A literature review of cognitive biases in negotiation processes

Abstract

Purpose

What is the discipline's current grasp of cognitive biases in negotiation processes? What lessons can be drawn from this body of literature? The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss the limited research on cognitive biases in the context of negotiations.

Design/methodology/approach

This article reviews research from judgment and decision-making, conflict management, psychology, and management literatures to systematize what we already know about cognitive biases in negotiations.

Findings

Decision-making studies have mainly identified 21 biases that may lead to lower quality decisions. Only five of those biases have been studied relating to negotiations: the anchoring, the overconfidence, the framing, the status quo and the self-serving bias. Moreover, negotiation literature has identified five additional biases that affect negotiation processes: the fixed-pie error, the incompatibility error, the intergroup bias, the relationship bias and the toughness bias. Biased behavior differs across cultures and emotional mood.

Research limitations/implications

Implications for future research include building comprehensive models of how negotiators can overcome cognitive biases, studying interconnections between different biases, and increasing complexity of the studies to provide practitioners with more practical advice.

Originality/value

The literature reviewed in this paper spans diverse disciplines and perspectives. This paper can be a starting point for researchers interested in understanding how cognitive biases affect negotiations. Moreover, it could be a starting point for future research on this field.

Citation

Caputo, A. (2013), "A literature review of cognitive biases in negotiation processes", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 374-398. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCMA-08-2012-0064