Disparagement Backlash and Caretaker Advantage: How Attachment Shapes Reactions to Accounts in Negotiations

Attachment is an essential part of our everyday lives, impacting the way we experience our surroundings and make decisions. One context in which attachment comes to life is negotiations. The present paper examines whether attachment interacts with an important and previously unexamined feature of negotiations: the accounts that buyers provide to justify and explain their offers. We found that when sellers are attached to the object under negotiation, they show a defensive reactance to buyer rationales that critique the object (disparagement backlash effect). We further found that attached sellers feel greater concern for the fate of their object and, as a consequence, favor buyers who offer to take good care of their object, even at the sacrifice of economic value (caretaker advantage effect). Our findings shed light on previously unstudied dynamics between attachment and rationales in negotiations and reveal new ways in which attachment plays out in daily life.