How Social Attachments Influence Negotiation Processes and Outcomes

Abstract: Negotiating is a fundamental interpersonal tool and managerial skill, through which individuals and groups resolve conflict and obtain some of their most consequential outcomes. Traditionally, negotiations have been studied from an economic point of view, in which negotiators’ potential attachments to counterparts have been viewed as irrelevant or unwelcome distractions from the issues at hand. However, we argue that attachments powerfully shape what and how people negotiate, and as such, should be front and center in studies of negotiation. Importantly, this view of attachments is also broader than that in prior research, encompassing attachments not just to counterparts but to the goods and services under negotiation. Negotiators’ attachments, we argue, may have important and counterintuitive implications for their behavior and agreements. This set of research papers provides a broad perspective on how social attachments influence negotiation likelihood and behavior, underscoring the importance of such attachments above and beyond economic considerations concerning the negotiated deal terms.

Keywords: Negotiation; Conflict Management; Negotiator Relationships; Communication