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This paper aims to test the impact of several self‐regulatory strategies on an integrative bargaining task.

Participants were randomly assigned to dyads and negotiated over the sale of a car. Before negotiating, participants were prompted to engage in one of three self‐regulation strategies, based upon fantasy realization theory (FRT): to mentally contrast a successful future agreement with the reality of bargaining, to exclusively elaborate on successful future agreement, or to exclusively elaborate on the reality of bargaining. Those in the control condition merely began the negotiation.

Mentally contrasting a successful future agreement with the reality of bargaining leads dyads to reach the largest and most equitable joint agreements, compared to dyads that elaborate only on successful future agreement, or on the reality of bargaining.

Since it was found that mental contrasting promotes integrative agreement, it is important to learn more about the psychological processes that mediate and moderate this effect. Another related line of research would examine the application of the findings to other bargaining scenarios. One further future line of research should combine mental contrasting with planning strategies.

The findings of the paper have implications for both self‐regulation and negotiation research. The result that mental contrasting fosters integrative solutions reflects its potential to help negotiators effectively discriminate among feasible and unfeasible components of a multi‐faceted goal (integrative agreement). For negotiation research, the paper identifies an effective self‐regulatory strategy for producing high‐quality agreements.

The purpose of the study is to empirically investigate the similarities and differences between dyads and four‐party groups in an integrative negotiation.

Data are collected in a between subjects experiment. A total of 182 participants completed a negotiation role play and questionnaire. Hypotheses are tested using t‐tests, MANOVAs and two multiple regression analyses.

Results demonstrate that dyads do outperform groups on both the economic and subjective measures of outcomes. Sharing of priority information and the fixed pie bias was higher in groups than in dyads. For dyads the procedure used (considering more than one issue at a time) led to higher economic outcomes, and both procedure and problem solving were important for subjective outcomes. For four‐party negotiations, problem solving was significantly related to higher outcomes, on both economic and subjective outcomes, and procedure was moderately related to economic outcomes. Problem solving was significantly more important for the groups than for dyads on economic outcomes.

The controlled experimental setting could limit the generalizabiltiy of the findings. Measures of the intermediate variables could be improved by including additional items and observations. Future research is required in field settings using multiple measures of the process.

In multiparty negotiation information sharing and the presence of cognitive biases may not be as important as focusing on a problem solving approach.

An empirical investigation that groups under‐perform dyads in an integrative negotiation has not been conducted before.

The present experiment aimed to test the impact of a self‐regulatory strategy of goal pursuit – called mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) – on an integrative bargaining task.

Participants were randomly assigned to dyads and negotiated over the sale of a car. Before negotiating, participants were prompted to engage in MCII, or one or the other of its two component strategies: to contrast mentally achieving success in the integrative bargaining task with the reality standing in the way of this success (MC), to form implementation intentions on how to bargain (i.e. if‐then plans) (II), or both to contrast mentally and form implementation intentions (MCII).

The strategy of mental contrasting with implementation intentions led dyads to reach the largest joint agreements, compared to dyads that only used mental contrasting or if‐then plans. Moreover, participants who mentally contrasted formed more cooperative implementation intentions than participants who did not mentally contrast, mediating the effect of condition on joint gain.

The findings suggest that the self‐regulatory strategy of mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) leads to higher joint gain, and that this effect is mediated by mental contrasting's promotion of cooperative planning. More research should be done to understand the specific negotiation behaviors engendered by MCII, as well as its applicability to other negotiation scenarios.

These findings have implications for both self‐regulation and negotiation research. The result that MCII fosters integrative solutions reflects its potential to help people form cooperative plans and reach high joint‐value agreements in integrative scenarios. For negotiation research, the paper identifies an effective self‐regulatory strategy for producing high‐quality agreements.

The employee-organization relationship (EOR) has increasingly become a focal point for researchers in organizational behavior, human resource management, and industrial relations. Literature on the EOR has developed at both the individual – (e.g. psychological contracts) and the group and organizational-levels of analysis (e.g. employment relationships). Both sets of literatures are reviewed, and we argue for the need to integrate these literatures as a means for improving understanding of the EOR. Mechanisms for integrating these literatures are suggested. A subsequent discussion of contextual effects on the EOR follows in which we suggest that researchers develop models that explicitly incorporate context. We then examine a number of theoretical lenses to explain various attributes of the EOR such as the dynamism and fairness of the exchange, and new ways of understanding the exchange including positive functional relationships and integrative negotiations. The article concludes with a discussion of future research needed on the EOR.

This study aims to investigate when integrative tactics are more effective in generating higher joint outcomes in an integrative negotiation. The authors test whether, first, the moral identity of the negotiators and, second, the concurrent use of distributive tactics increase the effectiveness of integrative tactics on joint outcomes.

