Related Experiment Videos
Unfixing the fixed pie: a motivated information-processing approach to integrative negotiation.
C K de Dreu1, S L Koole, W Steinel
1Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ao_dedreu@macmail.psy.uva.nl
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|January 4, 2001
Summary
Accountability motivates negotiators to abandon fixed-pie perceptions, leading to more integrative agreements. This research highlights how accountability can improve negotiation outcomes by fostering flexible information processing.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
- Organizational Behavior
Background:
- Negotiators often perceive outcomes as a fixed pie, where one party's gain is another's loss.
- This fixed-pie perception (FPP) hinders the achievement of integrative agreements, which benefit all parties involved.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether accuracy motivation can reduce fixed-pie perceptions in negotiators.
- To examine the impact of accountability on negotiators' FPPs and agreement outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments manipulated accuracy motivation by holding negotiators accountable for their negotiation process.
- Data collected included measures of fixed-pie perceptions and the integrativeness of agreements reached.
Main Results:
- Accountability significantly reduced fixed-pie perceptions in face-to-face negotiations.
- Accountable negotiators achieved more integrative agreements compared to non-accountable negotiators.
- Accountability influenced FPPs even when information exchange was controlled, and affected information encoding.
Conclusions:
- Accuracy motivation, induced by accountability, helps negotiators revise fixed-pie perceptions.
- Negotiator reliance on FPPs is flexible and can be influenced by motivated information processing.
- Accountability is a viable strategy to promote more integrative and effective negotiation outcomes.