Negotiation Theory and Practice: Exploring Ideas to Aid Information Eduction

Negotiation Theory and Practice: Exploring Ideas to Aid Information Eduction

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EDUCING INFORMATION Interrogation: Science and Art Foundations for the Future

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Negotiation Theory and Practice: Exploring Ideas to Aid Information Eduction
Daniel L. Shapiro, Ph.D.⁶⁸⁵
Harvard University February 2006

Abstract

Information eduction can be viewed as a complex set of negotiations. Government officials have information needs, and sources have informa- tion they can disclose. The challenge is to determine how the government can negotiate most effectively for that information. This report describes negotiation concepts that might assist the information educer.

The Field of Negotiation Brief Background

The negotiation field offers little in the way of direct research into the challenge of educing information (EI) in an interrogation context. However, it is worth noting that the current field of negotiation theory, like that of EI, arose from necessity and has largely been tested in the trenches of practice. Game-theoretical analyses of negotiation, such as Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict, sought to curb escalating tensions in the Cold War. Interest-based negotiation, typified by the Harvard Negotiation Project’s 1981 Getting to Yes, was developed in the context of the project’s negotiations in the Iranian Hostage conflict, with guerrilla forces in Central and South America, and in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Walton and McKersie’s seminal negotiation research (1965) was developed to reduce contentious labor negotiations. The negotiation work of Mary Parker Follett evolved from dissatisfaction with the way organizations dealt with difference (Follett, 1942). Scientific research in negotiation has been a more recent development, but tends to confirm earlier, practice-based theory (Thompson and Leonardelli, 2004).

685 Dr. Shapiro is Associate Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project and on the faculty at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School. The author wishes to thank Robert Fein, Mary Rowe, Elizabeth Tippet, Roger Fisher, and the blind reviewers who offered feedback on previous drafts of this report.

This report, then, represents an effort to offer ideas from negotiation theory and practice to those who have responsibilities for developing and carrying out EI activities. The author has selected robust concepts that show promise for successful adaptation and use by an information educer. That being said, this report is clearly exploratory. Although the author has consulted with experts in the field of information eduction and was trained by the New York Police Department in hostage negotiation, his areas of expertise are negotiation, conflict resolution, and psychology, not EI. Thus, he leaves it to the judgment and creative thinking of national security officials to consider how the following ideas might be usefully applied or adapted to EI.

Why Negotiations Fail

There are at least four major reasons why parties fail to reach a satisfactory outcome even when such an outcome is possible. First, they commonly assume that negotiation involves a “fixed pie,” in which any gain by one party is a loss for the other. This assumption can quickly turn an interaction into an adversarial contest and can constrain the parties’ ability to explore creative ways of satisfying their interests. Second, many negotiators fail to use the most efficient means to divide the “pie” and obtain their portion. Typically, each party tries to persuade the other via a battle of wills, which often leads to stalemate. Third, negotiators often communicate a proposal — even a promising one — in a way that fails to maximize the likelihood that the other party will agree. Finally, negative emotions — anger, shame, embarrassment, anxiety, or others — can impede the negotiation. This report summarizes strategies that address each of these common causes of negotiation failure: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Assumption of “fixed pie?” Use methods that expand the pie. Inefficient means? Choose an efficient process to divide the pie. Poor framing? Craft a “yesable proposition.” Emotions getting in the way? Improve the relationship with the other side — without giving in.

Expanding the Pie

Until the early 1980s, most popular negotiation texts considered negotiation a win-lose game, in which every gain made by one side comes at the expense of the other. Negotiation was generally seen as “positional bargaining,” where representatives of each side would state their position, concede only stubbornly, or demonstrate a greater willingness than the other side to walk from the negotiation table. Negotiation scholars such as Roger Fisher and Robert McKersie recognized, however, that the pie need not be fixed. In most situations, the potential exists to create opportunities for mutual gain (Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991; Walton and McKersie, 1991).

