiators persuade others through `framing' and cases where the aims of negotiation have to do with public assertion and acceptance. Those cases suggest that the distinction between negotiation and argument is not absolute, and this raises the question whether rules about what is acceptable in argument and rules about what is acceptable in negotiation can all be viewed as instances of more general common norms about human interaction.     

心理学对经济学的涉入——从理性自利到社会偏好的决策框架

理性认知能力与社会偏好存在紧密的关联。文章简要回顾了经济决策理论从理性模型到有限理性模型和社会偏好模型的发展进程,论述了人们理性的局限性及其根源,并进一步探讨理性认知能力与社会偏好的关系。对人类以及灵长目动物的研究显示,有限理性可能是由根源于演化的适应性机制所导致。人类不公平厌恶的起源、个体公平能力的发展规律和表征公平的大脑结构上的证据表明,理性认知能力能让人更好地抑制自私性,实现更高层次的公平。     

The pursuit of missing information in negotiation

A large body of research has focused on how people exchange and use information during the negotiation process. This work tends to treat information as if it all were readily available upon request. The current research investigated how delays in the pursuit of missing information can influence people’s ex-ante priorities and the final settlements they reach. Study 1 found that negotiators achieved more value on an issue after seeking missing information about that issue compared to when the same information was readily accessible. Study 2 found that the effect of searching for information on outcomes was mediated by changes in how important negotiators perceived the issue to be. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.