Promoting prevention success at the bargaining table: Regulatory focus in distributive negotiations

Roman Trötschel, Silke Bündgens, Joachim Hüffmeier and David D. Loschelder

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2013, vol. 38, issue C, 26-39

Abstract: While promotion-focused individuals conceptualize goals as ideals and opportunities, prevention-focused individuals conceptualize goals as obligations and necessities. Due to these different goal conceptualizations, prevention-focused parties are expected to set the framework for agreements in distributive business-negotiations among parties with different regulatory foci: Specifically, we predict that prevention-focused negotiators reveal a high resistance to concede until their goals are met, but are willing to concede once their goals are fulfilled. In contrast, promotion-focused parties should adjust their concession making to the best attainable outcomes, irrespective of their negotiation goals. Two studies supported these theoretical assumptions: Prevention-focused parties with goals located in the upper range (i.e., high goals) of the ‘zone of possible agreements’ (ZOPA; e.g., Sebenius, 1992) revealed a high resistance to concede. Hence, they outperformed promotion-focused counterparts—irrespective of whether the latter held low (Study 1) or equally high (Study 2) goals. Conversely, prevention-focused parties with goals located in the lower range of the ZOPA (i.e., low goals) revealed a lower resistance to concede. Hence, they were outperformed by their promotion-focused counterparts—irrespective of whether the latter held equally low (Study 1) or high (Study 2) goals. The findings are discussed with respect to the role of self-regulation and goal conceptualization in the context of negotiations.

Keywords: Regulatory focus; Promotion; Prevention; Self-regulation; Negotiation; Buyer; Seller (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:38:y:2013:i:c:p:26-39

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.03.006

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