The benefits of dominance complementarity in negotiations.

摘要

I investigated the hypothesis that dominance complementarity can lead people to reach mutually beneficial outcomes in social interactions. I argue that dominance complementarity should not only improve interaction partners' relational satisfaction (e.g. Dryer & Horowitz, 1997), but also their ability to coordinate the exchange of information in pursuit of their goals. As evidence, participants were best able to discover integrative agreements in negotiation exercises when one negotiator was instructed to behave dominantly and the other negotiator was instructed to behave submissively. Participants' abilities to discover integrative agreements were also enhanced when one negotiator behaved dominantly in contexts in which dominance should theoretically elicit submissiveness but not in contexts in which dominance should elicit dominance. The findings demonstrate that the benefits of dominance complementarity can extend beyond the relational to the material.