Procedural frames in negotiations: How offering my resources versus requesting yours impacts perception, behavior, and outcomes.

Abstract

Although abundant negotiation research has examined outcome frames, little is known about the procedural framing of negotiation proposals (i.e., offering my vs. requesting your resources). In a series of 8 experiments, we tested the prediction that negotiators would show a stronger concession aversion and attain better individual outcomes when their own resource, rather than the counterpart's, is the accentuated reference resource in a transaction. First, senders of proposals revealed a stronger concession aversion when they offered their own rather than requested the counterpart's resources-both in buyer-seller (Experiment 1a) and in classic transaction negotiations (Experiment 2a). Expectedly, this effect reversed for recipients: When receiving requests rather than offers, recipients experienced a stronger concession aversion in buyer-seller (Experiment 1b) and transaction negotiations (Experiment 2b). Experiments 3-5 investigated procedural frames in the interactive process of negotiations-with elementary schoolchildren (Experiment 3), in a buyer-seller context (Experiments 4a and 4b), and in a computer-mediated transaction negotiation void of buyer and seller roles (Experiment 5). In summary, 8 experiments showed that negotiators are more concession averse and claim more individual value when negotiation proposals are framed to highlight their own rather than the counterpart's resources.

Communicating with Warmth in Distributive Negotiations Is Surprisingly Counterproductive

“…The first is that communication style, above and beyond economic behavior, affects negotiation outcomes. We contribute to an emerging body of work that focuses on the importance of how offers are delivered in a negotiation separate from their economic value, such as the way in which offers are justified or framed (Bowles and Babcock 2013, Trötschel et al 2015, Lee and Ames 2017. Specifically, our research takes a novel approach in looking at the effect of warm and friendly versus tough and firm communication styles.…”

“…Prior work has extensively studied the importance of these numerical aspects in affecting outcomes (e.g., Galinsky and Mussweiler 2001, Galinsky et al 2005, Mason et al 2013, Ames and Mason 2015. Noneconomic behavior includes other aspects of the interaction including body language, tone, and word choice, such as framing and use of rationales (e.g., Rubin et al 1980, Maaravi et al 2011, Bowles and Babcock 2013, Trötschel et al 2015, Lee and Ames 2017. These noneconomic aspects of negotiation behavior, in turn, can be used strategically to project an overall communication style that is mainly characterized by its warmth or toughness.…”

Interpersonal assertiveness: Inside the balancing act

“…Third, we see great value in further scholarly attention to the question of how people assert themselves. Some recent work has examined rationales and account‐giving in negotiation and other contexts (e.g., Bhatia et al, ; Lee & Ames, in press; Troetschel et al, ). Additional work in this area could shed further light on what stories and frames people use, and which ones actually work, when making a proposal, declining a request, providing critical performance feedback, and so forth.…”

Using Self-regulation to Successfully Overcome the Negotiation Disadvantage of Low Power

“…The low-power negotiators did not write about such an incident but were given time to take notes to prepare for the negotiation. Second, the buyer role was described as more powerful than the seller role (Pinkley et al, 1994): Buyers read that they were in a superior position (i.e., buyers’ market; see Trötschel et al, 2015). Sellers read that they were in an inferior position.…”