Social Psychology Commons^™

Contextual Primes, Trust And Negotiators’ Reactions To A Crisis, Daniel Druckman, Mara Olekalns

Mara Olekalns

Using a simulated bilateral negotiation over several security issues, we test the relationship between crises and turning points in negotiation. We explore how variations in the negotiation context influence negotiators’ reactions to an identical event – a crisis – during the negotiation. Negotiators were primed to focus on one of three features of the negotiating context (transaction costs, mutual dependence, shared identity) which we hypothesized would influence crisis-turning point relationship. In their roles as national representatives, negotiators in each condition were presented with a crisis and asked to decide whether to reach an immediate agreement, continue negotiating, or re-frame the …