The authors address the long-standing mystery of stable individual differences in negotiation performance, on which intuition and conventional wisdom have clashed with inconsistent empirical findings. The present study used the Social Relations Model to examine individual differences directly via consistency in performance across multiple negotiations and to disentangle the roles of both parties within these inherently dyadic interactions. Individual differences explained a substantial 46% of objective performance and 19% of subjective performance in a mixed-motive bargaining exercise. Previous work may have understated the influence of individual differences because conventional research designs require specific traits to be identified and measured. Exploratory analyses of a battery of traits revealed few reliable associations with consistent individual differences in objective performance-except for positive beliefs about negotiation, positive affect, and concern for one's outcome, each of which predicted better performance. Findings suggest that the field has large untapped potential to explain substantial individual differences. Limitations, areas for future research, and practical implications are discussed. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
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NIH-PA Author ManuscriptA long-standing mystery within the field of negotiation-a mutual decision-making process to allocate scarce resources (Pruitt, 1983)-is the influence of individual differences on performance. Conventional wisdom suggests that some people seem more adept, natural, comfortable, and successful at negotiating. Differences in skill seem so vast that students often question whether they are innate or acquired (Kray & Haselhuhn, 2007). Indeed, the strong intuition that some negotiators are better than others resonates with theoretical perspectives in psychology on the pervasive influence of enduring personal dispositions on interpersonal behavior (Sternberg & Dobson, 1987;Thompson, 1990b).However, empirical research has been less than compelling in validating this common wisdom. Large-scale reviews have long concluded that individual differences are unreliable predictors of negotiation outcomes, resulting in a preponderance of null and inconsistent results (Lewicki, Litterer, Minton, & Saunders, 1994;Terhune, 1970;Thompson, 1990b). Previous authors have gone so far as to conclude that "personality and individual differences appear to play a minimal role in determining bargaining behavior" (Thompson, 1990b, p. 515). Given these conclusions, negotiation researchers...