CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

4. CONFLICT AND GROUP DECISION MAKING: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MOTIVATION 121
previously mentioned studies might be that their results seem tautological
(e.g., individualistic individuals have a stronger proself motive
and collectivistic individuals have a stronger prosocial motive), their
value lies in demonstrating that social motives are rooted in cultural
differences.
Organizational culture, in the sense of the norms and values that are
communicated to teams, is important in shaping team members’ social
motives as well. Instructions by superiors have been demonstrated to
increase either team members’ prosocial or their proself motivation. If
managers communicate to group members that it is important that they
should be concerned with each others’ welfare, members are likely to
adopt a more prosocial orientation (e.g., see Pruitt & Lewis, 1975; Weingart
et al., 1993). A study by Deutsch (1958) demonstrated that the effects
of communication by supervisors or third parties on the emergence of
social motives can be quite strong even if these communications are subtle
and implicit. Participants in a laboratory study who engaged in a decision-making
task with someone else and who were told that this other
person was their partner engaged in more constructive behavior than
participants to whom the other person was described as an opponent.
Related to the effects of supervisor communications, the reward structure
under which teams function plays an important role. Whereas team
rewards, in which the rewards that one team member receives are positively
correlated with his or her group members’ rewards, induce a prosocial
motive, individual-based incentive structures, in which payment
depends on how well a team member does individually, tend to induce a
proself motive (e.g., see Beersma et al., 2003; Schulz & Pruitt, 1978).
Group members’ moods have also been shown to affect social motivation.
A review by Barry, Fulmer, and Van Kleef (2004) showed that, in
the context of integrative negotiation, positive moods seem to increase
prosocial motivation, whereas negative moods decrease prosocial motivation.
For example, Carnevale and Isen (1986) increased participants’ positive
affect by having them read funny cartoons. This reduced the use of
contentious tactics in a bargaining task and increased joint gain. Kramer,
Newton, and Pommerenke (1993) found similar results. Participants who
experienced a positive mood because they had watched a humorous
video before the negotiation achieved higher joint outcomes than participants
that had watched an affect neutral video. Baron’s (1990) results also
seemed to indicate that a positive mood increases prosocial motivation.
Although his participants negotiated against a confederate whose behavior
was preprogrammed and, thus, negotiation performance could not be
assessed, he found that participants who had been exposed to a pleasant
odor made more concessions during negotiation. This can be seen as
a possible indication that they cared more about the other party’s interests.
Likewise, Forgas (1998) gave participants a small gift (some candy)
and found that they treated their counterparts in a negotiation task more
constructively than participants who had not received a gift. These effects