It's a Bet! A Problem Solving Approach Promotes the Construction of Contingent Agreements

Kray, L., Thompson, L. and Lind, A. (2005). It's a Bet! A Problem Solving Approach Promotes the Construction of Contingent Agreements. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31 (8), 1039-1051.

Abstract

Negotiators often have different expectations about the future. An integrative technique that builds on these differences is a contingent agreement, a bet that makes the ultimate outcome dependent on some future event. We argue that negotiators who adopt a problem solving approach in which they thoroughly explore options to build on negotiators' differences are most likely to construct contingent agreements. We explore two factors that we expect to influence this problem solving approach: the relationship between negotiators and their accountability concerns. We argue that when these concerns are imbalanced, negotiators are less likely to adopt a problem solving style resulting in the construction of a contingent agreement. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated the relationship of negotiators and their accountability to "upper management" in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants engaged in an integrative negotiation task. Our primary dependent variables examined the integrativeness of the outcomes by assessing whether a contingent agreement was constructed as well as joint gain. Experiment 2 sought to replicate and extend the findings of Experiment 1 using a scenario study. Results across the two experiments support our hypotheses. Implications and future directions are discussed.