Maurice Schweitzer
Anxious negotiators make lower first offers, exit earlier, and earn lower profits due to their “low self-efficacy” beliefs, according to Harvard’s Alison Wood Brooks and Maurice E. Schweitzer of University of Pennsylvania,
Alison Wood Brooks
Brooks and Schweitzer induced anxious feelings or neutral reactions during continuous “shrinking-pie” negotiation tasks.
Compared with negotiators experiencing neutral feelings, negotiators who feel anxious typically expect to achieve lower profits, present more cautious offers, and respond more cautiously to propositions presented by negotiation counterparts.
Negotiators who achieved more effective bargaining outcomes managed emotions with cognitive strategies including:
Julie Norem
- Strategic optimism, indicated by expecting positive outcomes without anxiety or detailed reflection, according to University of Miami’s Stacie Spencer and Julie Norem of Wellesley,
- Reattribution, by considering alternate interpretations of events to increase optimism and self-efficacy beliefs.
Cognitive strategies with both performance benefits and liabilities include:
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Andrew Elliot
Self-handicapping, avoiding anxiety-provoking situations, and creating self-defeating obstacles to explain poor outcomes and preserve self-esteem, according to University of Rochester’s Andrew Elliott and Marcy Church of St. Mary’s University,
- Defensive pessimism, marked by high motivation toward achievement coupled with negative expectations for future challenges, leading to increased effort and preparation, according to Wellesley College’s Julie Norem and Edward Chang of University of Michigan.
Edward Chang
Norem and Cantor concluded that defensive pessimists performed worse when “encouraged” by telling them that that based on their academic performance, they should expect to perform well on anagram and puzzle tasks.
Among university students, defensive pessimism was related to lower self-esteem, self-criticism, pessimism, and discounting previous successful performances when they began university studies, according to Norem and Brown’s Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas.
Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas
However, their longitudinal study demonstrated that self-esteem increased to almost the same levels as optimists during their four years of university study.
Pessimists’ precautionary countermeasures may have resulted in strong performance, which built credible self-esteem.
Defensive pessimism’s positive performance outcomes suggest that this cognitive strategy is an effective, if uncomfortable, approach to managing anxiety and performance motivation.
-*How do you manage anxiety in high-stakes negotiations?
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©Kathryn Welds
