People from honor cultures are generally seen as prone to react aggressively in conflict situations. The current research challenges this view and shows that people from honor cultures react more constructively to a conflict situation than people from dignity cultures, as long as they are not insulted. In an experiment in which 41 honor and 41 dignity participants reacted to a conflict situation with or without insult, we showed that—as long as they are not insulted—people from honor cultures handled potential conflict situations more constructively than people from dignity cultures. Thus, the good news about people from honor cultures is that they are willing and able to handle conflict situations constructively—even more so than people from dignity cultures—as long as they are not insulted.

This study tested hypotheses drawn from the literature on gender, leadership, and conflict management about the outcomes facilitated by men and women in third party roles in dispute resolution in organizations. Data collected in association with an MBA teambuilding exercise showed that when women played third party roles in which they lacked authority over disputants, they were able to facilitate an outcome that was both acceptable to disputants and met organizational interests, more than men in these roles or than men and women in third party roles with authority. Behavioral data suggested that this effect was due to women in the third party peer role eschewing and men in the third party role displaying agentic behavior. The study contributes to the literature on gender, leadership, and conflict management by showing women's traditional leadership strengths of collaboration and participation can result in unique outcomes when they have less rather than more authority over disputants.

This research investigated the unique role of racial in-group affect, or liking one's racial group, to foster or inhibit integration in negotiations with different race partners. We hypothesized that when the racial backgrounds of the negotiators are salient, threat inherent in negotiations activates in-group affect for some White negotiators (those more “glad to be White”), triggering divergent negotiation approaches with White versus Black counterparts. In support of our hypotheses, we found that when negotiating with a Black confederate, stronger in-group affect of White participants was a liability, relating to poorer joint outcomes and a “chilling and competing” negotiation approach. When negotiating with a White confederate, stronger in-group affect of White participants instead boosted the dyad's joint outcomes by fostering greater trust. The meaning and practical implications of strong in-group affect in negotiations with diverse counterparts are discussed.

In two studies, we investigated whether learning goals, which focus attention on task strategies rather than outcomes, affect negotiator behavior and results differently than performance goals. In Study 1, negotiators with learning goals had lower rates of impasse and were judged to be most cooperative. Study 2 replicated these results using a different task and also compared the impact of learning and performance goals to dispositional goal orientation. We found that implicit negotiation beliefs, derived from theories of dispositional goal orientation, were associated with value claiming and interacted with goal type such that the relationship was strongest in the learning goal condition. In addition, negotiators with learning goals developed greater understanding about their counterpart's interests and created more integrative deals. These results show that negotiated outcomes are influenced by both goal type and the extent to which negotiators view their skills as malleable.

Negotiations by two mining companies to conclude a Deed of Cooperation are examined using Halpert et al.'s (2010) Path Model of Negotiation Success. The goal–cooperation path identified in the model is found to be a key dynamic in the case study. However, other factors, such as a strategic leadership role and the task of document drafting, also had an impact on the process. The parties' measure of success related more to the substantive than to the relational aspects of the outcome. The article shows how experimental and case study research can complement each other to enrich researchers' understanding of the negotiation process.