When information about one’s counterpart matters:Prevention focus increases the impact of counterpart cues on negotiation behavior

Purpose: To avoid (costly) conflict, it is imperative to uncover when negotiators cooperate. The previous study has shown that negotiators’ cooperative or competitive behavior is oftentimes guided by cues about their counterpart; information about his/her traits or behavior. Using regulatory focus theory, this paper aims to investigate when this is likely to happen. The authors hypothesize and test that because prevention focus (rather than promotion focus) is associated with concerns for safety and concrete surroundings, it strengthens the impact of counterpart cues. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used two scenario studies and one behavioral negotiation study to test the general hypothesis. The authors measured or manipulated participants’ regulatory focus, manipulated counterpart cues by varying the information negotiators received about their counterpart’s traits and behavior, and measured participants’ cooperative or competitive concession making behavior. Findings: Results from the studies confirmed that under prevention focus, negotiators’ cooperative behavior depended on whether they received cooperative versus competitive counterpart cues more than under promotion focus. Furthermore, results also showed that under prevention focus, negotiators’ behavior was relatively unaffected by their own social motivation – i.e. their personal goal to obtain favorable outcomes for oneself or for both negotiation parties. Originality/value: By showing that regulatory focus determines when counterpart cues affect negotiation behavior, this paper furthers the understanding of when contextual factors affect negotiators' behavior. In addition, it contributes to the understanding of the complex effects of prevention focus in interpersonal behavior

Oxytocin modulates third-party sanctioning of selfish and generous behavior within and between groups

Human groups function because members trust each other and reciprocate cooperative contributions, and reward others’ cooperation and punish their non-cooperation. Here we examined the possibility that such third-party punishment and reward of others’ trust and reciprocation is modulated by oxytocin, a neuropeptide generally involved in social bonding and in-group (but not out-group) serving behavior. Healthy males and females (N = 100) self-administered a placebo or 24 IU of oxytocin in a randomized, double-blind, between-subjects design. Participants were asked to indicate (incentivized, costly) their level of reward or punishment for in-group (outgroup) investors donating generously or fairly to in-group (outgroup) trustees, who back-transferred generously, fairly or selfishly. Punishment (reward) was higher for selfish (generous) investments and back-transfers when (i) investors were in-group rather than outgroup, and (ii) trustees were in-group rather than outgroup, especially when (iii) participants received oxytocin rather than placebo. It follows, first, that oxytocin leads individuals to ignore out-groups as long as out-group behavior is not relevant to the in-group and, second, that oxytocin contributes to creating and enforcing in-group norms of cooperation and trust

Hypopituitarism is associated with lower oxytocin concentrations and reduced empathic ability

Purpose Central diabetes insipidus is characterised by arginine vasopressin deficiency. Oxytocin is structurally related to vasopressin and is synthesised in the same hypothalamic nuclei, thus we hypothesised that patients with acquired central diabetes insipidus and anterior hypopituitarism would display an oxytocin deficiency. Moreover, psychological research has demonstrated that oxytocin influences social and emotional behaviours, particularly empathic behaviour. We therefore further hypothesised that central diabetes insipidus patients would perform worse on empathy-related tasks, compared to age-matched and gender-matched clinical control (clinical control-isolated anterior hypopituitarism) and healthy control groups. Method Fifty-six participants (age 46.54 ± 16.30 yrs; central diabetes insipidus: n = 20, 8 males; clinical control: n = 15, 6 males; healthy control: n = 20, 7 males) provided two saliva samples which were analysed for oxytocin and completed two empathy tasks. Results Hypopituitary patients (both central diabetes insipidus and clinical control groups) had significantly lower oxytocin concentrations compared to healthy control participants. Hypopituitary patients also performed significantly worse on both the reading the mind in the eyes task and the facial expression recognition task compared to healthy control participants. Regression analyses further revealed that central diabetes insipidus patients’ oxytocin concentrations significantly predicted their performance on easy items of the reading the mind in the eyes task. Conclusions Hypopituitarism may therefore be associated with reduced oxytocin concentrations and impaired empathic ability. While further studies are needed to replicate these findings, our data suggest that oxytocin replacement may offer a therapeutic approach to improve psychological well-being in patients with hypopituitarism

Majority and minority influence in group negotiation: The moderating effects of social motivation and decision rules

In organizational groups, often a majority has aligned preferences that oppose those of a minority. Although such situations may give rise to majority coalitions that exclude the minority or to minorities blocking unfavorable agreements, structural and motivational factors may stimulate groups to engage in integrative negotiation, leading to collectively beneficial agreements. An experiment with 97 3-person groups was designed to test hypotheses about the interactions among decision rule, the majority's social motivation, and the minority's social motivation. Results showed that under unanimity rule, minority members block decisions, thus harming the group, but only when the minority has proself motivation. Under majority rule, majority members coalesce at the minority's expense, but only when the majority has a proself motivation. Implications for negotiation research and group decision making are discussed

