CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

4. CONFLICT AND GROUP DECISION MAKING: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MOTIVATION 125
Moderators of the Effects of Social Motives on Negotiation Processes and Outcomes
One structural variable that may influence the effects of social motives
on negotiation is the preference structure of the negotiation task. Research
has often investigated so-called symmetrically structured negotiations, in
which each negotiating party meets with the same number of group members
that have opposite as well as compatible preferences (e.g., preferences
on each of the negotiation issues are different among factions and all factions
have the same size). However, negotiations may also be structured in
such a way that a subset of team members has compatible interests, which
are opposed to the interests of the remaining group members, such that
a majority with compatible interests faces a minority with different interests.
These asymmetrically structured negotiations make the possibility
of forming coalitions that exclude one or more others from an agreement
very salient (Beersma & De Dreu, 2002). Another structural variable that
may impact the social-motives decision-making relationship is the nature
of the decision rule team members adopt to determine when an agreement
is valid or not. Finally, the number of team members with a prosocial
motivation and a proself motivation may affect the social-motives
decision-making relationship because teams are not always homogeneous
with regards to social motives. We review studies that addressed these
variables next.
In asymmetrical task structures, where some group members’ interests
are aligned, forming coalitions to serve one’s own interests becomes
salient. However, whether team members can actually form coalitions
depends on whether their decision rule requires unanimity or a majority.
The majority rule makes coalitions legitimate. The unanimity rule, in
contrast, makes coalitions unnecessary; any one member has veto power.
In some situations, this may result in distributive power play, where team
members use their veto power to block agreements proposed by other
parties that they feel do not serve their interests enough.
Beersma and De Dreu (2002) predicted that whether this power play
would indeed occur would depend on the team members’ social motive.
Specifically, in asymmetrical tasks, in which a majority with aligned
preferences exists, those excluded from the majority faction would be
likely to use distributive tactics including the use of their veto power to
prevent disadvantageous agreements but only when they have a proself
motivation. Because this distributive power play could be expected to
deteriorate negotiation outcomes, decision quality would be especially
low when an asymmetrical structure was combined with unanimity rule
and a proself motive. In an experiment, preference structure (symmetrical
vs. asymmetrical) was manipulated by using different types of profit
schedules. Decision rule was manipulated by informing participants in
the unanimity-rule condition that all three team members had to agree on a
decision in order for it to take effect, whereas participants in the majority-