Seeking mutual gains is not simply an act of compassion toward the other party: it is a wise move of self-interest. One of the most important revelations of game theory is that parties who seek to gain solely at the expense of the other side often risk worse outcomes than those who search for mutual gains. Consider the scenario of the “prisoner’s dilemma,” where two co-conspirators who committed a crime are locked in separate cells. If each independently decides to betray his partner in order to get a better deal for himself, both are convicted. If only one defects, the other is convicted. If both stay silent, both are acquitted. To evaluate the best strategy in a multi-round version of this dilemma, researchers organized a computer tournament and invited experts to submit a strategy. The winning strategy was “tit-for-tat” (Axelrod 1984), which instructed the computer to begin by cooperating but to respond in kind if the other side defected. In this highly adversarial context, conditional cooperation best served each individual’s self- interest.

Similarly, in negotiation, seeking to expand the pie can serve the self-interest of both parties. Economic theory describes the relationship between individual and joint interest using the “Pareto curve” (Raiffa, 1982), illustrated on the next page, where the y axis represents party A’s satisfaction with the outcome and the x axis represents party B’s satisfaction. In a traditional bargaining situation, A and B each present an opening position that exclusively serves their own interests (denoted by the circles labeled “A’s Position” and “B’s Position”). If A and B agree to compromise by cutting their demands in half, they end up approximately at outcome Z, but outcome Z is suboptimal. If A and B had investigated mutual gains, they could have reached an agreement lying in the grey region, where either or both would have been individually better off than at Z. The curve on the graphic represents the limit on mutual gains. Any outcome lying on the curve is a “Pareto-optimal outcome” — an agreement that cannot be improved upon by either party without disadvantaging the other.

The Pareto Curve. Source: Roger Fisher and Bruce Patton, “The Pareto Frontier,” in Workbook for the Program of Instruction for Lawyers at Harvard Law School (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Negotiation Project, 2006), 36. Despite these insights of economists and game theoreticians, negotiators might persist and ask (with good reason): Why care about the other’s interests? There are several reasons: 1. A focus on mutual gains increases the incentive to cooperate (Fisher and Shapiro, 2005). Parties will be less likely to cooperate if they do not see it as being in their interest to cooperate: why help the enemy? 2. Mutual gains increase the likelihood that future interactions will be constructive (Axelrod, 1984). Parties will be less likely to cooperate in the future if they have memories of feeling deceived or mistreated by the other party. 3. An adversarial stance makes stalemate more likely. If parties assume that the conflict is a win-lose situation, each is likely to stick to a position. As egos and negative emotions become increasingly involved, stalemate becomes a likely and stable outcome (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). 4. “Mutual gains” does not mean giving in to the demands of the other side. Pareto-optimal outcomes do not focus on each party’s stated position, such as whether or not to give information, but on underlying interests, such as why the source does not want to give information.

In contrast to positional bargaining, “interest-based negotiation” proceeds on the assumption that negotiators often overlook opportunities for mutual gains, thereby failing to achieve the best outcome for themselves. 686 This is particularly true in negotiations that involve multiple issues, both quantitative and qualitative issues (e.g., desire for respect), and an interest in establishing a good working relationship. Negotiation theory (e.g., Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991; Walton and McKersie, 1965) offers several strategies for expanding the pie.

Look beneath Positions for Interests

Positions are rigid solutions to the problems at hand (e.g., the United States should immediately withdraw all of its troops from Iraq). Interests are why a party wants those things (e.g., to prevent U.S. soldiers from being killed, to save money, to focus on other international threats).

In a negotiation, understanding the other side’s interests enhances the power of a negotiator to persuade the other side. When one understands what the other side cares about, one can develop options that address these interests in ways that do not conflict with one’s own interests. What is stopping them from cooperating? What do they care about? What do they want? Why? The author’s experience in consulting for high-level governmental negotiators suggests that people often fail to consider the other side’s interests sufficiently, thus reducing their power to influence their counterparts. At first glance, an EI context would appear to be a purely positional situation. One side wants to gain information; the other does not want to disclose it. But each side has a more complex set of interests defining why each cares about the information. Interests for a source might include religious beliefs, a desire not to lose face within an organization, or fear of being ostracized by family, community, and peers. Interests for an educer might include national security, reputation in the local community, locating additional sources, relationships with governments, and precedent. Distinguishing between positions and interests may reveal potential sources of value creation.