It takes one to tango: The Effects of Dyads' Epistemic Motivation Composition in Negotiation

This study examined the effects of epistemic motivation composition in negotiation. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that dyads in which at least one member had high epistemic motivation (measured by personal need for structure) reached higher joint outcomes than dyads in which both members had low epistemic motivation. In Experiment 2, epistemic motivation was manipulated and negotiators were provided with full information or incomplete information about their counterpart's preferences. Two competing sets of hypotheses were developed and tested. Negotiation behavior was coded, and mediation analysis established that the presence of one negotiator with high epistemic motivation helped negotiators overcome information insufficiency and benefited the dyad as a whole because of increased information search rather than heuristic trial and error. Theoretical implications are discussed

Framing effortful strategies as easy enables depleted individuals to execute complex tasks effectively

It is argued that depleted individuals are concerned with conserving energy and therefore prefer strategies framed as easy. When such easy strategies can be adopted, the concern with conserving energy is reduced, and subsequent task performance restored. Indeed, Experiment 1 showed that adopting a strategy framed as easy but suboptimal (vs. difficult but optimal) reduced the need to conserve energy, and this enabled depleted individuals to perform as well as non-depleted individuals. Experiment 2 showed that when an objectively optimal negotiation strategy was framed as easy (rather than difficult), depleted negotiators were more likely to adopt the strategy and therefore achieved better outcomes. We conclude that depleting executive functions leads to a preference for an easy strategy and that when framing strategies as easy, the need to conserve energy is alleviated and task performance is maintained

In Intergroup Conflict, Self-sacrifice is Stronger among Pro-social Individuals and Parochial Altruism Emerges specially among Cognitively Taxed Individuals

Parochial altruism is decomposed in a tendency to benefit the in-group along with a tendency to ignore, derogate, and harm rivaling out-groups. Building off recent work suggesting that decisions to cooperate can be relatively fast and intuitive, we examine parochial altruism in intergroup conflict when cognitive deliberation is rendered difficult or not. Predictions were tested in an experiment using an incentivized Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemma—Maximizing Differences Game (IPD-MD) with ninety-five subjects classified as either pro-social or pro-self being randomly allocated to high vs. low impulse-control conditions. Results showed, first of all, that decisions to contribute and self-sacrifice were made faster than decisions not to contribute, and that longer decision time associated with less positive expectations of in-group members. Second, we observed that lowering impulse control with a difficult rather than easy Stroop Task increased the amount contributed to a pool that benefited in-group members while harming out-group members; thus reducing deliberation increased parochial altruism. Finally, results replicated earlier work showing that especially pro-social (versus pro-self) individuals contributed more to the in-group and did not lower their contributions to the between-group pool that benefitted their in-group and, simultaneously, hurt the out-group. This pattern emerged independent of their impulse control. Thus, (in-group bounded) cooperation is more prominent among individuals with strong rather than weak other-regarding preferences. Moreover, the intuitive tendency to cooperate may have evolved in the context of intergroup conflict and therefore is sharp-edged—in-group bounded and including willingness to aggress out-groups

Reality at odds with perceptions : narcissistic leaders and group performance

Although narcissistic individuals are generally perceived as arrogant and overly dominant, they are particularly skilled at radiating an image of a prototypically effective leader. As a result, they tend to emerge as leaders in group settings. Despite people’s positive perceptions of narcissists as leaders, it was previously unknown if and how leaders’ narcissism is related to the performance of the people they lead. In this study, we used a hidden-profile paradigm to investigate this question and found evidence for discordance between the positive image of narcissists as leaders and the reality of group performance. We hypothesized and found that although narcissistic leaders are perceived as effective because of their displays of authority, a leader’s narcissism actually inhibits information exchange between group members and thereby negatively affects group performance. Our findings thus indicate that perceptions and reality can be at odds and have important practical and theoretical implications.6 page(s

Pay to walk away: Prevention buyers prefer to avoid negotiation

In bargaining, buyers aim to spend as little money as they can on the items they seek to purchase. Compared to promotion-oriented people, prevention-oriented people seek to avoid losses rather than to secure gains. Employing different negotiation scenarios, three lab experiments tested the prediction that prevention-oriented buyers would thus display higher negotiation aversion than promotion-oriented buyers. Results showed that prevention-oriented people in the role of a potential buyer were willing to accept lower monetary compensation to refrain from entering the negotiation and were more likely to exit the negotiation when such an opportunity was presented to them. We discuss these findings and their contribution to our understanding of how regulatory focus influences consumers' economic decisions. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved