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Representative negotiations often take a competitive course due to constituency pressures. However, in multi-issue integrative negotiation settings, using a competitive value-claiming strategy may result in less than optimal outcomes for both parties. In this experiment, we compared the negotiation process and outcomes of representatives with hawkish versus dovish constituencies. Representatives with a dovish constituency engaged in more information exchange and less contentious tactics, resulting in fewer impasses and higher quality agreements. Although representatives with a hawkish constituency claimed more value by placing higher demands, this negatively affected not only their joint, but also their individual outcomes. Overall, results suggest that representatives with a dovish constituency achieve better outcomes, both on an individual and dyadic level.

Norm violations engender both negative reactions and perceptions of power from observers. We addressed this paradox by examining whether observers’ tendency to grant power to norm followers versus norm violators is moderated by the observer’s position in the hierarchy. Because norm violations threaten the status quo, we hypothesized that individuals higher in a hierarchy (high verticality) would be less likely to grant power to norm violators compared to individuals lower in the hierarchy (low verticality). In 14 studies ( Ntotal = 1,704), we measured participants’ trait verticality (sense of power, socioeconomic status, testosterone) and manipulated state verticality (power position, status, dominance). A meta-analysis revealed that higher ranked participants granted less power to norm violators than lower ranked individuals, presumably because the former support social stratification. Interestingly, these effects occurred for trait but not state verticality. Overall, negative reactions to deviants may be driven by hierarchy-maintenance motives by those in privileged positions.

To reduce prejudice psychologists design interventions requiring people to think of counter-stereotypes (i.e., people who defy stereotypic expectations— a strong woman, a Black President). Grounded in the idea that stereotypes constrain the ability to think flexibly, we propose that thinking of counter-stereotypes can have benefits that extend beyond the goal of prejudice reduction—in particular to tasks measuring cognitive flexibility and creative performance. Findings supported this conjecture. In Experiment 1 priming a gender counter-stereotype enhanced cognitive flexibility. This effect could not be attributed to changes in mood. In Experiment 2, using a gender-independent manipulation, priming various social counter-stereotypes brought a boost to creative performance. We discuss implications of these extended benefits of counter-stereotypic thinking for developing future prejudice-reduction interventions.

Intergroup conflicts are often regulated by negotiating group representatives, who are influenced by constituent pressures. We examined how within-constituent disagreement influences representative negotiations. In a 2 × 2 experiment, the majority of constituents was either hawkish or dovish vis-à-vis the out-group, and the minority had either low or high status. After being exposed to constituent voice, representatives negotiated in a multi-issue task with integrative potential. Results showed that representatives reached more integrative agreements when the constituent majority was dovish rather than hawkish, but only when the hawkish minority had low rather than high status; when the hawkish minority had high status, representatives reached suboptimal agreements equal to those reached when the constituent majority was hawkish. Additional results showed that under these circumstances, representatives perceived the cooperativeness of their constituency as highest and also had the most trust that the constituency would approve of the agreement. Implications are discussed for theory on intergroup relations, (representative) negotiation, and conflict resolution.

Although conflicts most often occur between groups, research and theory on conflict management and negotiation have largely focused on the interpersonal system and ignored how groups negotiate a solution to their intergroup conflict. Thus we have a thorough understanding of the motivational, cognitive, and affective processes underlying the development of high quality solutions in interpersonal negotiation, but we know little about the extent to which these insights can be comfortably generalized to intergroup settings. Likewise, the large volume of work on intergroup perceptions and intergroup relations has much to say about intergroup negotiation, but these research areas have rarely been connected and produced systematic analysis. The current Special Issue presents research on these topics and aims at promoting cross-talk between negotiation researchers and social psychologists in the intergroup relation domain.

In intergroup conflict, individual cooperation may be directed at strengthening the ingroup, thus undermining the effectiveness and sustainability of the competing outgroup. Reversely, cooperation directed towards the competing outgroup indirectly undermines the viability of the ingroup and is often seen by ingroup members as disloyal, non-cooperative behavior. Using the Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemma—Maximizing Differences Game to model intergroup conflict, the experiment reported here shows that compared to individuals with a chronic pro-self orientation, those with a chronic prosocial orientation display stronger ingroup trust and ingroup love—they self-sacrifice to benefit their ingroup—but not more or less outgroup distrust and outgroup hate. Furthermore, in this situation pro-social individuals were driven more by ingroup fairness considerations when contributing to their ingroup. Path analyses suggest that effects of social value orientation on ingroup love are mediated by ingroup trust and not by fairness considerations. Implications for research on social value orientations, and intergroup conflict and competition are discussed.

In a laboratory experiment, three-person interactive and three-person nominal groups of college students brainstormed without externally imposed time constraints. All groups were homogeneous with regard to gender. Half of the participants were instructed to continue brainstorming until they ran out of ideas (expectancy stop rule), whereas the other half were instructed to continue until they were satisfied with their performance (satisfaction stop rule). We found that interactive groups were more persistent than nominal groups in both of the stop rule conditions and thereby compensated for their usual productivity loss. We also found, as predicted, that women were more persistent in the satisfaction stop rule condition, whereas men were more persistent in the expectancy stop rule condition. This effect may be due to gender differences in self-evaluations.

In two negotiation experiments with business students we examined effects of the two-sided availability of alternative negotiators in combination with the parties’ social motive. Contrary to our expectation, prosocial negotiators rather than egoistic negotiators were sensitive to the presence of alternative partners. While egoistic negotiators were relatively unaffected by mutual exit options, prosocials engaged in less problem solving and reached lower joint outcomes when having two-sided instead of no exit options. Low interpersonal trust was identified as being responsible for these effects. These findings add to theory and practice on alternatives and social motives in negotiation.