인지적 종료욕구가 협상행동에 미치는 영향

초록

In most cases, negotiators do not have much information about the other party’s situation. For example, they neither know the other party’s alternatives nor the true value of the negotiated agreement. For this reason, most negotiators rely not on the objective information and rationale but on the subjective feelings and heuristics when they set the goal and judge their negotiation performance. More specifically, negotiators often rely on stereotypes and biased cognitions when they make a critical decisions during the neogtiation process. as a result, the final agreements are often unsatisfactory and deficient. Since the stereotypes and cognitive biases negatively influence the negotiation results, it is theoretically and practically important to find out who would be more or less influenced by those restricted rationality during the negotiation processes. Previous studies have found that individuals with high need for cognitive closure (NFC), the desire for a definite answer to a question and the avoidance of ambiguity, are more likely to make decisions heuristically. Since high NFC individuals want to finish cognitive effort to find answers soon, they quickly take socially accepted notions such as stereotypes and rely on them in decision making. They also demonstrate characteristics such as high closed-mindedness (or low open-mindedness). In the current study, we investigate whether NFC significantly affect negotiators’ reliance on fixed-pie perception, a typical negotiator’s stereotype which see the counterpart’s interests and priorities are in direct opposition to the negotiator’s own interests and priorities. We also investigate whether NFC increases the strength of the negotiators’ first counter offer. Finally, we test if NFC affects the feelings of trust on the counterpart. To test our hypotheses, we conducted computer-mediated negotiation role-plays. 146 university students participated the role play where a new employee and a HR manager negotiate about the new employee’s work conditions. Subjects were invited at a time to participate in the role play in the behavioral lab where ten computers were located. Participants were not allowed to talk each other and they could engaged in the role play only through the computer. we measured paritcipants’ NFC and fixed-pie perception before the role play and their trust on the counterpartafter the role play. Our results showed that NFC significantly increases fixed-pie perception and decreases trust on the counterpart. However, contrary to our expectation, NFC did not affect the strength of the first counter offer made by the subjects. The results of the current study reveal that individual traits such as NFC can directly affect the processes and results of negotiation, supporting the ideas of the individual differences school of negotiation research. The results of the current study also demonstrate that negotiators’ subjective feelings after the negotiation such as the trust on counterpart can be determined by individual traits even before the negotiation. Our results show that the research on negotiators’ subjective feelings can be benefitted by considering the effects of individual traits.

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