Social Perspective Taking and Similarity in Virtual Negotiations

• In Event: Learning From and With Peers

Abstract

Our capacity to effectively negotiate mutually agreeable, or even beneficial, agreements is paramount to our personal lives and to democratic society more broadly. As a means to ultimately understanding how we might improve individuals’ negotiation aptitude, we investigated two promising mechanisms – social perspective taking and similarity in a virtual negotiation environment. Participants (N=83) joined the study through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Results indicated that participants’ confidence that they could accurately take the perspective of their partner was consistently associated with our negotiation outcomes. Their perceived similarity to their partner was associated with the positivity of the relationship that they formed during the negotiation.

Authors

• Hunter Gehlbach, Harvard University

• Geoff Marietta, Harvard University

• Jacob Pritt, Harvard University

• Christopher J. Dede, Harvard University