Hierarchical cultural values predict success and mortality in high-stakes teams.

Functional accounts of hierarchy propose that hierarchy increases group coordination and reduces conflict. In contrast, dysfunctional accounts claim that hierarchy impairs performance by preventing low-ranking team members from voicing their potentially valuable perspectives and insights. The current research presents evidence for both the functional and dysfunctional accounts of hierarchy within the same dataset. Specifically, we offer empirical evidence that hierarchical cultural values affect the outcomes of teams in high-stakes environments through group processes. Experimental data from a sample of expert mountain climbers from 27 countries confirmed that climbers expect that a hierarchical culture leads to improved team coordination among climbing teams, but impaired psychological safety and information sharing compared with an egalitarian culture. An archival analysis of 30,625 Himalayan mountain climbers from 56 countries on 5,104 expeditions found that hierarchy both elevated and killed in the Himalayas: Expeditions from more hierarchical countries had more climbers reach the summit, but also more climbers die along the way. Importantly, we established the role of group processes by showing that these effects occurred only for group, but not solo, expeditions. These findings were robust to controlling for environmental factors, risk preferences, expedition-level characteristics, country-level characteristics, and other cultural values. Overall, this research demonstrates that endorsing cultural values related to hierarchy can simultaneously improve and undermine group performance.

Anchors weigh more than power: why absolute powerlessness liberates negotiators to achieve better outcomes.

The current research shows that having no power can be better than having a little power. Negotiators prefer having some power (weak negotiation alternatives) to having no power (no alternatives). We challenge this belief that having any alternative is beneficial by demonstrating that weak alternatives create low anchors that reduce the value of first offers. In contrast, having no alternatives is liberating because there is no anchor to weigh down first offers. In our experiments, negotiators with no alternatives felt less powerful but made higher first offers and secured superior outcomes compared with negotiators who had weak alternatives. We established the role of anchoring through mediation by first offers and through moderation by showing that weak alternatives no longer led to worse outcomes when negotiators focused on a countervailing anchor or when negotiators faced an opponent with a strong alternative. These results demonstrate that anchors can have larger effects than feelings of power. Absolute powerlessness can be psychologically liberating.

The first-mover disadvantage: the folly of revealing compatible preferences.

The current research establishes a first-mover disadvantage in negotiation. We propose that making the first offer in a negotiation will backfire when the sender reveals private information that an astute recipient can leverage to his or her advantage. In two experiments, we manipulated whether the first offer was purely distributive or revealed that the sender's preferences were compatible with the recipient's preferences (i.e., the negotiators wanted the same outcome on an issue). When first offers contained only distributive issues, the classic first-mover advantage occurred, and first offers predicted final prices. However, a first-mover disadvantage emerged when senders opened with offers that revealed compatible preferences. These effects were moderated by negotiators' social value orientation: Proself negotiators were more likely to take advantage of compatible information than were prosocial negotiators. Overall, the key factor that determined whether the first-mover advantage or disadvantage emerged was whether the offer revealed compatible preferences. These results demonstrate that first offers not only provide numerical value but also convey qualitative information.

The too-much-talent effect: team interdependence determines when more talent is too much or not enough.

Five studies examined the relationship between talent and team performance. Two survey studies found that people believe there is a linear and nearly monotonic relationship between talent and performance: Participants expected that more talent improves performance and that this relationship never turns negative. However, building off research on status conflicts, we predicted that talent facilitates performance-but only up to a point, after which the benefits of more talent decrease and eventually become detrimental as intrateam coordination suffers. We also predicted that the level of task interdependence is a key determinant of when more talent is detrimental rather than beneficial. Three archival studies revealed that the too-much-talent effect emerged when team members were interdependent (football and basketball) but not independent (baseball). Our basketball analysis also established the mediating role of team coordination. When teams need to come together, more talent can tear them apart.

The communication orientation model: explaining the diverse effects of sight, sound, and synchronicity on negotiation and group decision-making outcomes.

Two quantitative meta-analyses examined how the presence of visual channels, vocal channels, and synchronicity influences the quality of outcomes in negotiations and group decision making. A qualitative review of the literature found that the effects of communication channels vary widely and that existing theories do not sufficiently account for these contradictory findings. To parsimoniously encompass the full range of existing data, the authors created the communication orientation model, which proposes that the impact of communication channels is shaped by communicators' orientations to cooperate or not. Two meta-analyses-conducted separately for negotiations and decision making-provide strong support for this model. Overall, the presence of communication channels (a) increased the achievement of high-quality outcomes for communicators with a neutral orientation, (b) did not affect the outcomes for communicators with a cooperative orientation, but (c) hurt communicators' outcomes with a noncooperative orientation. Tests of cross-cultural differences in each meta-analysis further supported the model: for those with a neutral orientation, the beneficial effects of communication channels were weaker within East Asian cultures (i.e., Interdependent and therefore more predisposed towards cooperation) than within Western cultures (i.e., Independent).

Power and negotiation: review of current evidence and future directions.

This review synthesizes the impact of power on individual and joint negotiation performance. Although power generally has positive effects on negotiators' individual performance (value claiming), recent work suggests that more power is not always beneficial. Taking a dyadic perspective, we also find mixed evidence for how power affects joint performance (value creation); some studies show that equal-power dyads create more value than unequal-power dyads, but others find the opposite. We identify the source of power, power distribution, and competitiveness as critical moderators of this relationship. Finally, we suggest that future research should move beyond studying alternatives in dyadic deal-making, identify strategies to overcome a lack of power,increase empirical realism, and take a more dynamic view of power in negotiations.