Invent Options for Mutual Gain

Once parties understand each other’s interests, they can invent options for mutual gain. Even where a value-creating option will not directly benefit our own interests, it increases the likelihood that the other side will accept our proposal. Consider the recent conflict between Peru and Ecuador. The two countries disagreed over boundary issues and engaged in what the U.S. State Department called the “oldest armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere”: each country 686 Seven elements of negotiation comprise the essence of both hard bargaining and interest-based negotiation. These seven elements also form the basis of several of our negotiation courses at the Harvard Negotiation Project. The “Seven Elements” are a manageable number of robust concepts that one can use to prepare, conduct, and evaluate a negotiation. See the appendix for a description of each element and its contours in both hard bargaining and interest-based negotiation. claimed that a piece of land in the Amazonian basin was legitimately theirs and theirs alone. The Harvard Negotiation Project worked closely with President Jamil Mahuad as he negotiated a resolution to the dispute (see Fisher and Shapiro, 2005).

A joint working group consisting of officials from both governments generated an option that adequately addressed each side’s primary interests. The contested land would become an international park under the ownership of Ecuador and the sovereignty of Peru. No economic, political, or military activity could be conducted on the land without the agreement of both governments. This option allowed each party to reach a satisfactory resolution without giving in.

Identify Trade-offs

In a negotiation, differences are not always bad. Parties can look for different valuation of issues and trade accordingly. In its simplest form, if one person likes oranges more than apples, and the other likes apples more than oranges, a simple transfer of goods can maximize joint gains.

Parties can create contingency agreements to capitalize on differences in risk, expectations, and the like. (“If A happens, Party Y will do B and Party Z will do C.”) Differences in the forecast of future events, for example, need not become stumbling blocks for agreement. Rather than fight over whose forecast is correct, parties can incorporate contingencies for each possible outcome into the agreement. Contingency agreements also can be effective if parties have different time preference or attitudes toward risk.

Unbundle One Issue into Many

If parties focus on a single issue, the negotiation risks becoming a distributional contest. Negotiation research suggests that one way to avoid a distributional contest is to “unbundle issues,” transforming a single-issue, fixed-pie negotiation into a multi-issue negotiation where mutual gains can be reached (Lax and Sebenius, 1986; Thompson, 2005). For the educer, the question boils down to: How might the educer add new issues, unbundle issues, or otherwise expand the number of issues under discussion? What else does the source care about? How might those matters be incorporated into the current discussion? Putting more issues that the source cares about on the table may give the source more incentive to cooperate.

Similarly, multiple simultaneous offers can serve to break a deadlock (Bazerman and Neale, 1992; Kelley and Schenitzki, 1972). The offers should all be of equal value to the offering party to improve the likelihood of meeting one’s own objectives without making concessions. Each offer should cover multiple issues to avoid the problem of sequential, tit-for-tat, haggling. All offers should be made at the same time, which allows the offering party to observe the other party’s reaction, learn more about the other’s interests, and, if an offer is accepted, reach a Pareto-optimal outcome.

Separate Inventing from Deciding

Negotiators often fear that if they invent options while the other party is present they will lock themselves into an unwise situation. For example, they may state an option that goes against their interests and the other party may hold them to the “offer.” Thus, the interest-based negotiator separates inventing from deciding: both sides agree that no commitments will be made until a final package is formalized. The first task is to understand interests and invent options for mutual gain. At this stage, nothing is a commitment. Then, once a full set of options is generated, parties can refine options to best meet the interests of each side.

For example, the negotiation process used at the 1978 Camp David negotiations involved a clear separation between inventing and deciding. As mediator, the United States circulated numerous versions of a draft agreement to each side for review. Neither side was asked to make a commitment until the 23rd draft, when the United States determined that this was the best proposal that could be produced under the circumstances.

Dividing the Pie

No matter how much value parties create, they must still divide the pie to obtain what they want — whether that means land, money, or (in the case of the educer) information. The negotiation literature offers a number of strategies for increasing one’s share of the distributional pie. These strategies can be divided into two categories: 1) moves that can be made at the negotiation table; and 2) moves away from the table (i.e., actions that can be taken independent of the other party). Each of these moves can influence the power dynamics of the negotiation. Some strategies presented here might be rightly categorized as “contentious tactics” designed to get one’s way at the other’s expense (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). These strategies can provide an immediate distributional payoff, but they also increase the risk of damaging a relationship, escalating a conflict, or ending in stalemate (Axelrod, 1984; Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). Thus, contentious tactics work best when only one issue is at stake, the issue is quantifiable, and the quality of the relationship is unimportant (Shapiro, 2000).

