Cross-cultural living experience predicts integrative negotiation breakthroughs.

Evidence

A follow-up study conceptually replicated this finding in a very different context: a one-on-one negotiation situation involving the sale of a gas station. In this negotiation, a deal based solely on sale price was impossible because the minimum price the seller was willing to accept was higher than the buyer’s maximum. However, the two parties’ underlying interests were compatible, and although sale price was the only issue explicitly up for negotiation, a deal could be reached if parties looked for a creative agreement that satisfied both parties’ interests. For example, the buyer (who needed managers to run the station) could promise a future job to the seller (who needed to find employment upon returning from a round-the-world trip). Importantly, such creative solutions were never suggested or even hinted at in the role materials, so students had to discover such insights spontaneously during the course of the negotiation. But even when controlling for factors such as age, gender, nationality, grades, and the “big five” personality traits (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1987), we found that the longer students had lived abroad the more likely they were to find a creative solution to this seemingly intractable problem. In fact, in pairs where both negotiators had previously lived abroad 70% found a creative solution to circumvent the negative financial bargaining zone, whereas 0% of dyads in which neither negotiator had lived abroad were able to solve the exercise creatively (Maddux & Galinsky, 2009, study 2). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2225

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2225