Regulatory focus at the bargaining table: promoting distributive and integrative success

The authors demonstrate that in dyadic negotiations, negotiators with a promotion regulatory focus achieve superior outcomes than negotiators with prevention regulatory focus in two ways. First, a promotion focus leads negotiators to claim more resources at the bargaining table. In the first two studies, promotion-focused negotiators paid more attention to their target prices(i.e., their ideal outcomes) and achieved more advantageous distributive outcomes than did prevention-focused negotiators. The second study also reveals an important mediating process: Negotiators with a promotion focus made more extreme opening offers in their favor. Second, a promotion focus leads negotiators to create more resources at the bargaining table that benefit both parties. A third study demonstrated that in a multi-issue negotiation, a promotion focus increased the likelihood that a dyad achieved a jointly optimal or Pareto efficient outcome compared to prevention-focused dyads. The discussion focuses on the role of regulatory focus in social interaction and introduces the notion of interaction fit.