Strategic Moves at the Negotiation Table Strategic moves at the negotiation table are actions intended to influence the distribution of the pie. Three such moves include drawing on standards of legitimacy, using “gamesmanship,” and making threats.

Drawing on Standards of Legitimacy

Negotiations often turn into a battle of wills. Each side takes a position and demands that the other concede. This tends to lead to adversarial behavior, stalemate, or failed negotiation — even when agreement was reasonably possible for each side. By drawing on “standards of legitimacy” (Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991), negotiators can improve their power to persuade and reduce the risk of a failed negotiation. Standards of legitimacy are external, objective criteria — independent of one’s will or that of the other party — that can be used to persuade others that one option is more fair than another. Standards might be drawn from common practice, precedent, or the like. Rather than state “you must concede to our demands,” a negotiator would offer standards of legitimacy — persuasive to each negotiator — for choosing one option over another. In the context of EI, standards of legitimacy might be drawn from religious, cultural, social, or related sources.

Using Gamesmanship

The point of gamesmanship is to “ruffle the feathers” of decisionmakers, throwing them off guard and making them increasingly willing to yield (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). Two such tactics include (1) changing or confusing the tempo of the discussion and (2) fostering a decisionmaker’s feelings of incompetence, fluster, or personal doubt. In a classic book on gamesmanship, Potter writes about a tennis player who, after being served two or three aces running, ties his shoelace in a prolonged manner, blows his nose for an extended period, and wipes all signs of sweat off his forehead (Potter, 1948). This same tactic can, of course, be used in complicated negotiations. The key to gamesmanship is to keep the decisionmaker blind to one’s true intentions (Potter, 1948). The moment the manipulation becomes transparent, it becomes much less tactically promising. Thus, Potter wisely advises the gamesperson to “shield” his or her behavior behind a clear situational rationale. In the tennis example, the goal would be for the opponent to believe that the change in his or her fortune was due not to the change in the game’s tempo, but to the player’s change of racket or a variation in the wind.

Making Threats

Threats are messages about what we intend to do if the other person does not comply with our demand. The general structure of a threat is: “Unless you do X, I will hurt you.” Threats are appealing for several reasons (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). First, they impose no cost on the party making the threat. Indeed, as Thomas Schelling pointed out, where brute force may cause resistance in others, the threat of such force may succeed (1966). Second, threats have been experimentally shown to work — often better than promises. Experimental evidence suggests that threats are a credible form of influence (e.g., see Pruitt and Carnevale, 1993; Rubin and Brown, 1975). Third, a threat can be withdrawn without incurring cost. A person who withdraws a promise may be looked upon as untrustworthy, but a person who withdraws a threat can be seen as humane. (In either case, however, judgments still may be made about the person’s credibility.)

At the same time, threats carry one great risk: the counterthreat. A threat tends to elicit reciprocal action in the other person. As early as 1960, experimental research showed that threats lead to increased suspicion, resentment, and dislike, in turn making counterthreats more likely (Deutsch and Krauss, 1960).

Actions Away From the Negotiation Table

A second class of distributional moves is conducted away from the table, independent of interaction with the other party. If used effectively, these moves can significantly enhance a negotiator’s power. Two such moves include improving one’s “BATNA” and making irrevocable commitments.

Improving Your BATNA

Negotiation power is largely defined by the strength of one’s alternatives to negotiating. If negotiations with a counterpart should fail, what is one’s walk-away alternative? The best alternative is known as the BATNA — Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991). The better one’s BATNA, the more power one has in a negotiation. It becomes easier to negotiate with confidence, or to walk away from the negotiation without feeling confined by the other party’s demands. Negotiators can improve their BATNA by thinking carefully about it and by brainstorming possible alternatives. Ultimately, a negotiator may decide that his or her BATNA is not especially strong, an important realization that gives the negotiator additional incentive to negotiate carefully and effectively, perhaps accommodating more than would generally be wise. Making an educated guess about the other side’s BATNA can help a negotiator understand how strongly motivated the other party will be to reach agreement. If their BATNA is poor, they might be amenable to many options. If their BATNA is strong, they might decide to stand firm to reap maximal concessions. Sometimes parties overestimate their BATNA; to improve leverage in this type of situation, a negotiator might cast doubt on the strength of the other’s BATNA. Negotiators often use time pressure to influence the behavior of another party, yet this is only persuasive if the other party’s BATNA would worsen after the deadline passes. If the BATNA is strong, time pressure is minimally persuasive. Negotiators who use time pressure would also be well advised to keep their own BATNA in mind, since a deadline for the other is also a deadline for themselves.

