1 - perception

• The building blocks of all social encounters include:

  • Perception (how we make sense of our environment)
  • Cognition (how we process information)
  • Emotion (internal affective states)
• Perception → The process by which individuals connect to their environment by ascribing meaning to messages and events 
• perception is a “sense-making” process; people interpret their environment so that they can respond appropriately 
• The Role of Perception:

  • Is strongly influenced by the perceiver’s current state of mind, role, and comprehension of earlier communications
  • The complexity of environments makes it impossible to process all of the information
  • People develop shortcuts to process information and these shortcuts can be inaccurate
• Perception cycle:

  1. Stimulus
  2. Attention
  3. Recognition
  4. Translation
  5. Behaviour
• Four major perceptual errors:

  1. Stereotyping
  2. Halo effects
  3. Selective perception
  4. Projection
• Stereotyping is a very common distortion and occurs when an individual assigns attributes to another solely on the basis of the other’s membership in a particular social or demographic category

  • Once formed, stereotypes are highly resistant to change
• Halo effects occur when an individual generalizes about a variety of

  attributes based on the knowledge of one attribute of an individual
• Halo effects are most likely to occur when:

  • There is little knowledge about a specific demographic
  • Person is famous
  • Qualities have strong moral implications
• Halo effects and stereotypes are common hazards in negotiation due to the speed of negotiations and limited information.
• Selective perception is the building block of stereotypes or halo effects and happens when the perceiver singles out information that supports a prior belief but filters out contrary information
• Projection arises out of a need to protect one’s own self-concept. People assign to others the characteristics or feelings that they possess themselves
• — A frame is the subjective mechanism through which people evaluate and make sense of situations, leading them to pursue or avoid subsequent actions

  — Important because different people look at the same situation objectively and interpret it quite differently
• Frames emerge and converge as the parties talk about their preferences and priorities

  • Allows parties to begin to develop a shared/common definition of the issues related to a situation and a process for resolving them
• Framing affects the reference point, defined as an arbitrary point used to evaluate an alternative as either a gain or a loss

  • Should be on the lookout for signs that your counterpart is adopting a gain/loss frame
• Other Types of Frames

  — Outcome → a party’s attitude to achieve a specific outcome

  — Aspiration → attitude towards satisfying a broader set of interests or needs

  — Process → how the parties will go about resolving their dispute

  — Identity → how the parties define who they are
• The Frame of an Issue Changes as the Negotiation Evolves:

  • Negotiators tend to argue for issues that are raised every time the parties negotiate
  • Each party attempts to make the best possible case for their preferred position or perspective
  • Frames may define major shifts and transitions in a complex negotiation
  • Multiple agenda items operate to shape issue development
• Most important aspects of framing is the process of reframing (the manner in which the thrust, tone, and focus of a conversation change as the parties engage in it)
• Frames:

  • shape what the parties define as the key issues and how they talk about them
  • are something that both parties have
  • are controllable
  • are affected by conversations in ways negotiators may not be able to predict but may be able to control
  • Certain frames are more likely than others to lead to certain types of processes and outcomes
• Negotiators have a tendency to make systematic errors when they process information. These errors, collectively labelled cognitive biases, tend to impede negotiator performance
• there are 12 cognitive biases:

  1. irrational escalation of commitment
  2. mythical fixed pie beliefs
  3. anchoring and adjustment
  4. issue framing and risk
  5. availability of information
  6. the winner's curse
  7. overconfidence
  8. the law of small numbers
  9. self serving biases
  10. endowment effect
  11. ignoring others' cognitions
  12. reactive devaluation
• Irrational escalation of commitment → Negotiators maintain commitment to a course of action even when that commitment constitutes irrational behaviour
• Mythical fixed-pie beliefs → Negotiators assume that all negotiations (not just some) involve a fixed pie
• Anchoring and adjustment → The effect of the standard (anchor) against which subsequent adjustments (gains or losses) are measured
• Issue framing and risk → A frame is a perspective or point of view that people use when they gather information and solve problems. The way an issue is framed influences how negotiators perceive risk and behave in relation to it
• Availability of information → Operates when information that is presented in vivid or attention getting ways becomes easy to recall. Becomes central and critical in evaluating events and options
• The winner’s curse → The tendency to settle quickly on an item and then subsequently feel discomfort about a win that comes too easily
• Overconfidence  → The tendency of negotiators to believe that their ability to be correct or accurate is greater than is actually true
• The law of small numbers → The tendency of people to draw conclusions from small sample sizes
• Self-serving biases → People often explain another person’s behavior by making attributions, either to the person or to the situation
• false consensus effect is a tendency to overestimate the degree of support and consensus that exists for our own position, opinions, or behaviours.
• Endowment effect → The tendency to overvalue something you own or believe you possess (can lead to inflated estimations of value that interfere reaching a good deal)
• Ignoring others’ cognitions → Failure to consider (or misunderstand) others’ cognitions allows negotiators to simplify their thinking about otherwise complex processes
• Reactive devaluation → The process of devaluing the other party’s concessions simply because the other party made them
• The best advice that negotiators can follow is:

  • Be aware of the negative aspects of cognitive biases
  • Discuss them in a structured manner within the team and with counterparts
• Mood → States of feeling that are mild in intensity, last for an extended period of time and are not directed at anything
• Emotions → Intense feelings that often last for a short duration and are clearly directed at someone or something
• Anger:

  • signals irritation
  • creates hope of settling
  • Effective if expressed by powerful party
  • Can be detrimental in other circumstance
• Anxious negotiators expected worse on outcomes, obtained worse outcomes, made smaller opening offers.
• Negative Emotions generally have negative consequences and may:

  • Lead parties to define the situation as competitive or distributive
  • undermine a negotiator’s ability to analyze the situation accurately, which adversely affects individual outcomes
  • lead parties to escalate the conflict
  • lead parties to retaliate and may prevent integrative outcomes