Opening Up The Negotiation With Inquiry Or Disclosure: How Counterpart’s Information Seeking Versus Information Revealing Impact Truth-Telling and Offer-Making In Negotiations

Authors:

Abstract: A good start of negotiation greatly enhances its success. How should negotiators open up a negotiation then, by seeking information from the other party, or by revealing one’s own information to the other party? Drawing upon the Interpersonal Circumplex Model, the present study suggests that negotiators have more favorable perceptions and responses to counterparts that open up the negotiation with information seeking rather than information revealing, and identifies gender as a boundary condition. In Study 1, an online experiment, the authors discovered that information seeking at the beginning of the negotiation led negotiators to feel more trusted by the seeker, and were more likely to truthfully reveal their information, than information revealing. Meanwhile, compared with information revealing, information seeking also enhanced perceived competence and resulted in less ambitious counteroffers subsequently. In Study 2, another online experiment where the gender of the counterpart was manipulated, the authors found that the positive effect of information seeking versus information revealing on truthful information revealing was only significant when the counterpart was female. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Track: NEG

Keywords: information seeking, information revealing, negotiation, thin slice, counteroffer