Making Irrevocable Commitments

Threats suggest a future action that one might take if the other party does not comply with one’s demands. In contrast, an irrevocable commitment involves an action that we have already begun (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). To avoid being hurt by the action, the other party must change behavior. Schelling uses the hypothetical example of two drivers speeding toward one another in a game of “chicken,” each testing who will swerve off the road first. A driver could throw the steering wheel out the window in full view of the other, thus creating an irrevocable commitment (Schelling, 1960). With an irrevocable commitment, the locus of control shifts from the actor to the respondent, who now has the ability to stop an unwelcome event from happening. For this reason, it is advisable that an educer using “irrevocable” commitments actually have some way of reversing them, since it is quite possible that the other party will refuse to act. In the game of chicken, for example, the driver who supposedly threw the steering wheel out of the window might have thrown a replica — and kept the real wheel out of view of the other driver.

Crafting a “Yesable Proposition”

Even when a negotiator has developed a good proposal that creates value and distributes that value effectively, parties can fail to reach agreement because of the manner in which the proposal is framed.

The Power of Framing

Framing can have a subtle but powerful impact on how the other side perceives a proposal. For example, studies have found that negotiators instructed to “minimize losses” rather than “maximize gains” were less likely to make concessions, reach agreement, and view the resulting agreement as fair (Bazerman, Magliozzi, and Neale, 1985; Neale and Northcraft, 1986; Neale, Huber, and Northcraft, 1987).

The context in which a decision is framed can also affect how it is perceived. One study found that participants would be willing to walk two blocks to save $30 on a $70 watch, but not willing to walk that same distance to save $30 on an $800 camera (Russo and Schoemaker 1989). Thirty dollars seems like a great deal of money when compared to $70, but like a drop in the bucket when compared to $800.

The identity of the person making the offer also influences its reception. A study by Bazerman and Neale found that participants would be willing to pay more for a bottle of beer they were told came from a fancy resort than for exactly the same bottle supposedly from a run-down grocery store. Participants assumed that the grocery store beer “is an obvious rip-off” (1992). Thus, it is important to consider both who presents the offer and how it is presented.

Framing a “Yesable” Proposition

Ultimately, the question to ask is: What proposal would give the other side an option they might accept? The choice would have to address their interests sufficiently, be realistic, and be operational. By having a good sense of the other party’s interests and BATNA, a negotiator can craft such an offer, which is called a “yesable proposition” (Fisher, Kopelman, and Schneider, 1994): it requires only a “yes” in response.

Rather than confronting the other party with a problem, a yesable proposition gives them an appealing offer. Consider a simple example. President Lyndon Johnson instructed his staff to attach a proposal, and a set of boxes for him to check “yes,” “no,” or “see me,” to any memo that crossed his desk. Johnson understood the idea behind a yesable proposition: he required his staff to bring him not only a problem, but also a suggestion for what could be done. Two tools are useful in developing a yesable proposition: the Currently Perceived Choice chart and the Target Future Choice chart.

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Currently Perceived Choice (CPC) chart

The Currently Perceived Choice (CPC) chart provides an easy way to assess how the other side might perceive the offer currently on the table (Fisher, Kopelman, and Schneider, 1994). Using the chart, negotiators can clarify whom they are trying to influence, what decisions the other person faces, and the pros and cons of the decision from that person’s perspective. For example, the table below illustrates how Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might have perceived his choices about whether or not to withdraw Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991. As the chart makes clear, there were good reasons why he refused. (Whether we agree with his motivation and behavior is another issue altogether.)

Case: Saddam Hussein, Early February 1991 “Shall I now say I will withdraw from Kuwait?”

