We thank Astrid Homan, Bernard Nijstad, and Scott Tindale for their valuable comments on drafts of this article.

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Prior research using experimental games has demonstrated that social value orientations affect the ways in which individuals approach and react to interdependent others; prosocials exhibit greater cooperation than individualists and competitors. This article extends these lines of research by examining the influence of social value orientations on negotiation cognition and behavior. Consistent with predictions, prosocials, relative to individualists and competitors, exhibited lower levels of demand, exhibited greater levels of concessions, and ascribed greater levels of fairness and considerateness to the other person. Moreover, prosocials as well as individualists and competitors exhibited tendencies toward logrolling, making greater concessions on low-priority rather than high-priority issues. The discussion describes several theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Humans live in, rely on, and contribute to groups. Evolution may have biologically prepared them to quickly identify others as belonging to the in-group (vs. not), to decode emotional states, and to empathize with in-group members; to learn and conform to group norms and cultural practices; to extend and reciprocate trust and cooperation; and to aggressively protect the in-group against outside threat. We review evidence that these components of human group psychology rest on and are modulated by the hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin. It appears that oxytocin motivates and enables humans to 1) like and empathize with others in their groups, 2) comply with group norms and cultural practices, and 3) extend and reciprocate trust and cooperation, which may give rise to intergroup discrimination and sometimes defensive aggression against threatening (members of) out-groups. We explore the possibility that deficiencies in (components of) group psychology, seen in autistic spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and borderline personality and social anxiety disorders, may be reduced by oxytocin administration. Avenues for new research are highlighted, and implications for the role of oxytocin in cooperation and competition within and between groups are discussed.