Resilient negotiators: the effects of trait negotiation resilience on behavior, perception and outcomes

This study aims to test the contributions of a new type of resilience, Trait Negotiation Resilience (TNR; Nelson et al., 2016), to negotiators’ effective behavior, perception of opponent and negotiation outcomes.

A laboratory study (N = 98; 49 dyads) featuring a mixed-motive negotiation task. Participants self-reported TNR (emotional skills, social sensitivity, intrinsic motivation for self-improvement and a sense of purpose to life events) up to a week before negotiating. After the negotiations, they rated their opponents on resilient, effective personal attributes and reported their own subjective value (SV). Trained judges watched the negotiations, coded objective outcomes and rated negotiators on dimensions of effective negotiation behavior. Statistical analyses accounted for dyadic interdependence.

TNR predicted higher levels of effective negotiation behavior, which, in turn, fully mediated TNR’s favorable contribution to negotiated value. TNR also predicted higher levels of SV, and this contribution was partially mediated by perceiving effective personal attributes in the opponent.

The sample size was moderate and it consisted of undergraduate students, most of them female.

Evidence on the contribution of a personality construct to both outcome and process negotiator variables; contribution to the research of specific types of resilience.