Consequences if I say YES
Consequences if I say NO
– The bombing may continue
+ I stand up to the United States
 – The blockade may continue
+ I keep my options open for better terms from the U.N
– I yield to a U.S. ultimatum
+ I can fight indefinitely and hope to outlast the United States
– Israel may still attack as retaliation for the Scud missile
+ I can always agree later
– I look weak
+ I look strong
– I lose credibility in the Arab world
+ I am a hero to many Arabs
 –The United States will make new demands such as compensate Kuwait, compensate hostages, destroy Iraqi military, change the regime, accept war crimes trial
+ I can continue to defy Western will by creating more oil spills and setting the Gulf on fire
– I may be hanged as a war criminal
+ Dying a martyr is better than dying a war criminal
 BUT

– The war and blockade may continue

Currently Perceived Choice Chart. Source: Derived by the author from Roger Fisher and others, “How Do You End a War?,” The Boston Globe, 8 February 1991.

Because negotiators rarely represent only their individual interests, they must consider not only how the other side will perceive a particular proposal but also how their constituencies would view the outcome (Mnookin, Peppet, and Tulumello, 2000). Even seemingly irrational actors such as Saddam Hussein play to constituents. Framing a proposal in a way that allows the other side to save face or, better yet, improve their standing with their constituency, can increase the likelihood that it will be accepted.

Target Future Choice Chart (TFC)

A related tool, the Target Future Choice (TFC) chart, can help to identify how the other side might perceive a proposal in order to accept it. To derive such a target future choice, the negotiator must work backwards, initially defining the consequences believed to be necessary for the decision maker to say yes rather than no (Fisher, Kopelman, and Schneider, 1994). The table below illustrates the basic elements of a persuasive target future choice. General Example “Shall I now accept the X plan?”

Consequences if I say YES
Consequences if I say NO
+ My personal standing is secure
– I will be subjected to some criticism
 + I can easily justify the decision to my constituents
– The problem will not go away
+ I will not be seen as backing down
– It is likely to get worse
 + The action is reasonably consistent with our principles and

past statements

– I will miss a fading opportunity
+ It will not set a bad precedent
  + All things considered, it is a constructive step for dealing with this problem
 + We still keep many of our future options open
  BUT

– Some hardliners will criticize me

BUT

+ Some hardliners will no doubt support me

Future Target Choice of a Decision Maker. Source: Roger Fisher and others, Beyond Machiavelli: Tools for Coping with Conflict (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1994), 58. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. A well-framed offer allows the decision maker to understand both the benefits of accepting the proposal immediately and the costs of inaction (for instance, as a result of missing a deadline by which the offer had to be accepted). An offer can be made more appealing if it is partially implemented from the outset. Car salespeople use this technique all the time when they offer a customer a car and hand him or her the keys to hold.

Improving the Negotiating Relationship

During a negotiation, negative emotions can get in the way of easy two-way communication. Negative emotions are often products of an adversarial relational structure between parties. In recent years, researchers have made significant strides in understanding the structure of negotiating relationships and how to shape those relationships to enable Pareto-optimal outcomes. As a result, negotiators have new tools to elicit emotions that can serve their negotiating purpose. One major advance has been to link the concepts of identity and relationship. In any negotiating relationship, people care about their perceived identity vis-à- vis their negotiating counterpart (i.e., “what I think others think about me”). In this sense, a negotiator’s identity is largely relational (Shapiro, 2002): people interact differently with different people. In a relationship with an aggressive person a negotiator may feel tense and resentful, and thus act in certain ways to spite the other person. In a relationship with a soft-spoken person, that same negotiator may feel emotions of connection and act in ways that support the relationship. This insight — that the structure of the interaction shapes each negotiator’s identity — has important practical consequences.