Identity formation in multiparty negotiations.

Based on the recently proposed Interactive Model of Identity Formation, we examine how top-down deductive and bottom-up inductive identity formations influence intentions and behaviour in multiparty negotiations. Results show that a shared identity can be deduced from the social context through recognition of superordinate similarities. However, shared identities can also be induced by intragroup processes in which individuals get acquainted with one another on an interpersonal basis. Both top-down and bottom-up processes led to the formation of a sense of shared identity, and this in turn exerted a positive influence on behavioural intentions and actual behaviour in multiparty negotiations.

Imaginary alternatives: The effects of mental simulation on powerless negotiators.

This research demonstrates that people can act more powerfully without having power. Researchers and practitioners advise people to obtain alternatives in social exchange relationships to enhance their power. However, alternatives are not always readily available, often forcing people to interact without having much power. Building on research suggesting that subjective power and objective outcomes are disconnected and that mental simulation can improve aspirations, we show that the mental imagery of a strong alternative can provide some of the benefits that real alternatives provide. We tested this hypothesis in one context of social exchange-negotiations-and demonstrate that imagining strong alternatives (vs. not) causes powerless individuals to negotiate more ambitiously. Negotiators reached more profitable agreements when they had a stronger tendency to simulate alternatives (Study 1) or when they were instructed to simulate an alternative (Studies 3-6). Mediation analyses suggest that mental simulation enhanced performance because it boosted negotiators' aspirations and subsequent first offers (Studies 2-6), but only when the simulated alternative was attractive (Study 5). We used various negotiation contexts, which also allowed us to identify important boundary conditions of mental simulations in interdependent settings: mental simulation no longer helped when negotiators did not make the first offer, when their opponents simultaneously engaged in mental simulation (Study 6), and even backfired in settings where negotiators' positions were difficult to reconcile (Study 7). An internal meta-analysis of the file-drawer produces conservative effect size estimates and demonstrates the robustness of the effect. We contribute to social power, negotiations, and mental simulation research. (PsycINFO Database Record

The information-anchoring model of first offers: When moving first helps versus hurts negotiators.

Does making the first offer increase or impair a negotiator's outcomes? Past research has found evidence supporting both claims. To reconcile these contradictory findings, we developed and tested an integrative model-the Information-Anchoring Model of First Offers. The model predicts when and why making the first offer helps versus hurts. We suggest that first offers have 2 effects. First, they serve as anchors that pull final settlements toward the initial first-offer value; this anchor function often produces a first-mover advantage. Second, first offers can convey information on the senders' priorities, which makes the sender vulnerable to exploitation and increases the risk of a first-mover disadvantage. To test this model, 3 experiments manipulated the information that senders communicated in their first offer. When senders did not reveal their priorities, the first-mover advantage was replicated. However, when first offers revealed senders' priorities explicitly, implicitly, or both, a first-mover disadvantage emerged. Negotiators' social value orientation moderated this effect: A first-mover disadvantage occurred when senders faced proself recipients who exploited priority information, but not with prosocial recipients. Moderated mediation analyses supported the model assumptions: Proself recipients used their integrative insight to feign priorities in their low-priority issues and thereby claimed more individual value than senders. The final discussion reviews theoretical and applied implications of the Information-Anchoring Model of First Offers. (PsycINFO Database Record

Mimicry Is Presidential: Linguistic Style Matching in Presidential Debates and Improved Polling Numbers.

The current research used the contexts of U.S. presidential debates and negotiations to examine whether matching the linguistic style of an opponent in a two-party exchange affects the reactions of third-party observers. Building off communication accommodation theory (CAT), interaction alignment theory (IAT), and processing fluency, we propose that language style matching (LSM) will improve subsequent third-party evaluations because matching an opponent's linguistic style reflects greater perspective taking and will make one's arguments easier to process. In contrast, research on status inferences predicts that LSM will negatively impact third-party evaluations because LSM implies followership. We conduct two studies to test these competing hypotheses. Study 1 analyzed transcripts of U.S. presidential debates between 1976 and 2012 and found that candidates who matched their opponent's linguistic style increased their standing in the polls. Study 2 demonstrated a causal relationship between LSM and third-party observer evaluations using negotiation transcripts.

The remarkable robustness of the first-offer effect: across culture, power, and issues.

The first-offer effect demonstrates that negotiators achieve better outcomes when making the first offer than when receiving it. The evidence, however, primarily derives from studies of Westerners without systematic power differences negotiating over one issue-contexts that may amplify the first-offer effect. Thus, the present research explored the effect across cultures, among negotiators varying in power, and in negotiations involving single and multiple issues. The first two studies showed that the first-offer effect remains remarkably robust across cultures and multi-issue negotiations. The final two studies demonstrated that low-power negotiators benefit from making the first offer across single- and multi-issue negotiations. The second and fourth studies used multi-issue negotiations with distributive, integrative, and compatible issues, allowing us to show that first offers operate through the distributive, not the integrative or compatible issues. Overall, these results reveal that moving first can benefit negotiators across many organizational and personal situations.