Abstract
Prior research on the value of personality traits for predicting negotiation outcomes is rather inconclusive. Building on prior research and in light of recent personality and negotiation theories, we discuss why the traditional approach to personality traits has had limited success and propose an alternative approach to predicting negotiation outcomes from personality assessments. More specifically, we argue that negotiations are tasks in which performance is conditioned by the ability to adjust one’s mental states and behaviors according to situational demands. We therefore hypothesize that it is especially individual differences in within-person variability in personality – that is, the variability trait – that can be expected to predict negotiation outcomes, rather than individual differences in average traits. We show in two empirical studies involving dyads that the variability trait is indeed a better predictor of economic gains and satisfaction than average traits. Implications for theory, education, and practice are discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
References
Ackerman RA, Kenny DA (2016) APIMPowerR: An interactive tool for Actor-Partner Interdependence Model power analysis. [Computer software]. Retrieved from https://robert-a-ackerman.shinyapps.io/APIMPowerRdis/
Amanatullah ET, Morris MW, Curhan JR (2008) Negotiators who give too much: unmitigated communion, relational anxieties, and economic costs in distributive and integrative bargaining. J Pers Soc Psychol 95(3):723. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012612
Baird BM, Le K, Lucas RE (2006) On the nature of intraindividual personality variability: reliability, validity, and associations with well-being. J Pers Soc Psychol 90(3):512. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.3.512
Barrick MR, Mount MK (1991) The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a meta-analysis. Personnel Psychol 44(1):1. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x
Bates D, Mächler M, Bolker BM, Walker SC (2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. J Stat Softw 67(1):1. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v067.i01
Beckmann N, Birney DP, Minbashian A, Beckmann JF (2021) Personality dynamics at work The effects of form, time, and context of variability. Eur J Personality. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070211017341
Bockenholt U (2012) Modeling multiple response processes in judgment and choice. Psychol Methods 17(4):665. https://doi.org/10.1037/2325-9965.1.S.83
Bolin AU, Neuman GA (2006) Personality, process, and performance in interactive brainstorming groups. J Bus Psychol 20(4):565. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-005-9000-7
Campion MC, Ployhart RE, MacKenzie WI Jr (2014) The state of research on situational judgment tests: a content analysis and directions for future research. Human Perform 27(4):283. https://doi.org/10.1080/08959285.2014.929693
Catano VM, Brochu A, Lamerson CD (2012) A ssessing the R eliability of S ituational J udgment T ests U sed in H igh-S takes S ituations. Int J Select Assess 20(3):333. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2012.00604.x
Curhan JR, Elfenbein HA, Xu H (2006) What do people value when they negotiate? mapping the domain of subjective value in negotiation. J Pers Soc Psychol 91(3):493. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.3.493
Elfenbein HA (2015) Individual differences in negotiation: a nearly abandoned pursuit revived. Current Dir Psychol Sci 24(2):131. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414558114
Elfenbein HA, Curhan JR, Eisenkraft N, Shirako A, Baccaro L (2008) Are some negotiators better than others? Individual differences in bargaining outcomes. J Res Pers 42(6):1463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.06.010
Elfenbein HA, Eisenkraft N, Curhan JR, DiLalla LF (2018) On the relative importance of individual-level characteristics and dyadic interaction effects in negotiations: Variance partitioning evidence from a twins study. J Appl Psychol 103(1):88. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000255
Elshenawy E (2010) Does negotiation training improve negotiators’ performance? J Eur Indus Train 34(3):192. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591011031719
Fischer AH, Roseman IJ (2007) Beat them or ban them: the characteristics and social functions of anger and contempt. J Pers Soc Psychol 93(1):103. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.1.103
Fleeson W (2001) Toward a structure-and process-integrated view of personality: traits as density distributions of states. J Personality Soc Psychol 80(6):1011. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.1011
Fleeson W (2004) Moving personality beyond the person-situation debate: the challenge and the opportunity of within-person variability. Current Dir Psychol Sci 13(2):83. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00280.x
Fleeson W, Gallagher P (2009) The implications of Big Five standing for the distribution of trait manifestation in behavior: fifteen experience-sampling studies and a meta-analysis. J Pers Soc Psychol 97(6):1097. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016786
Fleeson W, Jayawickreme E (2015) Whole trait theory. J Res Personality 56:82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.10.009
Hakim LN, Santoso GA, Takwin B, Sunitiyoso Y, Abraham J (2021) Group decision quality, conscientiousness and competition. Cogent Psychol 8(1):1872907. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2021.1872907
Hirsh JB, Peterson JB (2008) Predicting creativity and academic success with a “fake-proof’’ measure of the Big Five. J Res Pers 42(5):1323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.04.006
Jang D, Elfenbein HA, Bottom WP (2018) More than a phase: form and features of a general theory of negotiation. Acad Manag Annal 12(1):318. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0053
Judge TA, Higgins CA, Thoresen CJ (1999) The big five personality traits, general mental ability, and career success across the life span M.R. Barrick. Personnel Psychol 52(3):621. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1999.tb00174.x
Judge TA, Simon LS, Hurst C, Kelley K (2014) What I experienced yesterday is who I am today: relationship of work motivations and behaviors to within-individual variation in the five-factor model of personality. J Appl Psychol 99(2):199. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034485
