Thinking Beyond The Negotiation Table: Mental Contrasting Promotes Inclusive Perspectives In Negotiations With Externalities

The majority of negotiation research has limited its focus to the resolution of conflicts at the immediate bargaining table, and it has ignored the fact that social conflicts being resolved between the negotiating parties may impact the interests of other parties who are absent from the table. Particularly, to achieve an optimal, long-term agreement, negotiators should also consider the interests of external parties who are not involved but are affected by the decision-making. Nevertheless, previous research has shown that the reconciliation of diverse interests of stakeholders beyond the negotiation table is a crucial challenge for negotiators. Given this, the current research seeks to investigate mental contrasting as a psychological tool to promote the integration of interests at and beyond the table. To this end, we conducted a face-to-face negotiation experiment to examine the effectiveness of three variants of mental contrasting in achieving integrative negotiation outcomes at the inclusive level.