When constituencies speak in multiple tongues: The relative persuasiveness of hawkish minorities in representative negotiation

Although constituencies often consist of opposing factions, we know little about the way such opposing factions influence the representative’s negotiation strategy. This study addressed this issue: Representatives negotiated as sellers on behalf of a group consisting of hawkish (competitive) and dov...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organizational behavior and human decision processes 2009-05, Vol.109 (1), p.67-78
Main Authors: Steinel, Wolfgang, De Dreu, Carsten K.W., Ouwehand, Elsje, Ramírez-Marín, Jimena Y.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bargaining
Biological and medical sciences
Constituencies
Decision rules
Decision theory
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Group dynamics
Homogeneous or heterogeneous consistency
Intergroup negotiation
Intragroup conflict
Minority & ethnic groups
Minority groups
Negotiation
Negotiations
Organizational behavior
Organizational behaviour
Persuasion
Political affiliation
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Representative negotiation
Representative negotiation Homogeneous or heterogeneous consistency Intergroup negotiation Intragroup conflict Social influence Decision rules Social value orientation
Social influence
Social interactions. Communication. Group processes
Social psychology
Social value orientation
Studies
Value orientation
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Summary:Although constituencies often consist of opposing factions, we know little about the way such opposing factions influence the representative’s negotiation strategy. This study addressed this issue: Representatives negotiated as sellers on behalf of a group consisting of hawkish (competitive) and dovish (cooperative) factions. Experiments 1–3 showed that a minority of hawks was sufficient to influence the representatives to acting in a competitive way; only when all constituents unanimously advocated a cooperative strategy were representatives more conciliatory towards their negotiation partner. These tendencies did not differ as a function of the representatives’ pro-social versus pro-self value orientation, or the unanimity versus majority rule putatively used in the constituency to accept of reject the representative’s negotiated agreement. We conclude that hawkish minorities are persuasive and influential because representatives accord more weight to hawkish than to dovish messages.
ISSN:0749-5978
1095-9920
DOI:10.1016/j.obhdp.2008.12.002