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Abstract

For social and economic relations to develop and prosper people need to negotiate and resolve disputes. Whereas past work has focused on psychological barriers to negotiation and dispute resolution, recent research shifts focus towards motivated information processing. This new work identifies when and why individuals fail or succeed in constructive negotiation and solving their disputes. I discuss four key variables—power balance, accountability to process, cooperative motivation, and time, grouped under the acronym PACT—that may reduce or reverse the psychological tendencies towards conflict escalation by turning disputants from “selfish misers,” who have difficulty negotiating constructively, into “pro-social thinkers” who solve their disputes to mutual benefit.

Keywords

conflict groups judgment decision biases negotiation

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A PACT Against Conflict Escalation in Negotiation and Dispute Resolution

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