Envy Hampers Win-Win Negotiations

Authors:

Abstract: Researchers from a wide range of disciplines share a consensus that envy is among the most powerful emotional forces in humans. The existing literature provides important insights for understanding envy, especially its antecedents and intrapersonal consequences; but the interpersonal implications of envy in social interactions still await more empirical scrutiny. Envy is a social experience, and it invariably occurs in dyads of the envious and the envied persons. Given the importance of envy as a social phenomenon, the current research seeks to investigate how envy affects interpersonal interactions in joint decision-making situations. We propose that due to the painful feelings of being envious, envy will decrease the interpersonal trust between the envious and envied actor and ultimately harm their joint decision making. Integrating the literature on negotiation and envy, we aim to highlight whether, how, and why envy impacts negotiators’ perceptions, behaviors, and achieved outcomes.

Track: NEG

Keywords: envy, negotiations, trust, integrative potential, win-win agreements