Kenny DA, Kashy DA, Cook WL (2006) Dyadic data analysis. Guilford Press, New York
Kenny DA, Ledermann T (2010) Detecting, measuring, and testing dyadic patterns in the actor-partner interdependence model. J Family Psychol 24(3):359. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019651
Lang JW, Lievens F, De Fruyt F, Zettler I, Tackett JL (2019) Assessing meaningful within-person variability in Likert-scale rated personality descriptions: an IRT tree approach. Psychol Assess 31(4):474. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000600
Lang JW, Runge JM, De Fruyt F (2021) What are agile, flexible, or adaptable employees and students? a typology of dynamic individual differences in applied settings. Eur J Personality. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070211012932
Lax DA, Sebenius JK (1986) The manager as negotiator: Bargaining for cooperation and competitive gain. Free Press, New York
Lewicki RJ, Hiam A (2007) The flexibility of the master negotiator. Global Bus Organ Excell 26(2):25. https://doi.org/10.1002/joe.20130
Lievens F, Lang JW, De Fruyt F, Corstjens J, Van de Vijver M, Bledow R (2018) The predictive power of people’s intraindividual variability across situations: Implementing whole trait theory in assessment. J Appl Psychol 103(7):753. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000280
Lievens F, Schäpers P, Herde CN (2020) Situational judgment tests: from low-fidelity simulations to alternative measures of personality and the person-situation interplay. In: Wood D, Harms P, Read S, Slaughter A (eds) Measuring and modeling persons and situations, pp 285–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819200-9.00017-X
McCabe KO, Fleeson W (2016) Are traits useful? explaining trait manifestations as tools in the pursuit of goals. J Personality Soc Psychol 110(2):287. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039490
Mischel W (1999) Personality coherence and dispositions in a cognitive-affective personality (CAPS) approach, In The coherence of personality: social-cognitive bases of consistency, variability, and organization, ed. by Cervone D, Shoda Y (New York: Guilford)
Movius H (2008) The effectiveness of negotiation training. Negot J 24(4):509. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1571-9979.2008.00201.x
Mussel P, Gatzka T, Hewig J (2018) Situational judgment tests as an alternative measure for personality assessment. Eur J Psychol Assess 34:328. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000346
Neale MA (1997) New recruit. Dispute Resolution Research Center Exercises. Northwestern University, Evanston
Oliveri ME, Tannenbaum RJ (2017) Insights into using TOEIC® test scores to inform human resource management decisions ETS Research Report Series 2017(1):1. https://doi.org/10.1002/ets2.12177
Oreg S, Sverdlik N (2014) Source personality and persuasiveness: big Five predispositions to being persuasive and the role of message involvement. J Pers 82(3):250. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12049
Parrigon S, Woo SE, Tay L, Wang T (2017) CAPTION-ing the situation: a lexically-derived taxonomy of psychological situation characteristics. J Pers Soc Psychol 112(4):642
Pruitt DG (1981) Negotiation behavior. Academic Press, New York
Rauthmann JF, Gallardo-Pujol D, Guillaume EM, Todd E, Nave CS, Sherman RA, Ziegler M, Jones AB, Funder DC (2014) The situational eight DIAMONDS: a taxonomy of major dimensions of situation characteristics. J Pers Soc Psychol 107(4):677. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037250
Roberts BW, Kuncel NR, Shiner R, Caspi A, Goldberg LR (2007) The power of personality: the comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspect Psychol Sci 2(4):313. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00047.x
Rosseel Y (2012) lavaan: an R package for structural equation modeling. J Stat Softw 48(2):1
Schumacker RE, Lomax RG (2004) A beginner’s guide to structural equation modeling. Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ
Sharma S, Bottom WP, Elfenbein HA (2013) On the role of personality, cognitive ability, and emotional intelligence in predicting negotiation outcomes: a meta-analysis. Organizational Psychol Rev 3(4):293. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041386613505857
Storme M, Celik P, Myszkowski N (2020) A forgotten antecedent of career adaptability: a study on the predictive role of within-person variability in personality. Pers Individ Differ 160:109936. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109936
Thompson LL (1990) Negotiation behavior and outcomes: empirical evidence and theoretical issues. Psychol Bulletin 108(3):515. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.515
Vrieze SI (2012) Model selection and psychological theory: a discussion of the differences between the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). Psychol Methods 17(2):228. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027127
Walton RE, McKersie RB (1966) Behavioral dilemmas in mixed-motive decision making. Behav Sci 11(5):370. https://doi.org/10.1002/bs.3830110506
Weekley JA, Ployhart RE (2006) Situational judgment tests: Theory, measurement, and application. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
Weingart LR, Thompson LL, Bazerman MH, Carroll JS (1990) Tactical behavior and negotiation outcomes. Int J Conflict Manag 1(1):7. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb022670
Wilson KS, DeRue DS, Matta FK, Howe M, Conlon DE (2016) Personality similarity in negotiations: testing the dyadic effects of similarity in interpersonal traits and the use of emotional displays on negotiation outcomes. J Appl Psychol 101(10):1405. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000132
Zettler I, Lang JW, Hülsheger UR, Hilbig BE (2016) Dissociating indifferent, directional, and extreme responding in personality data: applying the three-process model to self-and observer reports. J Pers 84(4):461. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12172
Funding
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Celik, P., Storme, M. & Myszkowski, N. Individual Differences in Within-Person Variability in Personality Positively Predict Economic Gains and Satisfaction in Negotiations. Group Decis Negot 31, 683–702 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-022-09778-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-022-09778-x