Jeklic, Mihael Ales; (2022) Social-cognitive inference in interest-based bargaining. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Negotiating rationally means ‘making the best decisions to maximize your interests’ (Bazerman & Neale, 1992). This thesis develops and tests a theoretical proposition that the quality of these negotiating decisions – and the behavior of negotiators and ultimately their bargaining outcomes – critically depends on the processes of social cognitive inference (mentalizing). Because the sole purpose of negotiation is to satisfy motivating mental states of negotiators (interests), mentalizing must underpin bargaining. The theoretical part of the thesis undertakes a targeted review of fields of mentalizing and negotiation, creating a conceptual platform for the novel proposition that social cognitive inference (mentalizing) underpins negotiation. Three studies test two key predictions stemming from this theoretical proposal: that individual differences in the capacity to mentalize correlate with both value creating and value claiming in negotiation. The findings suggest that mentalizing predicts (i) both value creating and value claiming in multi-issue negotiation, (ii) value claiming in a single-issue distributive negotiation, and (iii) odds of settling partisan perception-driven disputes. The second part of the thesis explores a proposition that the ‘negotiation’ task construal biases social cognition and the negotiators’ strategic choice toward competition, resulting in depressed individual and joint gain. The underlying theory is based on Friston’s active inference (free energy minimization) framework. Because negotiation situations are markedly ambiguous and uncertain, negotiators’ inference must rely heavily on priors, which in bargaining tend to be competitive. This depresses gains. We test this in four studies. The findings show that understanding a task as ‘negotiation’ (versus an alternative collaborative frame) (i) inhibits integrative and compatible aspects of joint gain in multi-issue tasks, (ii) accounts for variance not explained by manipulating trust in the negotiating partner, (iii) biases negotiators’ strategies toward contending and away from problem-solving where (iv) these strategies mediate the effect of the ‘negotiation’ construal on negotiation outcomes in a task with hidden value potential.

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