Give and take frames in shared-resource negotiations

From Claiming to Creating Value: The Psychology of Negotiations on Common Resource Dilemmas

“…Therefore, those agents who seek to create value must apply innovative and integrative strategies that systematically address the limited availability (e.g., limited freshwater in arid areas), the restricted accessibility (e.g., restricted access to vaccines), or the dynamic alterability (e.g., mutation of nuclear resources into radiant waste) of the negotiated resources. If agents fail to systematically address these resource-related challenges, they become trapped in a psychological orientation that is characterized by increased levels of egoistic motivation (e.g., [13,14,[31][32][33]), a reduced sense of collective identification (e.g., [34][35][36]), and an enhanced focus on short-term outcomes (e.g., [37][38][39]). We refer to this psychological orientation as a 'myopic mindset'.…”

“…Negotiators with a myopic mindset tend to make contentious demands on limited available resources, restrict the accessibility of resources, and exploit the dynamic alterability of resources. These tendencies can manifest, for instance, in that negotiators apply competitive tactics such as committing themselves to adamant demands (e.g., [29]), hinder other parties to use shared resources [14,111], or devaluate other parties' proposals on how to change future developments (e.g., [112]).…”

“…Traditional psychological research on negotiations has predominantly focused on classic transaction negotiations (e.g., buyer-seller negotiations or B2B-negotiations; for reviews see, e.g., [7,9,10]). By contrast, negotiations on common resource dilemmas have received far less attention (for exceptions see [11][12][13][14]). Given the ecological, economic, and social impact of negotiation processes across all levels of society, it is remarkable how little is known about psychological processes that shape agents' perceptions and behaviors in negotiations on common resource dilemmas (as the term 'agent' is widely used in sustainability science (e.g., change agents; [15], juristic agents, [16]; governance agents; [17]), we specify the term 'agent' in our framework concerning the psychological dimension.…”

Negotiating Sustainability Transitions: Why Does It Matter? What Are the Challenges? How to Proceed?

“…Negotiation can help manage both our social interdependencies and the systemic social-ecological interdependencies that must be acknowledged and managed for successful transitions. Given the negotiations' prominent role in the management of transitions and processes of policy design, it is surprising that insights from psychological and behavioral negotiation research have rarely been applied to inform and facilitate the management of sustainability transitions (see for exceptions: [10][11][12][13]) and processes of policy design [14].…”

“…In the real world, these moves manifest in struggle between groups and can take various forms, such as physical combat, war of words, unilateral advantage taking, or political contest [7], but the struggle has significant disadvantages compared to negotiation. Struggle is usually very cost-intense (e.g., [18]), implies winning or losing as the only possible outcomes of the social conflict (e.g., [19,20]), impedes fine-tuned solutions over multiple relevant issues (e.g., [13,20]), obstructs reaching mutually beneficial agreements, and blockades transformative solutions that have the potential to change the status quo [7]. Given these disadvantages of individual moves and struggle, conflict management via collective decision-making and negotiation has substantial benefits and can catalyze sustainability transitions when decision-makers negotiate agreements wisely [10,21].…”