Role of Status in Strategic Choices and Outcomes in Negotiations

In negotiation settings, individuals’ perception of their position or status can strongly influence strategic choices and outcomes. Although some sources of status (such as race, gender, expertise, and power) have been studied in the context of negotiations, other subtler sources that are more ubiquitous and as strong (such as being part of a large corporation and having community support) have been overlooked. The two studies in this paper examine two situational determinants of status (the presence vs. absence of corporate backing, and the presence vs. absence of social support), and find that both sources increase participant perceptions of being in a strong position, result in the strategic adoption of a maximal goal focus, and in the second study, lead to better outcomes. A maximal goal focus, and not a positive expectancy, was the mechanism linking higher status to better-negotiated outcomes