Regulatory focus at the bargaining table: promoting distributive and integrative success.
The authors demonstrate that in dyadic negotiations, negotiators with a promotion regulatory focus achieve superior outcomes than negotiators with prevention regulatory focus in two ways. First, a promotion focus leads negotiators to claim more resources at the bargaining table. In the first two studies, promotion-focused negotiators paid more attention to their target prices(i.e., their ideal outcomes) and achieved more advantageous distributive outcomes than did prevention-focused negotiators. The second study also reveals an important mediating process: Negotiators with a promotion focus made more extreme opening offers in their favor. Second, a promotion focus leads negotiators to create more resources at the bargaining table that benefit both parties. A third study demonstrated that in a multi-issue negotiation, a promotion focus increased the likelihood that a dyad achieved a jointly optimal or Pareto efficient outcome compared to prevention-focused dyads. The discussion focuses on the role of regulatory focus in social interaction and introduces the notion of interaction fit.
Department of Management and Organizations, Kellog School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. agalinsky@northwestern.edu
Adam D
AD
Galinsky
Geoffrey J
GJ
Leonardelli
Gerardo A
GA
Okhuysen
Thomas
T
Mussweiler
D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D017008:Negotiating