{"id":219271,"date":"2010-01-19T12:40:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T17:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pon.harvard.edu\/?p=9536"},"modified":"2010-01-19T12:40:11","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T17:40:11","slug":"negotiating-between-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/219271","title":{"rendered":"Negotiating between friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adapted from \u201cDealing with Friends,\u201d first published in the <\/em>Negotiation<\/a> newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

We all know people who have \u201calligator arms.\u201d When the restaurant check comes, they can\u2019t manage to reach their wallets, or they quibble that they had the small tomato juice, and you had the large.<\/p>\n

<\/span>With our close friends, of course, the opposite tends to occur, with each person insisting on picking up the tab. Though motivated by mutual feelings of affection, these interactions can be awkward, even tense.<\/p>\n

<\/span>David Mandel, a scholar with Defence Research and Development Canada, recently conducted two experiments that tested how generosity affects negotiations<\/a> among friends. Previous researchers had concluded that norms of fairness become more powerful between people with close ties. If that were the case, of course, friends would quickly agree on a fair price, and the deal would be done.<\/p>\n

<\/span>The situation is more complicated, Mandel found. Specifically, in his experiments, most sellers of a music CD bent over backwards to offer a generous price to their friends. In fact, the sellers\u2019 asking prices were significantly lower<\/em> than what their friends were willing to offer. Thus, these sellers assumed the curious stance of wanting to talk buyers down<\/em> in price. (This finding is a reversal of the classic endowment effect,<\/em> in which the owner of an object tends to value it more highly than others do.) Curiously, in Mandel\u2019s studies, generosity toward friends proved to be something of a one-way street: when negotiating to buy<\/em> from friends, participants were not motivated to overpay.<\/p>\n

<\/span>In dealings with friends, Mandel concludes, our attitudes and behavior vary depending on how the situation is framed and what \u201cscript\u201d is evoked. The impulse toward generosity seems most powerful in exchanges in which \u201cI am giving this to you.\u201d When an allocation between two people is involved, however, a norm of fairness may dominate and suggest a 50-50 split. As a practical matter, that\u2019s a graceful way of concluding a friendly dinner. And when friends have much more at stake\u2014say, when one is selling a car or a house to the other\u2014it\u2019s wise to agree first on the appropriate process and principles to follow.<\/p>\n

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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adapted from \u201cDealing with Friends,\u201d first published in the Negotiation newsletter. We all know people who have \u201calligator arms.\u201d When the restaurant check comes, they can\u2019t manage to reach their wallets, or they quibble that they had the small tomato juice, and you had the large. With our close friends, of course, the opposite tends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4300,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}