On the role of personality, cognitive ability, and emotional intelligence in predicting negotiation outcomes

Abstract

According to a longstanding consensus among researchers, individual differences play a limited role in predicting negotiation outcomes. This consensus stemmed from an early narrative review based on limited data. Testing the validity of this consensus, a meta-analysis of negotiation studies revealed a significant role for a wide range of individual difference variables. Cognitive ability, emotional intelligence, and numerous personality traits demonstrated predictive validity over multiple outcome measures. Relevant criteria included individual economic value, joint economic value, and psychological subjective value for both the negotiator and counterpart. Each of the Big 5 personality traits predicted at least one outcome measure, with the exception of conscientiousness. Characteristics of research design moderated some associations. Field data showed stronger effects than did laboratory studies. The authors conclude that the irrelevance consensus was misguided, and consider implications for theory, education, and practice.

Personality and Integrative Negotiations: A Hexaco Investigation of Actor, Partner, and Actor–Partner Interaction Effects on Objective and Subjective Outcomes

“…Of the three partner effects we observed, honesty‐humility played a relatively strong role in shaping actors' subjective outcomes and stronger than any partner effects observed in the Sharma et al () meta‐analysis of subjective outcomes. Evidently, compared with an unfair partner, negotiating with individuals that tend to be fair in dealing with others is inherently more satisfying.…”

“…Finally, we consider subjective value. We note that very few studies have examined the relationship of major dimensions of personality with these outcomes (Back & Vazire, ; Sharma et al, ). Here, we again focus on the traits of honesty‐humility and agreeableness and propose that the partner's personality is likely to play a key role in shaping a negotiator's subjective value.…”

“…Data collection was therefore constrained to a fixed time period of approximately two months. When planning the study, we aimed to accumulate a sample that was at least as large as the typical study included in the Sharma et al () meta‐analysis. The mean sizes of the samples meta‐analysed by Sharma et al were approximately 114 for the personality‐economic value correlations and 154 for personality‐subjective outcomes, although we note that the number of studies available to investigate the latter was very small.…”

“…Further, research also shows that individuals tend to perform with a fair degree of consistency across multiple negotiations, even with different partners, suggesting that stable individual differences in negotiation style and ability almost certainly exist (Elfenbein, Curhan, Eisenkraft, Shirako, & Baccaro, ). We note, however, that many of the studies available for the Sharma et al () review were limited in several potentially critical ways.…”

“…Much of the personality–negotiation literature available for the Sharma et al () meta‐analysis employed the five‐factor model of personality (Costa & McCrae, ). More recent research on personality structure has suggested, however, that results from lexical studies of multiple languages are more consistent when a six‐factor rather than five‐factor solution is extracted from the lexical data (Ashton et al, ; Lee & Ashton, ).…”