One’s Relational Identity Can Constrain or Facilitate a Good Outcome

One’s negotiating purpose is not always served by one’s “relational identity” (Shapiro, 2002). Nor is one’s negotiating purpose always served by the resulting emotional, cognitive, and behavioral consequences for each party. A negotiator may fail to speak up when it would be wise to do so, or may act more cautiously than suits his or her interests. By understanding the dimensions that comprise relational identity, negotiators can better calibrate behavior to best serve their negotiating purpose. One’s “relational identity” consists of two main dimensions: autonomy and affiliation (see Shapiro 2002 for a review of research on these dimensions). Autonomy is the freedom to make a decision without that decision’s being imposed (Averill and Nunley, 1992; Fisher and Shapiro, 2005). Research suggests that constrained autonomy leads to resistance, negative emotions, and a lack of cooperation (Brehm, 1966; Fisher and Shapiro, 2005). One explanation for why sources resist disclosing information is that they feel that demands to reveal information impinge upon their autonomy. Affiliation is a sense of personal connection, the opposite of rejection. A party who feels rejected is likely to resist cooperation. The feeling of rejection, in fact, stimulates the same part of the brain as physical pain (Eisenberger, N., Lieberman, M., and Williams, K., 2003), which helps to explain why trivial acts of exclusion often elicit strong emotional responses from the excluded party. Conversely, a positive affiliation tends to stimulate positive emotions and mutual cooperation.

Capitalizing on People’s Emotional Reactions

Research suggests that positive emotions have particular utility in a negotiation (See Fisher and Shapiro, 2005). They improve the likelihood of a Pareto-optimal agreement; they expand people’s ability to trust and to think creatively; they improve the likelihood of a stable agreement; and they make open communication easier and more likely. How can a negotiator capitalize on the power of emotions? In the book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate, Fisher and Shapiro offer five “core concerns” that can be used to stimulate positive emotions: autonomy, affiliation, appreciation, status, and role. These five core concerns represent a practical expansion of the relational identity framework discussed above. Each concern can be used to build rapport and stimulate positive emotions, thus encouraging cooperative behavior. The actions that correlate with each core concern are, in simple form: (1) respect the other’s autonomy, (2) build affiliation, (3) express appreciation, (4) acknowledge status where merited, and (5) help parties build a fulfilling role. A significant amount of research has substantiated each of these actions (e.g., see Fisher and Shapiro, 2005).

Using Emotions Does Not Mean Acquiescing

Some people argue that enlisting positive emotions into a negotiation will put a negotiator at a disadvantage. Common fears are that the negotiator will look weak and submissive or will be more inclined to “give in” to the demands of the other party. These are serious concerns. However, these problems are reduced significantly for the skilled negotiator who uses not only emotions, but also the tools of reasoning to make wise decisions. For example, the skilled negotiator will not agree to a decision that departs from some standard of legitimacy, as discussed earlier in this paper.

Summary

This paper provides an overview of some of the key strategic approaches to negotiation that an information educer might adapt for use: expanding the pie, dividing the pie, framing an offer, and improving the negotiating relationship. The author leaves open the question of tailoring these strategies to the challenging circumstances of information eduction and would welcome the opportunity to explore such topics with experts in the field.

Appendix

Contrasting Approaches to Negotiation: Adversarial vs. Interest-based

ELEMENT
ADVERSARIAL
INTEREST-BASED
 Alternatives
Threaten to inflict pain

“Talk, or else!”

Improve your Best Alternative To a Negotiated

Agreement (BATNA) Weaken their BATNA “You have a choice. I’d like to talk openly about things with you. And I’ve got a colleague just outside this door waiting to go a different route. I don’t want that. It’s your choice.”

Interests
Debate over positions “I will not tell

you anything.” “Yes, you will!”

 Look beneath positions to interests

“What’s holding you back from giving us information?”

Options
Bargain over two options: whether or not the source will tell you information
Invent multiple options without evaluating them
 Legitimacy
Battle of wills

“Tell us what you know.” “No.” “We demand you tell us.” “NO!”

Persuade on the basis of external standards of legitimacy

The basic message: “There are legitimate reasons why you can reveal information to us...”

 (Continued on next page)
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Commitments

Commit to telling no or minimal information
 Consider the “4 Ps” : What is our purpose for negotiating, what is an efficient process, who are the relevant people to include, and what is our desired product? To what can we realistically and practically commit?
 Commitments
Talk at one another

“We will tell you what to tell us. And you had better tell us!”

Talk with one another

What questions can we ask to learn more? How can we ask open questions rather than presumptive, closed- ended questions?

  Relationship
Treat one another as adversaries

From educer’s perspective: Interrogator vs. accused From source’s perspective: harasser vs. victim

Treat one another as joint problem solvers “We have a shared problem. Let’s think through how to deal with this. The more we are able to work together, the sooner both of us can go home.”

Works Cited

• Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming Organizational Defenses. New York: Prentice Hall, especially 88-89.
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