Two weeks prior to the experiment, moral identity was measured using SIMI. Participants were classified into three groups: high, medium, and low SIMI. Two participants from the same group played a modified version of the Towers Market negotiation exercise. Distributive and integrative tactics were measured.

Results show that negotiators with high moral identity achieve higher joint outcomes in an integrative negotiation by using integrative tactics more effectively. In addition, the positive effects of integrative tactics on joint outcomes increase as the two negotiators employ distributive tactics along with integrative tactics rather than integrative tactics alone.

Results support the firm‐flexibility rule and dual‐concern model of negotiation. In addition, the results of this study are consistent with the argument of the differentiation‐before‐integration principle.

Contradictory to the assumption that negotiators should not use distributive tactics to increase joint outcome, negotiators can increase joint outcome when they use distributive tactics along with integrative tactics. In addition, this study shows that negotiators with high morality do a better job in an integrative negotiation not because they adopt integrative tactics more frequently, but because they use them more effectively, especially when coupled with negotiators with a similar level of morality.

There is a tendency for opposing partisans to ideological disputes to imagine that their opponents are extremist, biased, and in diametric opposition to themselves. The current investigation examined the role of these imagined ideological differences in face‐to‐face negotiations. Experiment 1 examined the problems that develop when negotiators attend to irrelevant ideological differences. Dyads who were made aware of political differences, even imagined ones (i.e., their political views were actually similar), required more time to allocate hypothetical funds and perceived their partner less favorably than did dyads who were unaware of their political differences. Experiments 2 and 3 tested the hypothesis that ideological opponents who acquire accurate information about their counterpart's beliefs (thus reducing the effects of imagined ideological differences) will have more successful negotiations. Opposing partisans to abortion (Experiment 2) and the death penalty (Experiment 3) reached more comprehensive, integrative agreements and perceived each other more favorably when they disclosed their own views to each other before negotiating. The relevance of these findings to other mediation techniques and real world conflicts was discussed.

Understanding how dyadic negotiations and group decision processes evolve over time requires specifying the basic elements of process, modeling the configuration of those elements over time, and providing a theoretical explanation for that configuration. We propose a bead metaphor for conceptualizing the basic elements of the group negotiation process and then “string” the beads of behavior in a helix framework to model the process by which group negotiations evolve. Our theorizing draws on the group decision development literature (e.g. Bales, 1953; Poole, 1981, 1983a, b; Poole & Roth, 1989a, b) as well as on the negotiation process literature (e.g. Gulliver, 1979; Morley & Stephenson, 1977). Our examples are from our Towers Market studies of negotiating groups.

Research adopting prospect theory to examine negotiator performance was extended to mediation. We examined whether framing negotiator payoffs in terms of gains or losses affects a mediator's behavior towards negotiators when the mediator has no personal frame. The use of a mediator presents a critical test between an explanation of framing effects based on bargainers' underlying preferences for risk and a simpler explanation based on the psychophysical properties of perceived gains and losses. A computer‐based experiment was conducted in which subjects acted as mediators between two disputants (computer programs) in an integrative bargaining task. As predicted, subjects proposed settlements of higher joint value when both disputants had loss frames than when both had gain frames, supporting the psychophysical explanation. Moreover, within mixed framed disputes, subjects' proposals favored the loss‐framed bargainer over the gain‐framed bargainer. However, predicted interactions between bargainer frame and concession‐making activity were not supported Implications of the results for real bargainers and mediators are discussed.

In this article, we focus on alternative dispute resolution procedures, in particular third party procedures. We describe eight different procedures and provide examples of how these procedures are used in different cultural contexts. We then evaluate the procedures in terms of how they impact four key criteria that have been noted in the literature related to negotiation: process criteria, settlement criteria, issue-related criteria, and relationship criteria. We subsequently explore the potential impact of culture on evaluations of these criteria. We finish with a discussion of future directions for research and practice, emphasizing that procedural recommendations should be made carefully when the criteria for effectiveness and applicability are derived from US-centric research. In other words, there is not “one best choice” for third party procedures universal to the myriad cultures on our planet.

In negotiation, pressures to reach an agreement are assumed to influence both the processes and the outcomes of the discussions. This paper metaanalytically combined different forms of time pressure to examine its effects on negotiator strategy and impasse rate. High time pressure was more likely to increase negotiator concessions and cooperation than low pressure as well as make agreements more likely. The effect on negotiator strategy, however, was stronger when the deadline was near or when negotiations were simple rather than complex. The effects were weaker when the opponent was inflexible and using a tough negotiation strategy. The effects on cooperative strategies were weaker when incentives for good performance were available than when they were not. Although time pressure in negotiation has significant effects, situational factors play a major role on its impact.