Book Review of
The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator (1st ed.)

The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator
by Leigh Thompson. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998, 359 pp., $53.00, cloth [ISBN: O-13-270950-3]. 

Reviewed by Paul Paese, University of Missouri, St. Louis 

Looking for a textbook for your course on negotiation? If so, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator might be just what you are looking for. Over the past few years, I have been searching for the right textbook(s) to use in my upper-level undergraduate course on conflict and negotiation, but I haven’t had much luck. Until now, that is. Just as I was resigning myself to using, once again, a cumber-some assemblage of readings, I learned of Leigh Thompson’s recent book. I am happy (and relieved) to report that The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator suits my purposes better than any other single source currently available. 

Why does this text suit my purposes so well? First, its target audience is mainly upper-level undergraduates. The author has made a concerted effort to generate concrete examples of virtually all the central concepts, and these examples will be especially helpful to undergraduate readers. Second, the book is strongly research-based. Most of my students are psychology majors interested in cognitive and behavioral processes, as well as practical applications. The Mind and Heart speaks particularly well to this sort of student. Third, the text has considerable breadth, spanning research in social psychology, judgment and decision making, and organizational behavior. This breadth will allow me to cover a wide range of negotiation-related topics without having to include much supplementary reading material. Fourth, the book strikes a reasonable balance between prescription and description. To be sure, there is far more of the latter here, but the author consistently makes an effort to suggest ways in which the descriptive data might guide negotiation practice. 

The text contains 14 chapters. The first chapter briefly defines the basic conditions and elements of negotiation. The second, third, and fourth chapters are by far the most prescriptive. Chapter 2 discusses how to prepare for negotiation, whereas Chapters 3 and 4 discuss distributive and integrative bargaining, respectively. The author’s treatment of distributive and integrative bargaining contains many good examples and helpful diagrams, and the prescriptions offered here arc quite reasonable and internally coherent. 

Chapters 5 and 6 are somewhat of a digression into principles of rational decision making and behavioral decision theory. These chapters are meant to provide a conceptual foundation for the normative analysis of negotiation. However, the links between decision theory and bargaining are not fully articulated. For this reason, instructors using this book should probably either skip these chapters or bolster them with appropriate lecture material. 

Chapters 7, 8, and 10 review research on social cognition, judgment biases, and emotion, respectively. One noteworthy aspect of these chapters is that some of the material discussed here is linked only indirectly to negotiation behavior, and these links are not always spelled out for the reader. Therefore, instructors will occasionally have to fill these gaps so that students don’t miss the connections. Aside from this shortcoming, these chapters present a variety of interesting research findings that are well worthy of discussion in the classroom. 

Chapters 9, 11, and 13 are on multiple parties and bargaining teams, justice and fairness, and learning from experience, respectively. In this reviewer’s judgment, these are three of the strongest chapters in the book. Each is very current, thorough, and chocked full of implications for real world negotiations. The sections on coalitions and voting (Chapter 9), self-interest and fairness (Chapter 11), and experiential learning (Chapter 13) are particularly good. Students will really enjoy these chapters, and instructors should have an easy time lecturing on this material and generating discussion. 

Chapter 12 is on the prisoner’s dilemma and its multiperson counterpart, the social dilemma. At first glance such a chapter might not seem to fit a textbook on negotiation because, as the author herself points out, the parties in these dilemmas do not have to reach agreement-as they do in negotiation-for an outcome to be binding. However, the author does a very good job of explaining the conceptual commonality between these dilemmas and typical bargaining situations. Moreover, dilemmas of this sort are so pervasive and consequential in society that the inclusion of this chapter is well warranted. The only questionable thing about this chapter is its placement; those using this book may want to consider moving it to either the beginning or very end of the course. 

Chapter 14 is on ideological conflict, negotiation via technology, and cross-cultural negotiation. As these topics themselves attest (especially the latter two), this chapter is extremely up-to-date. In fact, the section on technology is so current that the content reviewed here comes largely from recent conference presentations and/or yet-to-be published work. This last chapter provides a compelling indication of where negotiation research is likely to be headed, and there is plenty of sub-stance here for classroom discussion and debate. 

In summary, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator is a very welcome addition to the bookshelf of anyone teaching conflict and negotiation, particularly those teaching advanced undergraduates in psychology. The text provides an excellent review of the extant literature on negotiation while weaving in relevant material from social psychology, organizational behavior, economics, and communication. The book covers a wide range of topics, and the chapters themselves are quite self-contained; these latter features give the instructor considerable flexibility in deciding what to include and when. One only wishes that the author would have included a chapter on mediation and third-party conflict resolution. In this reviewer’s judgment, if such a chapter had been included, The Mind and Heart would pretty much have it all. Of course, there is always a second edition to look forward to . . . (it’s never too soon to drop a hint).